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...

  This is Shannon’s 4 th of 6 collaborations with the writer and director Jeff Nichols. We have previously looked at the pair’s work on ‘Shotgun Stories’ and ‘Take Shelter’, both of which offered some appeal. This effort came after those previous two, but before ‘The Bikeriders’ which we also enjoyed. In this one we open in a cheap motel with a news alert about an abducted 8 year old child. The suspect is named as Roy Tomlin and a picture of Shannon pops up. We then see that Roy is watching the TV in the company of the abducted boy and with another man. The hotel room has cardboard taped over the windows and it is clear that something odd is going on, but it’s not clear what. Elsewhere two cult members are on the hunt for the boy, just as their service gets raided by the FBI. The Feds have been tracking the cult as they’ve been buying a lot of guns and some of their sermons contain embedded government secrets. It turns out that Shannon is the boy’s father and he and a...

  It was only when I went to log my score for this film on the IMDb did I realise that I had already seen it. In truth bits of it did seem familiar, but I thought that was due to its close resemblance to ‘Equilibrium’ which was a lot more fun. I did like this film the second time around but it may not stay long in the memory – a bit like last time! The film is set in a near future America after the second civil war. Fascist types in black suits run the show and they have banned all but a few books and most other artistic items. Strangely everyone can read and write, but they all probably just have approved texts. Not sure why some characters can quote long bits of banned books, but I’m guessing everyone has a secret stash. Shannon plays Captain Beatty, the head of the local brigade of  'Firemen'. He is due for a promotion and his second in command, Michael B Jordan, off the ‘Creed’ films, is in line for a step up. The two are celebrities, as their nightly raids on...

  Sadly this offering doesn’t include Neil, Rik, Mike or Vyvyan – not even Cliff Richard! It is instead a sci-fi western, with a lot to like but a bit thin on plot. The film is set in a future America which has been decimated by drought. The settings look Australian but the film was shot in South Africa. Shannon plays Ernest Holm, a homesteader with a young family and a disabled wife. There is a suggestion that his wife’s injuries came from a drink involved accident for which Ernest was at fault. She stays in a care facility and can only walk via a high tech mechanical apparatus. Throughout the film there are well realised examples of technology that is just a bit more advanced than we have, such as a fan like mobile phone and a paper video card that you can watch funerals, and presumably other events, on. When we fist encounter Shannon he is dealing with two men who are trying to break into his hut. Both go for their guns but are cut down by Ernest’s nifty shotgun. We...