Nine Perfect Strangers

 Nine Perfect Strangers (2021)

Starring Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Luke Evans, Samara Weaving, Asher Keddie, Melvin Gregg, Tiffany Boone, Manny Jacinto, Grace Van Patten, Regina Hall, and Bobby Cannavale

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Written by David E. Kelley

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Knives Out

Knives Out (2019)

Starring Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer

Directed by Rian Johnson

Written by Rian Johnson

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Pottersville

Pottersville (2017)

Starring Michael Shannon,  Judy Greer, Ron Perlman, Thomas Lennon, Christina Hendricks, and Ian McShane

Directed by Seth Henrikson

Written by Daniel Meyer

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  After discovering his wife (Christina Hendricks) wants to leave him, small town store clerk Maynard (Michael Shannon) goes on a nighttime drunken romp through the town of Pottersvilee in a gorilla costume.  When he wakes up the next morning, Maynard discovers that the town is all abuzz with a sighting of the mythical Bigfoot the night before.  Upon realizing how much Pottersville community has come together over this Bigfoot excitement, Maynard decides to continue dressing up in the gorilla costume in order to keep the town at its best.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C-

The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water (2017)

Starring Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Written by Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor

Summary (in 500 words or less): Mute janitor Elisa (Sally Hawkins) at a top secret government facility befriends a violent sea creature (Doug Jones) that was captured and is being held captive.  Elisa soon realizes that the sea creature doesn't see her for her faults, but instead enjoys her company and appreciates her for who she is.  This creates an idea in the lonely Elisa's mind to break the sea creature out of the facility with the help of her friends (Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer) while steering clear of the malevolent and watchful Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) whose torture of the creature is supposedly for the good of mankind.

• Much like Three Billboards, The Shape of Water feels a little kitchen-sinky with director-cowriter Guillermo del Toro tossing a bunch of plot points or character traits into the mix, jumbling them around, and hoping they make a cohesive movie together.  While Shape of Water fares better than Three Billboards, it's not a runaway success by any means.
• Sally Hawkins is always good and her performance here is no exception.  Without speaking a single word (well, for the most part), we in the audience know everything she is feeling and trying to convey.  A nice job.
• The film itself, though, is a bit odd -- although I'm sure that was the intention -- and I have a tough time trying to critique what I didn't really like about it because the whole thing -- the tone, the story -- just landed with a bit of a "nothing burger" for me.  del Toro wavers between quirky comedy and (sometimes over-the-top) melodrama and the balance never finds itself.  
• While the aforementioned Hawkins is in top form, Michael Shannon gives a blatantly one-note and extremely "caricaturish" performance as the egotistical man in charge at the secret government facility.  Granted, I'm sure Shannon was directed to act over-the-top by del Toro, but amidst the "normalcy" of Hawkins character (and even Doug Jones's sea creature character, to be honest), Shannon sticks out like a sore thumb.
• The film goes on too long as well with some silly subplot about the Russians attempting to steal the sea creature which goes absolutely nowhere.  In the end, The Shape of Water was just ho-hum.  I realize I'm kind of alone on the island with this one as it's shaping up to be the frontrunner of the Oscars Best Picture line-up (well, either this or the godawful Three Billboards), but this one just didn't work for me.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Armie Hammer, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen, and Laura Linney

Directed by Tom Ford

There's a line in Nocturnal Animals in which a character mentions that a book was disappointing because she found her mind drifting elsewhere whilst reading it.  The same could be said for the movie Nocturnal Animals, a film that tells a story within a story with neither tale being quite compelling enough to stand on its own and neither tale meshing together in a way that proves to be an all-around satisfying whole.  In his second film, writer-director Tom Ford (a fashion designer in his other line of work) continues to prove that he's got an eye for the visuals, but that he still hasn't quite grasped the storytelling aspect of cinema.

We're first introduced to Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), an art gallery owner in Los Angeles, as she morosely mopes around her huge house dealing with an obviously unhappy marriage to her husband (Armie Hammer) who himself is facing some financial troubles.  Soon after, Susan receives a manuscript for a new novel from her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal) and she escapes into the book which features a main character who seems an awful lot like her.  As Susan reads, the novel plays out onscreen -- Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal) is driving along a deserted Texas roadway with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and daughter India (Ellie Bamber).  A group of frightening men headed by the skeezy Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) run the Hastings off the road and then kidnap the family.  Tony manages to escape but is unaware of where his wife and daughter are being kept so he finds a small-town cop (Michael Shannon) to set out and try to find his family and enact revenge those who committed this crime.

I'm sure that somewhere in the midst of the two tales there are solid connections -- either via visual similarities or storytelling allusions -- but things never came cohesively together for me.  Plus, the Amy Adams side of things is oddly uncompelling in any way.  It doesn't help that Adams shows nary an emotion throughout, presenting an ice queen persona that doesn't allow the viewer to feel sympathy for her despite her mundane life.  The "novel" storyline fares a little better with Gyllenhaal giving a nice performance as the beleaguered father.  Michael Sheen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe respectively for their roles here (and Taylor-Johnson even won), but their characters seemed a bit too one-note to garner any real attention for me.  Frankly, the same could be said for the film itself -- it doesn't really deserve to garner any real attention.  I continue to think that Tom Ford has the potential to be something great, but his two films thus far haven't landed him there.  Maybe sticking to lensing things as opposed to writing them is his road to a better directorial future.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Elvis & Nixon

Elvis & Nixon (2016)

Starring Michael Shannon, Kevin Spacey, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Knoxville, Colin Hanks, Evan Peters, Sky Ferreira, Tracy Letts, Tate Donovan, and Ashley Benson

Directed by Liza Johnson

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Unbeknown to me, there is apparently some famous picture of Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon shaking hands in the Oval Office.  Elvis & Nixon is a cleverly retro-stylized film by Liza Johnson that depicts the late December 1970 day when the King (Michael Shannon) demanded a meeting with the President (Kevin Spacey) in order to detail his concerns with the rising drug and hippie culture in the United States.  The stodgy President wants nothing to do with the hip-shaking singer, but he eventually obliges in part due to the urging of his aides (Colin Hanks and Evan Peters) and he ends up discovering that he may have an affinity for the pop star.

The briskly paced flick humorously depicts the obviously quirky "Odd Couple" dichotomy between Presley and Nixon with director Liza Johnson keenly mining the absurdity of the situation for all its worth.  Yet, at the same time, Johnson respects the positions of both famous men, never playing them for fools or suckers, mining laughs from the situation as opposed to at their expense.  Michael Shannon's Elvis gets the majority of the focus and he does a nice job of creating a well-rounded character as opposed to simply an impression of the famous singer.  While Spacey's Nixon is perhaps the opposite -- more of an impression than a fully-realized character -- I found his Nixon spot-on and amusingly engaging.  

I will admit that I wasn't particularly expecting much from Elvis & Nixon and perhaps that's why I enjoyed it so much.  While the trailers certainly depicted humor, I was expecting this to be some sort of history lesson (albeit an odd one) and it's nothing like that at all.  Instead, it's a pleasantly eccentric light-hearted flick that is worthy of a watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Complete Unknown

Complete Unknown (2016)

Starring Rachel Weisz, Michael Shannon, Michael Chernus, Azita Ghanizada, Danny Glover, and Kathy Bates

Directed by Joshua Marston

**This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

When Clyde (Michael Chernus) brings his new girlfriend Alice (Rachel Weisz) to the birthday party of his co-worker Tom (Michael Shannon), he doesn't expect her to be such a hit.  A biologist studying the recent discovery of a new species of frog just outside of New York City, Tom's party guests fawn over Alice's pleasant, slightly shy demeanor and unique job.  Tom, however, recognizes her right away and, as the night progresses, Alice proves to be a different person entirely from whom she initially presented herself.

That summary of Complete Unknown may make the film sound scandalous or even exciting...it's not. Instead writer-director Joshua Marston's film devolves into a rather boring piece that perhaps thinks it's important, but really ends up feeling rather pedestrian.  Rachel Weisz and Michael Shannon are captivating enough in the first half when there's some unknown tension as the two stare at each other across a room cluing in the audience that something isn't quite kosher.  However, as the second half begins and Alice's truth comes to the surface, it ends up being not all that interesting and the focus on it hurts the film.  This is director Joshua Marston's first English-language film and his eye behind the lens shows promise -- the opening sequence, as an example, sets a slightly creepy tone that the film can't sustain -- but Complete Unknown ends up a disappointment.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Midnight Special

Midnight Special (2016)

Starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Jaeden Lieberher, Sam Shepard, and Adam Driver 

Directed by Jeff Nichols

***This film is currently streaming on HBO Now/Go***

I legitimately had no clue what I was getting into when I started Midnight Special.  Maybe I'd seen a trailer...maybe...but with the exception of knowing that it was directed by Jeff Nichols -- whose film oeuvre I find decent, yet slightly boring -- I really was coming into this blind.  By the time the credits rolled, Midnight Special lands in that same realm of Nichols' other films -- decent, yet slightly boring although it admittedly is a bit more ambitious in scope than Take Shelter, Mud, or Loving.

Honestly, I'm not going to summarize this one all that much.  I think the lack of knowledge concerning the storyline helped me become immersed much more than I would have otherwise.  Needless to say, the overall gist is that two men (Michael Shannon and Joel Edgerton) have seemingly kidnapped a young boy named Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher) who may or may not possess some special powers or secret knowledge that multiple entities including the US government want.

The mix of science fiction, chase film, and family drama surprisingly meld together quite well with Nichols planting the viewer right into the action from the opening scene and gradually revealing the various layers of mystery as the story progresses.  Michael Shannon is surprisingly captivating in a role that requires a bit of heart rather than the typical scary intensity we see from him.  Jaeden Lieberher is also successful as the young boy who may be more than he seems.

Nichols takes his time to craft his characters and in doing so they prove to be fully developed.  He certainly excels in carving out an atmosphere for his economically lower-class characters to inhabit.  It's just unfortunate that his films oftentimes feel so slowly paced.  While a little more plot-driven than his other works, Nichols is still proving to be a director that meanders his way through things.  While I've yet to truly dislike anything he's brought to the screen in his young career thus far, I keep waiting to be blown away and I thought it might've happened with this one.  The first hour is tense and full of edge-of-your-seat moments.  Unfortunately, it devolves a bit in the second half where the pacing becomes a bit of a slog.  Still, Midnight Special is Jeff Nichols' best work yet and he's a director to keep an eye on in the future.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Loving

Loving (2016)

Starring Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, and Michael Shannon

Directed by Jeff Nichols

Just because a movie tells an important true story doesn't necessarily mean it's good.  Unfortunately, that's the case with Loving which details the circumstances that led to the Supreme Court hearing Loving v. Virginia which ruled that interracial marriages were constitutional.  Director and screenwriter Jeff Nichols gets really nice subdued, lived-in performances from his leads, but the film is tediously numbing, embracing the "everything's slower in the South" mentality and failing to really create any momentum as it progresses.

"I'm pregnant" are the first words we hear as the film opens as Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga), a young black woman, sits on a porch nervously waiting for a response from her boyfriend Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton), a white man.  As a smile forms on Richard's face, the two decide to get married, but due to laws in Virginia where they currently reside, they must travel to Washington, D.C., to get a marriage license.  Even after they return to Virginia as husband and wife, Mildred and Richard have to walk on eggshells because the concept of an interracial romance was not looked upon kindly by those in their neighborhood.  Shortly following their wedding day, the couple is awoken in the middle of the night by a police raid on their house which sends both Richard and the pregnant Mildred to jail for sleeping in the same bed together.  Upon their release, they are tried in court and through a plea bargain set up by their lawyer, the couple are forced to leave Virginia in exchange for not facing any jail time.

Over the course of the rest of the film, we see how Mildred and Richard deal with their extradition from Virginia, being forced to leave their families behind and start anew on their own.  Eventually, after nearly a decade, the couple's case is tried before the Supreme Court, but the film doesn't focus on this aspect of their story as much as I'd expect.  The end result, as a matter of fact, feels oddly rushed and almost tacked on which seems a bit odd considering it's the impetus behind their story being told cinematically in the first place.  

The quiet nature of the film grows boring quickly, but Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton both give understated, yet powerful performances where more is told through their eyes and facial expressions than any actual words.  Both Negga and Edgerton have crafted characters that feel lived-in and natural to the 1950s/60s world they're inhabiting in the film.  The connection between the two of them feels credible and Negga in particular is captivating in the strong, yet subdued way she carries herself as Mildred.

The film itself, though, simply wallows in blandness.  Repetitive shots of bricklaying or car races or a laughably silly closing image of a rope hanging over a tree (that is used as a children's plaything but is obviously harkening to its similarity as a noose) feel unnecessary and unimportant to the plot.  There's an appreciation to the notion that Jeff Nichols focuses mainly on the couple rather than the important civil rights battle of their triumphant story, but the quiet nature of the piece almost creates a lack of compassion for these two because the film feels a need to be stoic and calm rather than a little passionate.  Loving is well-acted and it's certainly an interesting story, but in the end it's more likely to put you to sleep than elicit any other emotion.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - 99 Homes

99 Homes (2015)

Starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern, Tim Guinee, and Noah Lomax

Directed by Ramin Bahrani

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is a construction worker finding it difficult to find a job in Orlando, Florida.  A single father to his son Conner (Noah Lomax), Dennis' mother Lynn (Laura Dern) also lives with him and runs her hair salon out of his house.  Unfortunately, tough times befall upon Dennis and his house is foreclosed.  Real estate mogul Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) takes charge of the eviction, just as he has for so many other homes in the Orlando area.  Obviously not well liked by those he's evicted, Rick sees something special in Dennis and offers him a job helping him clear out and repair foreclosed homes.  Initially against the concept of helping the man who forced him out of his home, Dennis reluctantly accepts the job out of desperation and discovers the difficulty of working for a man whom he vehemently despises.

99 Homes is a well-acted, well-told tale about the real estate boom and its subsequent collapse, but I wanted to be moved more than I was.  Director and co-writer Ramin Bahrani proves he's capable of delivering a solid piece of cinema, but the emotional connection never quite surfaced for me.  It doesn't help that the film, while fast-paced in its first hour, grows repetitive and a bit tiresome during its second half with character development that feels too obvious to sustain its run time.

Don't mistake my criticism as disavowal of the film.  99 Homes has enough going for it to certainly be recommendable.  Michael Shannon embodies the rather intimidating, offensive, crude, and unsympathetic Rick Carver with a vigor that had me wishing this rather malevolent guy was in every scene.  Laura Dern is also quite good in her small role as a mother and grandmother faced with the notion that she's losing the house where her son grew up.  Andrew Garfield is the weakest link in that I think he's slightly miscast here, seeming a bit too young to be Conner's father and lacking a bit of the emotional gravitas needed to showcase his character's struggle.  Perhaps in five years' time, Garfield will become a bit more grizzled, but now he doesn't quite match the soul needed for this particular type of character.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Young Ones

Young Ones (2014)

Starring Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, and Kodi Smit-McPhee

Directed by Jake Paltrow

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Director and screenwriter Jake Paltrow's Young Ones takes place in the future, but feels squarely rooted in the past.  With some unique, odd, and retro cinematic and cinematographic choices, the visual landscape of Young Ones unfortunately overtakes the rather lukewarm and surprisingly emotionally empty story.

Taking place in the not-so-distant future when water is a scarce and precious commodity, Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) lives in the dry and barren Midwest with his two children Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Mary (Elle Fanning) -- the former who travels with his father around the land as a traveling salesman/barterer and the latter who stays at home and cooks, cleans, and harbors a growing animosity for her dad for essentially being shackled in the house.  Mary's moments of happiness center around her boyfriend Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), but Flem gets upset when Ernest wins an auction for a simulated donkey (not as weird as it sounds) that Flem feels was rightly his causing the young man to ponder ways to get back at Mary's father.

Unfortunately, the story is quite slim and even a relatively short run time can't save it.  Despite some solid acting from all four of the main actors, I found next to no connection to the emotional plights of the characters.  Considering that Shannon, Hoult, Fanning, and Smit-McPhee have all been pretty solid in the past, I have to think that the fault therefore lies in the script which leaves their characters languishing in a dusty landscape.  While certainly having moments of uniqueness, Young Ones just lacks the spark and vigor to really make it compelling.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Iceman

The Iceman (2013)

Starring Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, Chris Evans, and David Schwimmer

Directed by Ariel Vromen

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I found myself kept at a distance from the plot and characters in director Ariel Vromen's film The Iceman based on the true story of Richard Kuklinski (played here by Michael Shannon), a regular joe (well, actually a porn editor with an anger issue who perhaps killed a man or two who made him angry) who gets mixed up with mobster Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta) and ends up becoming one of Demeo's most trusted and talented hitmen, murdering over one hundred targets across a thirty year span.

Shannon certainly tries to bring dimensionality to Richard, but the script oftentimes feels like it's trying to hard to show us that he's a family guy (married with two kids, nice house in the 'burbs, etc) who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd.  Ultimately, this urge to kill seemingly was in Richard's blood from an early age -- we see key plot points before Kuklinski meets Demeo that appear to prove this -- yet the film still attempts to show him as a guy with heart.  Sure, he may love his wife (played by Winona Ryder) and his two daughters, but the film doesn't ever allow us to empathize with him perhaps because Shannon never once plays Richard as any modicum of "warmth" or "tenderness."  Frankly, we don't feel too bad for his family as the harsh Kuklinski receives his inevitable comeuppance (this is a mobster movie and all mobster flicks feature this ending as protocol it seems, so that's not really a spoiler), yet the screenwriters keep trying unsuccessfully to get us to relate to him.

Perhaps the even bigger issue is the fact that as Richard grows into one of the most successful mob hitmen of all time, his hits blend into one another and never carry any weight or meaning.  While there certainly are underlining plot lines about Demeo believing that some on his crew are betraying him, all of that is brushed under the rug incredibly quickly to allow Shannon to angrily hold a gun to someone's head or slit their throat.  Without any meaning behind the assassinations, we lose any sense of plot.  There's probably an interesting story behind Richard Kuklinski's success in the mob -- The Iceman doesn't provide that.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Man of Steel

Man of Steel (2013)

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Costner

Directed by Zach Snyder

To me, "Superman" has to come with a little bit of fun attached.  Maybe it's the fact that I grew up with the somewhat tongue in cheek Christopher Reeve version or the very tongue in cheek Lois and Clark tv series (a must-watch every Sunday night for me growing up), but Zach Snyder's Man of Steel was so über-serious that it sucked all the joy out of a fun character.  Granted, we never get to see the journalist "Clark Kent with Glasses" in this movie -- I assume that's being saved for the sequel if the film's final minutes are to be the fodder for what is to come -- and we're forced to endure yet again another origin story which are two factors leading to the lack of frivolity.  Seriously, do filmmakers not realize that these iconic characters don't need their early life stories told over and over again (I'm looking at you Spider-Man)?

After we're told how Superman makes it to Earth from his home planet of Krypton (therein setting up the villain's plotline as well -- which I'll discuss in a bit), we jump ahead in time about two decades and find that the US government is investigating some strange scientific readings in the Arctic.  Intrepid news reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is on the scene and does a little digging on her own one night, coming upon a Kryptonian space ship wherein she meets Superman (Henry Cavill) who was doing a little digging of his own trying to find his origin.  While on the ship thanks to some weird outer space science, Superman is able to "meet" the holographic image of his father (Russell Crowe) who tells him that Krypton's military commander General Zod (Michael Shannon) is hellbent on finding a way to Earth in order to take it over since Krypton was destroyed decades ago.  Although Superman flies away, Lois is intent on finding out who this man is and discovers that he grew up as Clark Kent in Smallville, Kansas, with a mother and father (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner) who raised him as their own after they discovered his spaceship in their barn.  Eventually, General Zod arrives on Earth and the ultimate showdown begins.

Although I'm certainly no expert on this, Man of Steel certainly feels like it must hold the record for most deaths in a movie.  Granted, we don't see many of these deaths, but during the nearly hour long battle between Superman and General Zod, huge swaths of cities are destroyed and one has to think that the casualties were astronomical.  During this lengthy tête-a-tête, boredom ultimately set in for this viewer.  I was along for the ride for a bit, but then director Snyder just seems to try and want to top himself over and over again with ludicrous one-upmanship.  It begins to wear thin particularly thanks to the drab color palette he conjures up for the piece.

With the exception of the over-zealous (and over-acting) Michael Shannon and his evil minions who chew up the scenery whenever they make an appearance, the acting helps Man of Steel achieve a naturalness that we admittedly don't see in Superman pieces.  Henry Cavill (with whom I'm really not at all familiar) has the down-to-earth All-American Clark Kent-ian vibe to him, but also carries the gravity of the strength of "Superman" quite well.  Although this film didn't really give him the opportunity, I also think he's got the sly comedic chops in him that are needed for the adult Clark Kent journalist role so that's certainly a plus.  Amy Adams brings an intelligence to Lois Lane that I hadn't seen before (sorry Teri Hatcher) and it is somewhat refreshing.  She's still much too intrepid of a character for her own good, but Adams doesn't play her as a damsel in distress (although she is often just that throughout the film).  Nice turns from Diane Lane and Kevin Costner round out the cast.

Man of Steel is decent, but much too dark and serious for its own good.  The Marvel universe has at least latched onto the fact that a little bit of humor has to be instilled into their films in order to poke fun at the ridiculous nature of some of the goings-on.  Man of Steel is just itching for that same dry humor and instead it languishes in a world that's devoid of any joy.  I'd look forward to a sequel out of Zach Snyder's hands, but he unfortunately appears to be back at the helm which doesn't bode well for things to come.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Mud

Mud (2013)

Starring Tye Sheridan, Matthew McConaughey, Jacob Lofland, Sam Shepard, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, and Reese Witherspoon

Directed by Jeff Nichols

Mud is a tale of two movies for me.  One film details the coming-of-age story of a kid named Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his buddy Neckbone (Jacob Lofland).  The fourteen year-olds are struggling to deal with their strive for independence from their families as well as attempting to navigate the choppy waters of teenage love.  The other film deals with these two teens meeting a mysterious man named Mud (Matthew McConaughey) who befriends them, but seems to be hiding more than a few secrets.

The first film focusing on the kids which takes place during the first hour works...and works incredibly well.  I found the normalcy of the everyday trials of these Southern teens oddly riveting despite the fact that there was perhaps a mundane aspect to it.  Part of the reason for this half's success are the great performances from Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland.  Together, these two young talents more than held their own and their relationship and repartee with one another was wonderfully natural and believable.

Unfortunately, the second half of the film shifts much of its focus to the character of Mud and despite McConaughey's charm and charisma (coupled with a fine performance), I just found myself not caring about his plight of trying to win back his girl Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and the chaos that surrounds his shady character's secrets.  Rather oddly, whenever Mud places its attention on its title character, it becomes much more bland.  The film's final moments (including a very oddly staged "action" sequence) prove to be more laughable than anything else and stand in stark contrast to the "reality" that the script provides for its two teen characters.

This is the second film I've seen from writer-director Jeff Nichols (after Take Shelter) and I appreciate his development of characters.  He's also quite adept at culling nice performances from his actors who, considering the aforementioned development of characters, have a nice script to sink their teeth into.  However, I do think that as Nichols grows as a filmmaker, he needs to get a bit more of a discerning eye when it comes to his work as I found Mud a bit meandering and unfocused especially in its flawed second half.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Premium Rush

Premium Rush (2012)

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, and Jamie Chung

Directed by David Koepp

Premium Rush is essentially an eighty-minute long chase sequence, and for a movie that's all about a race to the finish to be lacking in any drive or excitement that has to be considered a disappointment.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Wilee, a bicycle courier in New York City.  It's a somewhat dangerous profession navigating the busy streets of NYC, but Wilee thrives on the rush it gives him.  One afternoon, Wilee is dispatched to a local university to pick up an envelope from, as it turns out, his girlfriend's roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) and deliver it to a location in Chinatown.  Almost as soon as he gets the envelope, Wilee is confronted by a man who states he's Nima's boss demanding that Wilee return the delivery.  When Wilee refuses, the man (played by Michael Shannon) sets out to track Wilee down and do whatever is necessary in order to obtain the contents of that envelope.

Premium Rush knows it's pure fluff and pure fluff is fine sometimes, but something doesn't quite click here.  Michael Shannon is over-the-top (and not in a good way) as the neurotic man who demands the envelope be handed over to him.  As his character's secrets are revealed and Shannon chews more and more of the scenery around him, my eyes began to roll a bit in frustration.  Gordon-Levitt shows that he can ride a bike...but he isn't given much else to do except pedal and constantly look behind him to see if he's being tailed.

The film has some fun with jumping around in time and it certainly is a gimmick that makes a throwaway film like this a bit more enjoyable.  Unfortunately, as the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together, I didn't care much about the final product.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Take Shelter

Take Shelter (2011)

Starring Michel Shannon and Jessica Chastain

Directed by Jeff Nichols

I appreciate a slow-moving drama every now and then.  One that takes its time to depict its characters and slowly roll out its key plot points.  That said, moreso than other flicks, I've got to be in the mood to watch a movie that is methodically paced.  Last year's Meek's Cutoff comes to mind as a movie that fits this description -- the pace was slow as could be and I venture to guess that had I watched it on another day, I may have despised the film.  Take Shelter falls into the same category of slow-paced, character-driven dramas and, admittedly, I stopped watching after twenty-five minutes because I wasn't connecting with the piece at all.  However, once I resumed the film two days later, I found myself intrigued by the interesting character study on display...but still fully cognizant of the fact that this two hour movie was stretched a bit too thin for its story.

Michael Shannon plays Curtis LaForche, a loving husband and father, who is holding down a decent construction job that will provide the health insurance needed to have an operation to help his hard-of-hearing young daughter.  However, seemingly out of the blue, Curtis begins having horrific nightmares that begin affecting his ability to function while he's awake.  He begins to have premonitions of a storm of near-biblical proportions and sets out to build a storm shelter to keep his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and daughter safe.  Soon, Curtis finds himself living in a constant paranoid state which makes him anxiously nervous considering the fact that his mother was diagnosed as a schizophrenic at the same age as Curtis is now.

Rather effectively, Take Shelter is both a character piece and a horror film.  In terms of the former, we follow Curtis (Michael Shannon is in every scene) and watch his slow, rather devastating, slippage into possible mental illness.  In terms of the latter, this is a "horror" film only in that there is a palpable amount of tension built by director and screenwriter Jeff Nichols, forcing the audience to question whether Curtis is in fact going insane and, if he indeed is, what type of damage he will cause to those he loves.  By showing us Curtis's dreams and then the aftereffects, Mr. Nichols creates an ominous tone that permeates the entire film and, as the film neared its conclusion, I was legitimately on the edge of my seat wondering which way the flick was going to turn.

Michael Shannon is fantastic and, although I don't know how my Best Actor nominations will turn out when I tackle them in the annual RyMickey Awards in May as that seems to be a strong category for me this year, he was robbed of the buzz that he rightly deserved in the months leading up to the Oscars.  I'm surprised more critic organizations didn't extol his forceful and intense performance.  Once his nightmares begin to rear their ugly heads, he became a scary guy that seemingly could come unhinged at the drop of a hat.  Additionally, Jessica Chastain has more than proven herself in 2011 and is very nice and understated here.  Although her role certainly isn't given as much depth or screen time as Shannon's, she still manages to be quietly powerful in the film's final scenes which proves that she made an impact on me as the movie progressed despite playing things subdued and under the radar.

Take Shelter is a nice film -- given an R rating only for one scene of language -- that if only it had been trimmed down a tad would've been a great film.  Still, it's one worth renting as a good psychological tension-filled drama with a great performance from Michael Shannon.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The Runaways

The Runaways (2010)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and Michael Shannon

Directed by Floria Sigismondi

The Runaways...also known as "the movie that actually showed this blogger that Kristen Stewart can act." Coming off of all wooden performances in the Twilight movies that made her famous, Stewart proves that there may be some significant acting chops in her after all as she portrays teenage rocker Joan Jett, lead guitarist for the 70s short-lived chick rock band The Runaways.  With Dakota Fanning (as always) performing admirably by her side, Stewart and Fanning make this rock biopic better than it really deserves to be given its by-the-book method of storytelling.

Just like any other rock band that's had a movie made about them, The Runaways dealt with the same exact stuff -- sex, drugs, an overbearing and shady manager, egos, in-fighting.  The list could go on and on, but it's nothing new or surprising.  The only difference here is that it's a bunch of girls dealing with it rather than guys.  Even though director-screenwriter Floria Sigismondi isn't able to produce anything special with the screenplay, the film looks pretty darn good.  Apparently best known for her music videos, Sigismondi certainly brings a frenetic energy to the screen, but absolutely knows when to scale back the pizzazz for the more intimate moments.

As I mentioned above, the film is carried by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.  Stewart brings a raw, macho edge to Joan Jett that I haven't seen in anything else from the actress.  She was surprisingly winning even in some fairly dramatic scenes.  Fanning, once again, proves why she's one of the best younger actresses ever to appear on screen.  This girl is only sixteen (possibly younger when she made this) and her role as the drug-addicted lead singer Cherie Currie is 100% believable.  With the looks of an angel and the attitude of a punk, Fanning undeniably disappears completely into this role, providing me with some very uncomfortable, but tremendously effective, moments (re: the lesbian kissing, snorting cocaine, etc...this is Dakota Fanning...not Lindsay Lohan!).  Michael Shannon also is quite good as The Runaways' manager, Kim Fowley, who knew that in order to be successful, he needed to turn the band into the bad girls that every guy wanted to screw.  (Yes, that sounds harsh, but just wait until you hear some of the lines he spouts...most of them were ridiculous, but oh so true from a music biz standpoint.)

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - The Greatest

The Greatest (2010)

Starring Carey Mulligan, Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon, Johnny Simmons, Zoë Kravitz, Aaron Johnson, and Michael Shannon

Directed by Shana Feste

Calling your movie The Greatest is really just asking for trouble.  The reviewers could just pounce all over your flick and trash it.  Fortunately, first-time writer-director Shana Feste has crafted a rather beautiful film here that, while it has its minor faults, is full of some great performances including another star-making turn from Carey Mulligan.

The Greatest begins with young high school couple Rose (Mulligan) and Bennett (Kick-Ass's Aaron Johnson) in a state of undress.  They'd only been dating each other for mere weeks, but they'd been pining after each other secretly for four years of high school.  After they sleep with each other for the first time consummating that unrequited love, Bennett drives Rose home and just as he begins to tell her he loves her, their car is involved in a horrific collision.  Bennett dies at the scene.

Some time passes and Rose shows up on the doorstep of Bennett's parents, Allen (Brosnan) and Grace Brewster (Sarandon).  She reveals that she is pregnant with Bennett's child and needs assistance with her pregnancy.  The Brewster household, however, has not quite come to terms with Bennett's death with each family member, including the Brewsters' other son, Ryan (Johnny Simmons), dealing with the tragedy in various ways.  The introduction of Rose into the Brewsters' lives causes each of them to examine their own grief in ways that couldn't possibly imagine.

Sounds like fun, right?  It's not a bed of roses and, at times, the script just seems too convenient.  Everything comes together much too cleanly and quickly in the end.  There's a character that befriends the Brewsters' son Ryan whose storyline comes to an awkward conclusion.  Michael Shannon's role as the driver who hits Bennett's car is quite awkward.

All these faults, however, are overshadowed by some amazing performances that elevate this film to a level infinitely better than it deserves to be.  First and foremost, Carey Mulligan is a star.  She just shines onscreen.  There's not a false note in her performance and I think her role here is better than her Oscar-nominated turn in An Education.

Susan Sarandon is also quite good here.  As a mother who simply longs to have her baby back, she resents Rose for entering their lives.  She wants no pity from the outside world, but, at the same time, she cannot let go of her dead son in the slightest. 

Pierce Brosnan's Allen, on the other hand, refuses to talk about his son.  Brosnan really surprised me here.  He creates a rigid, emotionless persona in Allen, but this only causes the inevitable break-down to be that much more effective.  Similarly, young Johnny Simmons was gripping as the son who masks his pain in drugs.  There's something about men crying onscreen that can ring incredibly false, but both of these actors (one who's been around quite a while and one who is just starting out) really raise the bar.   

I recognize that this film isn't perfect.  It's perhaps a tad too trite and absolutely comes together much too cleanly in the end, but this tale of grief, pain, and, ultimately, forgiveness and love is something I highly recommend.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+