So a couple of weeks ago I had to fly from London to Melbourne which is a lovely 20 hour flight. Last year when I did that flight I discovered Fargo S1 and that made the ride quite enjoyable. This year I discovered the films of Michael Shannon. Michael Shannon you'll recall was the best thing about Boardwalk Empire playing a disgraced Revenue Agent. When he and Richard Harrow (the one eyed marksman with half a face) got popped off the spark went out of the show I felt... ...
The first of Michael Shannon's films I watched was Midnight Special which is a kind of recapitulation of Close Encounters with a bit of ET thrown in for good measure. It's a medium budget movie with big ideas and an ending you're either going to go with completely or be pissed off by. I was in the former category. I liked this movie a lot and Michael Shannon was superb in it playing a father looking out for his troubled son who may or may be not some kind of alien or prophet or kid with superpowers. (Adam Driver is wonderful in the Jeff Goldblum-esque supporting role.) The next Michael Shannon movie I watched was 99 Homes about the mortgage crisis in the US. Again great, moving, intense work from MS and a pretty good story. Next came Elvis Meets Nixon - MS playing Elvis and Kevin Spacey playing Nixon. MS looks nothing like Elvis but he somehow channels the king to deep and moving comic effect. There's a great 70s soundtrack to this film which, oddly, is mostly Motown. This felt like a short film expanded into a feature but somehow that didn't matter so much. It never outstayed its welcome. Batman v Superman came next. When I tell you that Michael Shannon plays a corpse in the movie and its the most convincing performance in the film you'll know that it wasn't a very good movie, but again, Shannon excellent. No more Shannon films on my flight TV alas.
