Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  I saved my rewatch of this film to the end of my quest as it was my favourite Michael Shannon project going in. Having now watched 90 other Shannon productions it still retains the crown. It’s just such a wonderful, mesmerising and immersive experience. The film opens with some narration and a description of “a monster who wanted to destroy it all” – and you know they aren’t talking about the guy with the gills! Sally Hawkins excels as Elisa, a mute cleaner who lives a lonely and routine life. We see her daily rituals of getting up, having a good time in her bath before making lunch for herself and her gay artist neighbour, Giles.   Elisa cleans at a secret marine research facility which is run by Michael Stuhlbarg but overseen by security chief Strickland, in a never bettered showing by Mr Shannon. Elisa and her co-worker Octavia Spencer encounter Strickland as he has a piss and he explains to them his handwashing regimen. Shortly thereafter they see him in a corridor...

  Time for a dysfunctional relationship now as the titular couple fall in and out of love on a regular basis. The film opens with a sex scene with the couple teasing each other as to whether they should save themselves for later. Michael keeps his pants on but Imogen Poots is more devoted to her art. We get various out of sequence snapshots of the couple’s relationship including an awkward meeting with Lola’s mother. Frank (Shannon) is a talented chef but is a bit jealous and overbearing towards the younger Lola. He gets upset when Justin Long chats her up in a bar as he looks on, and more so when he offers her a fashion design job. He’s nothing but nice, and a bit miscast, and even helps Frank to get a leg up by suggesting him to head a new Las Vegas restaurant. The relationship hits the rocks when Lola gets caught out having slept with another man. Frank leaves her but later reconciles with her when she reveals that she was raped by a man who was wooing her mother. S...

  I had always avoided Pearl Harbor as it looked like a bloated three hour piece of banality and Hollywood’s attempt at history, akin to the Comic’s Strip’s ‘Strike’. Still it’s on the list, so let’s have a look. Well, you know what they say about making assumptions? Yes, they are often correct. This was a terrible film that I had to watch in three sittings as the slo-mo, dialogue and patriotism keep me reaching for the ‘off’ button. The main event is of course a pivotal event in history and more than deserving of a large scale movie examination. Of course the director Michael Bay isn’t known for his documentaries so instead he goes for a convoluted love triangle to document the events of the ‘Date that lives in infamy’. The film opens with two boys playing at a farm and then taking a crop duster plane for a joyride. These two scamps soon evolve in to Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett and they have enlisted into the air force. The Americans are not yet in World War 2 so Be...