I haven’t seen any of the recent eps., but Shannon was pretty interesting in the early ones that I saw.
Is he basically playing a guy who is a bit psychotic and ready to explode, though? I’m sort of tired of seeing him in that role.
Yeah, that’s sorta his niche now, isn’t it?
Yeah. I hope he doesn’t get typecast, although he is quite effective—but so was De Niro and Walken but I tired of them playing those parts, too. He sort of the new Chris Walken—they’ve got the same bug-eyes.
^ Just wait until he plays General Zod in Man of Steel….. Next stop: comic book movie villain.
Or action/thriller villain. I’m surprised he hasn’t done this already. (Bond? an MI film?)
Shannon is in The Broken Tower with James Franco. I don’t think he plays a psychotic in that one. I don’t know if it’s available on DVD yet or not.
I know it’s on OnDemand through many carriers
Jim Emerson wrote a tidbit about the Q&A with Nichols and Shannon at Ebertfest this year.
“Nichols said he thought of ending the movie after the scene in the storm shelter but that it might have been too much of a “happy ending” if Curtis (Shannon’s character) faced his fears and found out everything was OK. Nichols said he wanted nature itself to be the villain, which is why the film ends with more (real) storms on the horizon.
Finally, though, as Shannon pointed out, Curtis is reunited with his family and whatever troubles lay ahead they will face them together — and that’s what means the most to him. “Exactly. That’s it exactly,” Nichols said, bowing his head as if the truth had finally been wrung out of him. “That’s it. Let’s not talk about it any more.”"
This sort of confirms my interpretation of the film – that it doesn’t matter if the ending is real or a dream or a hallucination and that all that matters is that whatever storms lay ahead, the family will be there with him to support him.
Ok, coming to this one quite late, but I had to join as i just saw the film.
I was really, really pleased to see some people offering thoughtful criticism and analysis of this film. NOT because it deserves it more than other films, but rather because it deserves it AS MUCH as other films, and somehow it seems to me that our ‘critical establishment’ gave it a WHOPPING free pass.
This film stuck me as an idea, not a film. And the two are not the same. In fact, the representation of the former as the latter is a trademark of novice, not master, filmmaking. The argument is framed by the film’s form, as an open question: is Curtis MAD, or is there in fact some kind of PENDING DOOM. As with Manny Farber’s ‘Gimp’, this becomes the ‘question’ that comprises the film, rather than the basis of a story, a catharsis, or anything else that a motion picture.
But wait, i often read. It’s a “portrait” of our times, of a man. In ither case it fails miserably… as a portrayal of mental illness it is uninformed, at best, pedantic at worst. As a portrayal of some kind of crisis, or of a reaction to said crisis, it also fails, on the invidividual basis – cf. the device of ‘bad dreams’, which one commentator excellently pointed out, and on the group basis – the aspect of ‘community’ here – a one dimensional wife, ineffectual and chasing up her husbands problems, also pointed out earlier, and the most cardboard, one-dimensional walk-ons as friends and family.
What we have here is a precocious young filmmaker with a sense of film form, who likes to make films about working class Americans and has a penchant for metaphor. OF COURSE the critics are attracted to all these things. You’d just think they have the acumen to know that none of these makes a good film.
I find perpetual use of ZEITGIST in reviews – that a film’s nominal subject matter qualifies it for accolades because the film-critic demographic self identifies – far more offensive than the reviews. It reminds me of Tarantino’s assertion that ‘Somewhere’ was a perfect ’portrait of contemporary Los Angeles. Ask my mexican truckdriver friend about that one.
Jazzaloha
I have not seen Boardwalk Empire. The premise didn’t grab me. You recommend?