Michael Shannon Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Michael Shannon-whose latest project "The Flash" releases in theaters on Thursday.

Michael Shannon's Filmography Ranked:

24.Pearl Harbor (D-)

23.Jonah Hex (D)

22.Man of Steel (D)

21.Midnight Special (C-)

20.She's Funny That Way (C)

19.Let's Go to Prison (C)

18.They Came Together (C)

17.Groundhog Day (C)

16.Amsterdam (B-)

15.8 Mile (B-)

14.Kangaroo Jack (B-)

13.Machine Gun Preacher (B)

12.Premium Rush (B)

11.Mud (B)

10.Nocturnal Animals (B)

9.99 Homes (B+)

8.Revolutionary Road (B+)

7.Bullet Train (B+)

6.The Shape of Water (B+)

5.Take Shelter (B+)

4.Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (B+)

3.Bad Boys II (B+)

2.Knives Out (B+)

1.The Night Before (A)

Top Dog: The Night Before (2015)

When it comes to modern holiday movies, I don't believe there's a single one that's better or more unheralded than The Night Before. Its balance of warmth/emotion and R-rated comedic hijinks is perfect, the rapport between Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie as childhood best friends who reunite on Christmas to catch-up/celebrate the life of Gordon-Levitt's character's late father feels completely natural and the supporting cast (Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, Shannon, Miley Cyrus playing herself) all manage to steal scenes before walking off into the sunset.  

Bottom Feeder: Pearl Harbor (2001)

Welcome back to this piece Pearl Harbor! The book on this movie is well-known by anybody that still remembers its existence: Michael Bay-who is as synonymous with big action movies as any director in cinema history-made the baffling decision to make an epic romance film that eventually turns into a not exactly accurate dramazation of the famous 1941 attack on the titular United States Naval Base in Honolulu by Japanese forces during World War II. The results were unsurprisingly abysmal as the love story is a cheesy soap opera anchored by 3 actors (Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale) with zero chemistry (Affleck and Hartnett play longtime friends who fight for the affection of a nurse played by Beckinsale) who couldn't have possibly turned in stiffer performances and the 3-hour runtime ends up being punishingly overlong given how excruciatingly boring the film is outside of the combat/bombing sequences.     

Most Underrated: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Man, Sidney Lumet-who passed away in 2011-really did end his career with a bang. The iconic filmmaker behind such classics as Network, Dog Day Afternoon and 12 Angry Men returned to the crime drama/thriller world that served him so well over the years and made a remarkably bleak yet completely riveting and brilliantly-acted film that delivers gut punch after gut punch as it follows a family (Philip Seymour Hoffmann, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Amy Ryan, Rosemary Harris) whose lives rapidly unravel after a jewelry heist gone wrong.   

Most Overrated: Groundhog Day (1993)

Maybe it's because I'd seen a million movies with a time loop narrative by the time I saw it or I simply didn't get it, but I felt absolutely nothing watching Groundhog Day. As inherently diverting as watching a character deal with living the same day over and over again is (there's a reason the device has been used so much since), Bill Murray really isn't all that funny here, the romantic subplot with Andie McDowell feels forced and the script really isn't all that clever or exciting.  

Biggest DCU Misfire: Man of Steel (2013)

While the cult following Man of Steel has built over the years has made me consider giving it another try, I still currently despise nearly everything about Zack Snyder's first DC film. Following a strong opening sequence on Superman's home planet of Krypton, Man of Steel almost immediately devolves into an extremely dull superhero origin story featuring horrendous action sequences that launched the terrible superhero movie trend of "flying objects violently crashing into each other while the camera sits roughly 10 miles away from the fighting", a comically hammy villain turn from Shannon as General Zod that feels completely out of place in an otherwise stoic, often somber movie and Henry Cavill seemingly workshopping how to play Clark Kent/Superman in real time and never quite figuring it out by the time the movie ends.