Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  Death By Lightning at the IMDb   More up to date Shannon now, albeit one set in the past. This is a 4 part mini series that you can find on Netflix and I would recommend that you do. Shannon plays James Garfield, a lesser-known American president who was shot by an assassin three months into his presidency and who died of complications from the wound a few months later. His story is not well known, at least to myself, but it was an engaging and entertaining historical drama which was sumptuously staged and well-acted, by a stellar cast. The first episode opens in a contemporary warehouse as an old box splits open and out rolls a jar containing a human brain. This is labelled ‘Charles Guiteau: Brain’ and the series then dissolves into the past to see how we ended up at the brain storage facility. We meet Shannon’s Garfield as a young senator working his farm. He has the familiar trait of being a poor woodworker – we know his talents lie elsewhere! He has a long-suff...

  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...