Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  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 ...

  Jack and Rose off ‘Titanic’ are reunited in 1950’s America and spend a lot of time yelling at each other in this somewhat dull slice of domestic life. The film opens with Leonardo DiCaprio eyeing up Kate Winslet at a party. The pair hit it off and start a relationship. Leo is somewhat rudderless and doesn’t know what he wants to do with himself and ends up selling business machines at the same firm that employed his father. Winslet has aspirations to be an actress but a local production shows that she doesn’t have the talent required. Kate gets pregnant and the two buy a home on the titular road from relator Kathy Bates. The house would probably be worth millions today but Leo can afford it with his office job. Different times I guess! The pair soon have two kids and have stayed friendly with Bates and with other neighbours who include David Harbour off ‘Stranger Things’. Domestic bliss doesn’t come easily for the couple and soon Leo is boffing a secretary at his wor...

  I was about an hour into this film when I realised that I had no idea whatsoever about what was going on. I did stay the course to the end but it’s certainly not a film that I would recommend or contemplate watching again. The film opens promisingly with our Man Shannon dressed up as a rodeo clown. His narration makes some pompous and flowery statements before we meet up with the two main protagonists – Poor Boy and Prickface. Poor Boy, who looks like a refugee from ‘Right Said Fred’, gets most of the screen time and the title, but I guess calling your film’ Prickface’ would be a hard sell. The time frame for the film is undermined but it seems to be a round 2000 as the two lads struggle with an early internet connection and ancient phones. They have various hustles on the go, such as fixing teenage girls’ volleyball matches but it's clear that we are dealing with a couple of red neck losers. They do however have aspirations and there is a moderately funny sequence w...

  Season 4 of Boardwalk Empire has a more cinematic feel and it’s environs expand south to Florida, where Nucky looks to seal a land deal which will enable him to import his booze with impunity. With Margaret out of the picture, apart from a fleeting appearance in Episode 6, a new love interest in the shape of backwater bar manager Patricia Arquette comes into Nucky’s life. With a few main characters departing from last season, they are replaced with Ron Livingston’s hapless businessman who falls into the orbit of the manipulative Gillian, and Jeffrey Wright’s enigmatic preacher Narcisse who is a foil for Chalky. There is also a storyline for one of Eli’s kids who clearly has inherited the family’s traits for recklessness and misfortune, when he needs Nucky’s help after poisoning a room-mate when his prank goes wrong. Most of the plot thread are somewhat light with Nucky’s especially being somewhat derivative. He is again batting politicians and making shady deals. I guess...

  The second half of season 3 really ratchets up the action with a lot of long running storylines reaching a satisfying conclusion. Shannon however is reduced to a virtual bit part with his George Mueller trying to make an honest living but failing miserably. His job at the steam iron company ended when the practical jokes at his expense caused him to use the company’s product on a colleague’s face. He finds work with gangster O’Bannion but he finds the practical jokes with him even worse. His Norwegian wife Sigrid is clearly a social climber expecting Mueller to build her a house that will be furnished on tick. To pay off some gangsters they are provided with a still and a demand that they produce 24 bottles a week. Sigrid sees the chance to plug a gap in the market with her Norwegian Aqua-vita but inevitably, Mueller’s attempts to peddle her wares only leads to more trouble. The Gyp Rossetti storyline gathers apace when he blows up Nucky’s nightclub and his girlfrien...

  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...

  This is likely to be my most up to date offering of the whole blog as I caught this on its cinema release at the Paisley Showcase. It was expensive at £20.30 for our two tickets but happily I had a £20 gift card that I won at a raffle at my Mum’s care home – back of the net! It was a sparsely attended afternoon showing but the film was decent, if a bit grubby and derivative. The film has the familiar framing of a documentary maker having present day interviews with the principals, with their reminisces detailed in extensive flashbacks. Most of the narrative is through the viewpoint of Kathy, played by Jodie Comer with a funny accent that swings between Liverpool and New Jersey. We are back in the 1950s and mumbling Tom Hardy is smitten with Marlon Brando in ‘The Wild One’. He decides to start a motorcycle club for racing and talking about bikes and things take off from there. The main framing device is Jodie Cramer’s Kathy, who stumbles on the gang at a bar. She gets her...

  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...