Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  This is the third of three short films that Shannon has listed on his Wikipedia page. I’ve already had a look at 'Zamboni Man' and 'Mullitt' and my views of these can be found elsewhere in this blog. This one came a bit later in Shannon’s career, by which time he was an established actor. Of the three this is probably the least appealing owing to the subject matter and you have to wonder why they bothered with this grubby project. The 14 minute film follows a day in the life of the titular Herbert. He works in forestry and much of the film is taken up with shots of him bringing down trees in his timber cutting machine. We see him go out with his family and he tells his wife that he needs to stop at the side of the road for a pee. He heads into the woods and starts to pleasure himself. When he returns his wife asks if we was taking a dump as he was away for so long. He gets home and returns calls made by his father and the relationship is clearly fractured...

  Next up we have another Shannon Short which can be found on YouTube – link below! This one is listed as being from 2004, but I wonder if it was shot earlier in the actor’s career but was released later as he is credited as ‘Mike Shannon’ something we haven’t seen since his second credit in the previously reviewed ‘Chain Reaction’. This short lasts 14 minutes but it is sweet and affecting and definitely worth your time. Shannon plays Walt the titular Zamboni man. He’s the man that drives the small truck over the ice after a skating session to smooth it out. The film opens with a hectic session on the ice, followed by Walt smoothing it off. There is no dialogue or music, just a man doing his job. His role also includes clearing up trash and he’s shown to be an an anonymous presence as kids and adults alike fail to acknowledge him and run through the rubbish he’s trying to collect. He then delivers one of his few lines in the film “Hey Tyler. The ice is ready for you" ...

  Here’s a small oddity, a 22 minute short film that was produced for the Sundance Film Festival. I say 22 minutes but it’s only about 19 if you take the credits off. This film lands quite early in Shannon’s oeuvre but it did follow some big screen credits, and came after ‘Tigerland’ and just before ‘Pearl Harbour’ for the actor. He clearly didn’t let his ascending stardom get in the way of taking part in this low budget effort that sees him play a character called ‘Phil Kunz’ and has him in his pants covered in cake. The main character is Earl, who is Shannon’s flatmate. The two are down on their luck with Shannon wearing only a cardboard box to hide his modesty. Their landlord is generous about the overdue rent and gives them a whole day to find the cash or face eviction. Earl decides to cash in some of his comic based wealth but the seedy comic shop owner isn’t interested in Earl’s box of Spider-Man comics. What an idiot – there might be an ASM 129 in there! He says...