Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  When this film came up on my list I thought it was a stoner comedy so wasn’t too jazzed about watching it. It is in fact a military legal drama and although that sounds somewhat dry it was decent albeit with a dubious ending. The film opens with news footage of some dead El Salvadorians. We then cut to Ashley Judd and Jim Caviezel having some quality time. They are keen to have a child and Judd manages to find time for some foo-foo before heading off to court to win a big case. Their happy times are interrupted however when following a break in at their home Jim is arrested. It turns out he’s living under an assumed name and the finger prints taken by the cops have flagged him up as an AWOL soldier, and one who has been tagged for those El Salvadorian deaths we saw at the start. Despite this being a military case Judd takes up JC’s defence, assisted by Adam Scott’s young military lawyer character. To complete the team, and why not, they also get onboard with Morgan F...

  This is another film that I’d previously reviewed for my Definite Article Movie Blog. I’ve adapted my summary below and added some additional Shannon thoughts based on my re-watch. I enjoyed it more the second time around with my IMDb rating soaring from a 6 to a 7! ‘ The Iceman’ isn’t a spin off from ‘Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends’ instead it’s a bio-pic of mob hit man Richard Kuklinski, splayed by this blog’s subject Mr Shannon. It has a ‘Based on a true story’ caption at the start so it’s certain that some things have been added to the tale we’re being told. The film opens with an aged and beardy Shannon being asked if he has any regrets. Before he can answer the film morphs back to 1964, with a younger Shannon on his first date with soon to be wife, Winona Ryder. She admires his tattoos and slow drawl, and even believes his story of being employed as a voice actor for Walt Disney. In fact he has a slightly seedier job copying porno films. He later plays pool for ...

  Here’s another film that I had previously watched for an earlier blog – in this case it was The Definite Article Movie Blog about 4 years ago. I did watch the film through again with a more Shannon focused eye, but I will recycle the plot summary here because, you know, the environment. This film has a clever title; it’s not just about someone being on the hunt for their quarry, but bits of it are set in a quarry too! A priest is driving along an empty Texas road, whilst hammering the communion wine, when he sees a body lying by side of the street. He helps the man into his car and we see that it’s familiar Shannon co-star Shea Whigham. The two don’t say much but the priest buys his new friend dinner whilst still swigging the wine. He stops at a quarry - huge mistake - to sober up before heading into town. The two argue and the priest gets killed after being bashed on the head with a bottle. Our drifter cuts his hand and bandages it with the dead man’s shirt be...

  When the titles tell you the film you are about to watch is directed Werner Herzog and is produced by David Lynch you know that you are in for something a bit offbeat. The film starts conventionally enough with police detectives, Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena, on the way to a murder scene. When they arrive they push through the crowd and we briefly see Michael Shannon who pushes by with his coffee in a ‘razzle dazzle’ mug. ‘Razzle Dazzle’ says Shannon who is clearly using the old ‘mug/script’ technique. The cops find a dead woman in the house, who has been killed by a sword. They get a few details and realise that Shannon’s character Brad was the killer and he’s slipped through their fingers. He hasn’t gone far however and had taken over an adjacent house and claims to have two hostages. So begins a long stand off which lasts for the rest of the film. To keep us entertained we get plenty of flashbacks to show how Brad ended up killing the woman whom we learn was his ...

  I’ve cobbled this review from my earlier definite article blog review as there’s no point in rewriting my plot summary when it’s still the same 4 years later. New Shannon notes added for this re-watch! It’s a brave choice to have a convicted paedophile as your protagonist especially when it’s a self confessed one like Walter, who still has the urge. Walter has zero degrees of Kevin Bacon and we meet him as he’s discharged from prison from a 12 year stretch for child molestation. He picks up his old job at a woodworking factory with his former boss’s son letting him know he needs to keep it zipped up. Walter also checks in with his therapist, our favourite Michael Shannon, and gets visited by slow talking cop Mos Def, who doesn’t believe that Walter, or indeed any kiddie fiddler, is capable of being reformed. The woodworking shop seems a great place to work, as the creepy Walter quickly gets two ladies coming onto him. He rebuffs the first’s offer of a chi...

  This Werner Herzog film is unrelated to the Harvey Keitel offering, apart from the same title, sans the New Orleans suffix. I don’t know if there was a plan to do films about various bad lieutenants in different jurisdictions but it was a strange title choice if not – I’m guessing they were hoping for some brand recognition.  Nicholas Cage stars as the titular flatfoot who, when the film opens, is a sergeant in the New Orleans police department. It’s 2005 and Hurricane Katrina has just hit. Cage rifles through a colleague’s locker with his partner Val Kilmer and, after pocketing some saucy Polaroids, finds some arrest papers that suggest someone may still be in the flooded cells. They go to check, and find the prisoner struggling with rising water in his cell. After debating whether to save the soon to be drowning perp and ruining his good pants, Cage jumps in to save him. This good deed does indeed ruin his fancy underwear and hurts his back, but at least he gets promoted t...

  The ‘echo boomers’ of the title are a gang of disillusioned youth who go about stealing stuff and smashing up houses because they have student loans. They are never referred to as ‘echo boomers’ as such, but a coda at the end suggests this generation isn’t an echo of others, with them having lower drink and smoking addictions and more likely to be racially tolerant. That’s all very nice but it would be harder to find a less likeable group of people than this outfit. The film is told in retrospect with the main character Lance being interviewed in prison. It’s a strange narrative choice as it takes away a lot of the element of surprise. He’s in the jail at the end, so the only story to be told is how he gets there. Lance, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, (how did he land this role?!) is a plank of wood who can’t get a job after graduation. He has paid $60k for his tuition but is either too inexperienced or over qualified for the jobs he applies for. This point is reinfor...

  This season ended up, as most have so far, with some stories resolved and others just hatching. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the three previous seasons and I got the impression that the writers had painted themselves into a corner somewhat. Nucky keeps doing his deals and looking somewhat constipated, whilst once again his brother Eli plots against him. I think they are going for a Kane and Abel dynamic here but it doesn’t make sense that a savvy business man like Nucky would allow himself to be betrayed once again. To be fair Eli was motivated by helping his son who was being threatened with the jail, quite correctly, by FBI man Knox. Nucky seems a bit asleep at the wheel having been enchanted by the busty Patricia Arquette who is now running his Florida interests. Nucky is keen to get out but keeps getting drawn back in due to his many commitments and previous actions. The main thread throughout the season concerns Chalky and Narcisse. Chalky now runs the main nightclu...

  If you crossed ‘Training Day’ and ‘The Grifters’ you’d get something similar to this film. John C Reilly plays Richard, a small time con man who makes a few bucks by carrying out confidence tricks and other scams. We meet him in a casino as he observes a young Mexican man, Rodrigo, attempt to scam some waitresses using the familiar ‘I gave you $100, and you give me $30 and I’ll give you $50’ type con. He’s quickly rumbled and only escapes arrest when Richard steps in pretending to be a cop to get Rodrigo off the premises. Richard lets Rodrigo know he’s a trickster and offers to show him some scams by way of an audition. Richard has recently parted ways with his partner ‘The Jew’ and is looking for a new henchman. The two work some low level scams which involve conning old ladies and restaurants out of a few bucks. Rodrigo, who Richard renames ‘Brian’ as Anglo names are more trusted, needs some money for his father’s medical bills. Richard meanwhile has some expensive legal b...

  A bit of an oddity now with a mafia hit movie that has a taking, rapping CGI kangaroo in it. The backstory to the film is that it was initially a violent film filled with nudity and swearing but the test audiences only liked the kangaroo. Showing the usual Hollywood integrity, the producers re-cut the film to put the kangaroo to the front and to market it as a kid’s film. Wise move – the CGI kangaroo can’t demand a trailer and a percentage of the box office. The film follows Charlie and Louis, played by Jerry O’Connell and Anthony Anderson. Think of them as a poor man’s Jason Bateman and Martin Lawrence and you won’t be far off. The lads are childhood friends since Louis saved Charlie from drowning at the beach. Years later Charlie is a hairdresser and Louis, the black character, is a hapless criminal. No affirmative action here! Charlie is related to Christopher Walken’s mob boss character who phones in his ‘one day on set’ performance with lots of stereotype Italian/Ame...

  Season 3 of Boardwalk Empire starts 18 months after Season 2 ended. All the characters have moved on as you’d expect, with Nucky still without his land that the ever problematic Margaret has gifted to the church. He has other problems too in the shape of Bobby Carnivale’s terrifying Gyp Rosetti who we meet as he rewards a helpful motorist who foolishly offers the incendiary Italian some of his oil. Soon Gyp has control of the road between New Jersey and New York and there are plenty of violent scenes as he maintains control and beats off all comers. Shannon’s Van Arlen is now set up as George Mueller and has married his Scandinavian nanny and has had a child by her. Thankfully she is as nutty as he is and when they aren’t having hot naked sex they are clubbing to death house guests. Takes all sorts, I guess. Mueller has a job selling steam irons door to door and is giving it his best. His corrupt boss and asshole co-workers make it difficult for him to make a living, and...

  The second half of this season is better than the first and it clears the board (walk) for new characters and events in the next batch of episodes. Shannon’s Van Arlen is sinking deeper into the mire as his wife files for divorce, somewhat understandably, and Nucky starts to get his claws into the hapless prohibition agent. The noose is tightening on Nucky as his rivals move in, so Van Arlen is soon blackmailed into spying on his new boss. A lady federal prosecutor has set up shop in Van Arlen’s office and she’s keen to take Nucky down. Van Arlen’s dossier on her target is a great help but unbeknownst to her our man is on the take. He is still walking the thin line between good and bad and he turns down a lucrative sting offer from Mickey, but it’s not clear if he’s still on the right side of the law or that he has a good eye for an unreliable partner. On the home front he is living a meagre existence with his baby daughter Abigail and his sing-song voiced Scandinavian n...

  Season two kicks off with episode recaps at the start of each outing, which can be helpful given the number of characters has ballooned. This season the main new character is Daredevil himself Charlie Cox, who at first is a bodyguard of an IRA fundraiser and who then hangs around as a kind of houseman for Nucky, who gets to sleep with Katy the maid. Mrs Schroeder has an eye for his diddle-de-dee charms too, but if memory serves that doesn’t end well. A few months have passed for Shannon’s agent Van Arlen who now runs a double life as a married prohibition officer and as ‘George Mueller’ who rents a run down apartment with his pregnant girlfriend. He wrestles with his religion and the hesitation we saw last season is quickly lost as he starts pinching impounded cash to keep paying the mother of his soon to be born child, who also happens to be Nucky’s ex-girlfriend. The series itself rumbles on well but there is a bit of repetition as the various gangster factions vie for...

  I’d seen this excellent film before but I couldn’t recall Shannon’s part. Having rewatched it, that’s not surprising as he only gets two scenes and is overshadowed by some big names and stand out performances. That said, he holds his own and offers a good bit of scumbag menace for your time. The film grabs you from the start with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei going at it hammer and tongs in a sweaty sex scene. Tomei gives a brave performance and sadly Hoffman does too! The pair are married and despite their drug fuelled sexploits all is not well in the relationship. We quickly learn that Tomei is also shagging Hoffman’s brother Ethan Hawke, who has fallen for the soon to be Aunt May. The brothers are low level crooks with Hoffman running scams from his real estate job and Hawke failing to make maintenance payments to his estranged wife, Holly Flax from ‘The Office’ Hoffman comes up with a grand scheme to alleviate their money worries, namely to rob a ‘Mom ...