Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  As I near the end of this worthy endeavour the films get harder to find. This one required a £3.49 rental on Amazon! Oh, the humanity! It was a good watch though and I’m just glad the majority of Shannon’s work is easily available. There are a few that still escape me on all platforms, so we’ll just have to keep our eyes open.   This is a strange kind of movie with dark and comedy elements sitting side by side. In some senses it’s a film noir but in others it is a straightforward mystery drama.   Shannon plays a stereotypical private eye, almost in the Bogart style, but in 2009. He lives in a rundown apartment next to the train track and he likes booze, smoking and voiceover narration. We meet him in bed, rudely awakened by a 5am phone call. The news is good however, as it’s a job, and clearly one that he needs. He is tasked with taking a train so that he can follow a man and a child. Amy Ryan from the new employers is soon at his door with tickets and a pile of...

  This one opens with several short scenes of Rachel Weisz carrying out various occupations such as a nurse and a magician’s assistant. You may be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled onto a new celebrity reality show, but there is more if you hang around.   Meanwhile Michael Shannon is preparing for his birthday party. He starts out with a strange accent, but this is quickly dropped. He has problems of his own however – the bakery has put the wrong name on his birthday cake. There are also fissures appearing in his relationship with his exotic wife who has the option of a two-year jewellery making course and she wants Shannon to come with her to California.   Weisz shows up at the party with a colleague of Shannon’s with whom she'd engineered a meeting. We know he has no chance really as he’s a bit fat and he is destined to be in the friendzone forever. Shannon has a long doubletake at Weisz whom he knows as ‘Jenny’ but who now goes as ‘Alice’. He gets her alone...

  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...

  If ever a film was less than the sum of its parts it would have to be ‘Amsterdam’. A stellar cast, big budget and some great locations can’t hide the fact that this is a dull and meandering mess. The film starts well with Christian Bale’s First World War veteran who is now a doctor being asked to carry out an autopsy. His former military commander has been found dead and foul play is suspected. Bale teams up with his friend and former service buddy Harold who is now a lawyer. They are joined by Morgot Robbie’s character Valerie who was a nurse who tended to the pair’s wounds during the war. We get a flashback to 1918 and see the men before they suffered their injuries and their periods of treatment and convalescence. Robbie is a bit strange in that she makes art out of the bloodied shrapnel that she digs out of her patients. Back to the present day (in 1933) and the autopsy reveals that the dead man died of poisoning. His daughter, Taylor Swift, is then pushed under ...

  A Euro murder mystery now that doesn’t deliver any twists or interesting characters. It was actually a bit of a chore to see this one to the end because even though it looked nice and had an attractive cast, it just didn’t have any substance. The film opens with a man being shot twice in the head. The camera angles aren’t conclusive but the death is recorded by the police as a s*icide. It turns out the dead man is an up and coming Belgian actor who has just accepted a role in a high profile TV show. The TV news bulletins, which serve mainly as exposition, tells us that the actor had been seen out with a mysterious woman and had assaulted a paparazzi who took the incriminating photos. His estranged wife returns to their apartment in the company of her own brash American mother. The flat is in a state, so much so that the mother has a stroke and although she initially recovers she soon has a second and ends up in intensive care. The wife finds a couple of problems ...

  This is an enjoyable murder mystery that was the first of a franchise which now stands at two films, with a third to be released in 2025. The thread through the films is Daniel Craig’s detective character Benoit Blanc who uses deduction and a funny accent to unravel cavernous crimes. The film opens with a death. Best selling author Harlan Thromby (a fun Christopher Plummer, seen mostly in flashback) is found with a seemingly self inflicted cut to the throat. The police determine the death to be self inflicted and the family gather to have the funeral and for the will reading. Clearly that’s not a film, so Benoit shows up, having been hired anonymously to have a look into the matter. The film’s indulgent cast all get their introductions as the police investigate the four family members who would benefit from the death – Don Johnston, Toni Collette, Jamie Lee Curtis and our man Mr Shannon as the author’s youngest son and business manager. For your money you also get turns ...