Breaking Down: Breaking Bad Season Five, Episode Fourteen "Ozymandias"

In this episode, Hank takes a trip to Belize with his partner Gomez leading people to believe he had a secret gay relationship, Walt and his family take to the road to start a traveling family band, and Todd and Jesse open a 50's-themed diner together.

Craig Scholes: Alright sirs (and the female version of sirs), Stan has decided to have fun this weekend, and it has compromised our Breaking Bad format a tad.  So Yours Truly will be helming this word salad of a breakdown. I feel bad for anyone who actually reads this.

Stan Earnest: Just letting you know I'll be watching this naked. Flashback!

CS: MOAR TIGHTY WALTER WHITES! Well that flashback seemed relatively pointless.

SE: Unless Holly bites the dust.

Knocking as we speak.

CS: Holly is the one who knocks.

SE: Literally. Knock knock knocking on labia's door.

CS: HOLY SHIT!

SE: This is just fucking madness.

CS: First, the Uncles of Anarchy come to Walt's rescue; then they go against his wishes; and finally they take his money.

SE: I love that Hank told him how stupid he is.

CS: I'm speechless. HOLY SHIT! HO. LEE. SHIT!

SE: Shouldn't our column just be like random sentences of nonsensical thought after that?

[OMD: As the one doing the final editing on this, no.]

CS: That was insane.

[OMD: One assumes that they're talking about Hank getting offed, but as you'll see this is much more of a live-blogging (without actually live-blogging) than a typical Breaking Down entry. Your guess, dear reader, is as good as mine.]

SE: The way he told Jesse about Jane was chillingly believable to the point where Jesse knows it is unequivocally true.  Did you know it takes them like a month to "break" one episode? Piece it together where it makes sense.

CS: Don't care. I can't wait to see how Walt lies about what happened. Jesus, Marie likes to stick her nose intp shit.

SE: Is Jesse Pinkman the most tortured soul in the history of everything?

CS: I can't think of a character who has been put through more hell.

SE: No wonder they have been setting Todd up as a sadistic fuck

CS: That photo of the only two people Jesse cares about is just cruel.

SE: I feel like I need to bathe myself in holy water.

CS: The write-up of this is gonna be all over the place and incoherent.

[OMD: Yes, yes it is.]

SE: It's on you, bro. Just kind of joke around about what happened, and make fun of the fact that no coherency can be made of the episode. So Todd stopped them from killing Jesse not at all to find out what he knows. The diabolical bastard.

Crucifictorious rides again 

CS: Landry don't give a fuck. I hate Flynn so much.

[OMD: But I do. I love Landry so much. The empire is yours, you magnificent bastard. Run with it. The world is your goddamn oyster.]

SE: How much money did you think AMC had to pay to use shit about a thousand times?

CS: You can say "bullshit," you can say "holy shit," but you can't say "don't step in that pile of shit." The only thing that would have made the dueling White scene any better is if after Walt's hand got sliced he recoiled and sprayed blood all over Holly's face.

SE: Tonight on Breaking Bad: The Earth splits in two.

CS: Well my Walter White fakes his own death theory got blown to shit, and that explains why they had the naming Holly flashback.

SE: The machine gun is clearly to gun down Flynn for ratting him out.

CS: God I hope so. Text I just got from a buddy: "Babies would just cramp my style in Belize."

SE: It's so awesomely batshit crazy for Walt to take the baby, and that truck hauls ass. What a fantastic buy.

CS: With the classic street drag rims too! Whelp, the producers have guaranteed that no one will be rooting for Walt. He's crossed the point of no return.

SE: No way. I'm rooting for Walt, lock, stock and smoking barrel. I hope he flattens the ABQ.

CS: Walt hauling that barrel around everywhere is kinda hilarious.

SE: That was the most intense episode of television ever.

CS: That was the fastest hour ever.

SE: It's amazing that Breaking Bad still finds the quirkiness.

CS: I guarantee we get at least one more Tighty Walter Whities scene.

SE: So the hour delay on the Seahawks/49ers game was so the crowd could watch Breaking Bad right?

CS: Sounds about right.

SE: What in the hell do you think Walt meant by "I still have things to do?"

CS: He's gonna get back his fucking paper!

SE: My guess is that Walt doesn't know Jesse is there when he blows away the Nazis, and the end is the epic showdown between Walt and Jesse.

CS: Jesse kills Walt, no way Walt walks away now.

SE: Walt kills Jesse.

CS: Skyler kills Walt.

SE: That would be my ideal scenario. Walt survives. That episode might be the best episode of anything ever. Who's the ricin for?

CS: Himself.

SE: Why would he ever take the ricin himself?

CS: So he doesn't have to be tortured.

SE: A gunshot to the head does the same thing. Walt would never spend energy to do something that could be done simpler. In your scenario you would be saying he blows the shit out of the Nazis. Then takes the ricin and divulges his entire story to the DEA or someone?

CS: I haven't got that far with my theory, but the snubnose gets taken from him. So anything else you wanna add before I try and edit this monstrosity?

SE: This could have totally ended up being an extra season long where Walt rises to kingpin of New Jersey somehow then comes back.

CS: Walt selling meth to guidos on the Jersey shore has tremendous potential.

SE: The craziest thing Walt did all episode was think that he could take his family on the road and that they wouldn't be caught.

CS: That would have been an entertaining traveling family band. Besides Flynn would have just fucked it all up.

SE: Kind of hard to hide Crippy McCrippenstein and baby Holly. I wonder if Skyler took her running technique from watching Shelly Duvall run from jack in the shining.

CS: Easily could have gotten a "Heeeeeeeere's Walter" as Heisenberg axes his way through a door.

SE: Skyler was also swinging that knife like Shelly Duvall was swinging that bat in the shining.

CS: I got nothing to add, who are we gonna wrap this up?

SE: With you saying "It's the Shinning"

CS: Jesus, this is gonna be my Vietnam.

SE: By the way, it's so much fun derailing this thing when you know you don't have to fix it, and I think of it as more of a Jesse chained to a meth lab scenario. Remember, the pain fades but the glory remains.

[OMD: Well that makes one of us.]

CS: I really feel like Im not doing this episode its justice, but editing a podcast while watching, and us really butchering talking about this episode.

SE: One last thing. I believe Walt might have been overly dramatic to keep Skyler from getting implicated knowing the police were listening.

CS: See, I was preoccupied a bit. I didn't even see Sting or Stuart Copeland in that scene.

[OMD: And once again I have to mention that this episode was directed by none other than Rian Johnson. Sure, it took until after the second commercial break to get to the credits, but Rian Johnson did direct. One has to wonder if he was responsible for the Walt rolling the barrel of money through the desert, which sure seemed like an homage to the opening of The Big Lebowski. Guys, guys, guys...]

Man on Film: Looper

This past week was a big week for this filmgoer, as not only did I get to see the new Paul Thomas Anderson film--an event for which I typically mark my calendar--but I also got to see the new Rian Johnson film, who for my money is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. If a gun were pointed at my head, there are probably only four working directors whose work I anticipate with as comparable a fervor as I do Johnson's (for those wondering at home, the aforementioned Anderson, Malick, Cuarón, and my main man, Ben Affleck). Looper justified my anticipation while falling just a bit shy of my enormous expectations.

Any feelings about the film are chiefly informed by how enthralled one is by the world that Rian Johnson creates. Unlike perhaps any working director, Johnson has an ability to create a world around his characters that is informed by multiple genres, typically infusing the film with highly stylized dialogue reminiscent of masters like Chandler, Faulkner, and Wilder. In three times out, the end result has been captivating.

In the form of Looper, he infuses the post-apocalyptic time-travel subgenre with a healthy dose of noir styling, complete with the classic noir anti-hero living in the seamy criminal underworld. It's a winning combination, and with Johnson's panache and skills obscuring of  the ride is one filled with enough vim and vigor to distract the viewer from the various minor plot holes and foggy areas that typically lie just beneath the surface of his films.

The whole film works due in large part to the performance of the three leads, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt. All are great. Reportedly a risk of late, Willis is fully invested. Gordon-Levitt is great, just as anyone who has been paying attention would expect as he's turned in fantastic performances in role after role. Blunt, who doesn't always seamlessly pull off what is asked of her, ably inhabits the person of the guilty single mother. Jeff Daniels's turn as the temporally displaced mob boss is a stand-out performance, giving him the chance to play the bad guy, albeit an atypical one. Hell, there's even a kid, and he's not horrible.

While I'll refrain from getting into plot, as that's not what I do here, I will say that Johnson smartly avoids the pitfalls of getting too heavily invested in the larger ramifications and technicalities of time travel. Johnson uses time travel simply as a plot device, a way to explore themes while avoiding the often dull scientific exposition and overly convoluted storylines. He makes the conscious decision to go down the route of making an ultimately understandable film, forgoing the potential for massive confusion of a film like Primer, which while brilliant would never play to a large audience befitting the cast and budget at play in Looper. By and large, that decision is a good one, and Looper is the latest in the storied line of fantastic time-travel action flicks that we all know and love. With Johnson's latest film closing in on 150% return on its budget, Looper's success can only mean good things for whatever his next project ends up being.

Breaking Down: Breaking Bad, Season Five, Episode Four

"Fifty-One" brings the annual Walter White evaluation. Breakfast with Junior? Check. Pontiac Aztek sighting? Check. Walter threatening Skyler to crawl out of his ass? Check. Things change, but in some ways they stay the same. Walter is still evading his DEA brother-in-law, clamoring for Jesse's affection, and trying to sway his son to the dark side, albeit about 50 shades of black darker than Walt's 50th bacon birthday plate. Lydia tries to make her escape from underneath Mike's heavy boot through a ruse, while Skyler succumbs to becoming sticky glue under Walt's loafers. All of the action is directed by Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Looper auteur Rian Johnson.

Sail swiftly into the mystic Pontiac Aztek, your old soul will be missed.

Stan Earnest: Thirty minutes before the show I sent a text begging for an Aztek return, tell me I didn't call that!

Craig Scholes: Yeah... that car should finally be dead now though. You didn't get your Gus flashback though, but you did get to see a picture of him.

SE: Do you think his mechanic was pulling a Beneke: beating around the bush for a little extra cash?

CS: I don’t think so.

SE: He was being a little ballsy with the talk around Junior, but I think Walt wants that. Walt wants his son to know he is a bad ass and doesn't have to bow down to others like he thought he did for 50 years. And you have to love the wink from Gilligan as the mechanic says, "At least we didn't have to fix the windshield this time."

CS: I got a little bit o’ a chuckle from that. I would have preferred if the mechanic just said, “We couldn't fix it,” and the thing was still mangled, all googly-eyed in the corner of his lot.

SE: Come on man, the Aztek can’t go out with a whimper. The distorted shot of Heisenberg in the rear view was a nice touch. I am not a car guy; tell me what Walt is now driving.

CS: A Chrysler 300, they look very much like a Bentley.

SE: I've seen a thousand of them, but that isn't what they normally look like right?

CS: It’s blacked out. It’s probably not a stock model. Clearly Flynn wanted that Challenger too.

SE: So Chrysler enjoys paying the cheddar for the advertising, but I don't blame Breaking Bad for a second for taking it. As utterly complete and tight-fitting their plots may be, they still pale in comparison to the views The Walking Dead gets. And the car fits the script: it looks like it costs a couple hundred grand until a closer inspection reveals the patented plastic grill.

CS: The only problem I have is, that not in a hundred years could any rational human argue that a Chrysler 300 is a better car than that Challenger SRT.

Daniel Day Lewis drinks your milkshake, Walt eats your bacon.

SE: No human shall ever argue that. I can't wait to see what car Walt decides to drive when he kills half of Albuquerque and moves to Jamaica.

CS: Walt goes on and on about how horsepower isn't the only factor, that drag and suspension are to be accounted for also, nevermind-ing that the Chrysler 300 is one of the heavier cars on the market.

SE: You are talking about the same guy that argued the merits of Boz Scaggs, remember?

CS: Fair point. Walt doesn't seem like the lease type.

SE: Walt is most definitively not a lease guy, and Hank should know this. Walt buys things and keeps them for a half-century and takes pride in repairing them, keeping old things new. Heisenberg loves leases. He loves to lease cars and return them thrashed, hooker saliva still dripping from the dashboard.

CS: How long before Heisenberg starts bringing meth whores home to bang in front of his practically comatose wife?

SE: We are boldly going where...this episode took us. This is a dark, dark episode. It isn't pretty. I am sure a lot of the more excitable fans will have their tighty-whities twisted at the slowness of this episode following the renewed wrecking crew of Walt and Jesse, but I am here to defend this episode. This is reality. If all of the previous episodes had really happened, the screenwriters know what follows. I like how Walter and Skyler swap barbs like a true romantic couple.

CS: That, and Skyler has a real Cameron Frye moment too.

SE: Did that follow the wrecked car commercial where the kid says, "My dad is going to kill me," a la Ferris Bueller's Day Off? If so, that is phenomenal. By the way, I heard a rumor that Matthew Broderick and John Cusack turned down the role of a 40-year-old Walter White; and, thus, Vince Gilligan lobbied for Cranston and rewrote it as a 50-year-old.

CS: Broderick would have been HORRIBLE. Cusack might have been okay, but it would have been a different show. I don't think Broderick has it in him to play a dark character, at least not a Walter-White-type of dark character.

SE: Cusack could have totally done it, but no way I would want anyone other than Cranston. I don't even want to think about it. He is taking super creepy to all new levels. And I can't picture Broderick as anyone other than Abe Froman. Ever wonder what Ferris Bueller's would be like as a coming-of-age indie rom-com?

CS: With Hank getting promoted, the Heisenberg case could really get pushed aside.

SE: Hank does NOT want that job.

CS: I dunno. I think he wants the job, but he wants to finish the Heisenberg case first.

SE: Yeah, that is it, totally. I've heard so many stories about cops that get tangled in cases, intertwining them with their lives and neglecting their families. Hank needs some blue meth to keep up with the Heisenberg case.

CS: Hell, I got sent home early the other day and didn't want to go until I wrapped up what I was doing. Not really the same, but humans have a desire to have closure.

SE: Not to mention our one-track minds. Curiosity didn't kill the cat, tenacity did. Nothing bothers me more than not being able to figure out what is wrong with my computer at any given time.

So clearly it is hinted that the Gus-to-Germany connection doesn't make sense, that something is in between. Couple the Chile connection with Skyler being adamant that her family is in danger and some somewhat-under-the-radar foreshadowing is taking place. Walt's family is in complete danger. I can't decide if he is just mentally blocking this out of his mind or if he is just such a scumbag that he doesn't care.

CS: Oh, he doesn't care. At this point, Walt is in it for Number One. He doesn't care what is good for his family; he only wants his cake and to eat it too.

SE: It is like when you hear a tornado siren. When I was single, I would just sleep those suckers off, but with a family a plan has to be made ahead of time, packing a bag with shoes and flashlights and water and fruit snacks at the top of the stairs, and then gathering everyone up and heading to the storm room at 1:00 a.m. The siren is going off, and Walt is asking his family to ignore it.

The only problem I have with Season Five so far is that--well, it isn't moving too slowly for enjoyment--it is moving too slow for a proper pay-off before the big bang that won't come until Summer of 2013. The wait is so going to suck.

CS: I kinda think the show is following the same format of the previous seasons, but it's just prorating it out over 16 episodes instead of 13 episodes. Shit is about to hit the fan.

SE: Well, we know something fun is about to happen, because they need methylamine. You know what time it is? CAPER TIME! And I ain't talking about those delicious little peas that are great on aged ham. I am talking about Walt and Jesse in fuzzball ski masks heisting a rail car full of methylamine.

CS: Too predictable. That bitch is going to get got, too. I have a feeling Mike kills her anyway. I also think Skyler might off herself. Hell, Walt might kill her.

SE: I don't wonder if Walt hatched a plan to put Lydia away by thieving all of her methylamine and putting her in a precarious situation. But, you did notice the cameras the facility had. Speaking of which, shows like Dexter and Breaking Bad are soon going to be obsolete. Cameras are cheap and they are everywhere. If you are doing something illegal, and you don't have anyone on the inside, you are normally on film somewhere waiting to be got. The public may have to give up a lot of privacy, but it might save them from the rampage Aztek.

CS: Breaking Bad is helped out by the show taking place five years ago. I think it's impossible to have surveillance on everything though, and how much longer before everyone has those Batman camera deactivators.

SE: Who needs them when Mike has wasp spray?

Now that I think about it, Skyler dying would leave Walt to complete free reign, but we cannot underestimate umpteen years of marriage. I believe Walt is still faithful in a lot of ways and knows he has caused this. I think Skyler dies, but not at the hands of Walt. Then we get rampage Walt.

CS: For someone who allegedly cares about his wife, he is sure putting her through the ringer, essentially torturing her. That breakfast scene was awkward.

Shoppers are falling off lab vats to get this limited edition watch.

SE: How about the gift from Jesse? The writers don't miss a chance to drive a point home. That thing ticks and clacks, isn’t stylish--at least not in Walt's vein--and has only one purpose, not to mention watches in general are basically obsolete with the advent of modern cell phone usage, but Walt loves it. He loves that he is being respected. It is in stark contrast with that calculator watch he was rocking out in Season Three.

CS: Oh yeah, and what Walt loved even more was being able to throw it in Skyler’s face. “You think you hate me? This dude stuck a gun in my face, and now he is buying me bling.” I really want to buy myself a swank watch.

SE: We are really programmed to consume aren’t we? I want one too, but it is the most asinine purchase ever. It weighs the wrist down, annoying any movement. It has no purpose, except for looking cool, and when I see someone with one, I just think, “Man, don’t you have a cell phone in your pocket that does more with time than that costly hunk of jewelry?”

CS: I just think watches are classy. It’s really no different than a woman wearing diamonds. I would never have an ear ring or slick my hair, and I’m not talking Rolex (those things are fucking tacky), but something like a Tag Heuer would be nice.

SE: Who are you trying to be? Eli Manning? Are you timing your stop at the rail station? Well, I had a Rambo knife when I was a kid, and I would love to wear one now too, at least that has its uses.

That line to Skyler was uncanny. I really thought Walt was going to just wave the gift in front of her to show her someone else cares about him, but he takes it to another plane, further driving home the message that life is fragile. "Hey Skyler, I know you are scared half to death, and just pulled a Benjamin Braddock on me, but hey, I've had a gun pointed to my head! Can you imagine what it is like to have a gun pointed to your head? What a rush! We should try some role playing with that scenario. You know, Hank and Marie told me role playing saved their marriage..."

CS: I have a feeling Marie is the dominant one in the bedroom, Hank dressed as a french maid, with Marie pegging him.

Man on Film: The Brothers Bloom

As the Royals' season has tanked, I have found myself rediscovering the joys of reading and going to the gym. This has also kept me from the computer and, thusly, the internet.

What it hasn't done is gotten in the way of going to the movies.

Last week I saw three films in the theater, the first of which I'll write about tonight*.

*Tonight began as last night, but I fell asleep on the couch while trying to complete this entry. Pretty ridiculous, I know, but it happened.

Having heard a negative reaction to Rian Johnson's second film, my expectations were tempered. By the end of the prologue with its spot on Ricky Jay narration, writer/director Johnson had convinced me that my friend who shall remain unnamed was unequivocally wrong.

For those of you who may not know who Rian Johnson is, I'll bring you up to speed. His debut film, Brick, was a brilliant juxtaposition of a classic noir film in the setting of a present day California high school. Everything about the film could exist in the world that writers such as Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler helped create, except for the selection of setting. Sure, "Veronica Mars" had heavy elements of noir throughout the series, but at no point did it make the leap past having noir themes throughout. Brick was an enthralling breath of fresh air on the cinematic landscape. A film that showed a deep love for the language of a bygone film genre while contemporizing its setting. Not since Being John Malkovich had I been so impressed by so unique a voice.

The Brothers Bloom does for the grifter tale what Brick did for film noir. Just as in his first film, Rian Johnson has imbued The Brothers Bloom with a love for the language of the genre. Despite its placement in the present, TBB is every bit the classic tale of swindles, double-crosses, marks, and fast-talking con men.

Inherent in such a film is a lighter spirit than his prior effort, and this allows for the proper stage in which Mark Ruffalo may put his infectious enthusiasm on display. For the first time since You Can Count on Me, Ruffalo is given a film role in which his immense gift for comedy and his ability walk the line between affable and dangerous can once again be on full display. Where Adrien Brody's Bloom is the sympathetic lead (I hesitate to dub him either anti-hero or hero, as the character exists in the gray area in between), Ruffalo's Stephen is who we all really want to be. He is the mastermind. He is the magnetic force. He is what Ferris Bueller would have grown up to be if he had grown up fending for himself as a child.

As for the other cast, Rachel Weisz made me momentarily forget how mean she was to Paul Rudd. Rinko Kikuchi simultaneously embodied ambivalence and anarchic destruction with aplomb, stealing nearly every scene she was in while uttering nary a word (or maybe I'm fetishizing the Asian female, as we white males are wont to do).

Rather than go further into a reflection on the film, which worked on every level for me, personally, I'll go ahead and address the issues that my friend had with the film.

In short, he felt that the film was a shameless Wes Anderson rip off. For the first ten minutes or so, I attempted to find the basis for such an argument to be made. It took that long for me to dismiss the statement. Upon completion of viewing, it struck me as simply lazy. Such an argument would seem to suggest that Wes Anderson invented quirkiness. Past quirkiness, it seems to me the the films of Anderson operate from a world in which all those quirks arise from the source of stunted emotional growth. Nearly every central figure in Wes Anderson's films has been emotionally damaged and has troubles assimilating him or herself into society. Furthermore, the anachronism inherent in Anderson's works seems merely a function of his own predilection for inserting preciousness for the sake of amusement.

On both fronts, it would seem The Brothers Bloom does not fit. While each of the characters in the film may have issues, it does not feel at any point that their actions are driven by their social retardation. They are archetypes within the structure of the standard grifter flick. Sure, there have to be motives for the actions of characters, but it never feels like they are crippled by their pathos (aside from maybe Bloom at the end). As for the anachronism within, there is a tongue-in-cheek wink at many turns. What Rian Johnson so aptly achieves for a second time here is the marriage of an old-timey story with a contemporary setting. The anachronism here operates past the realm of decorative flair. Perhaps he is taking what Anderson does one step further, but there is an element of import that exists in the filmic sense that is largely lacking in Anderson's usage of anachronistic inserts.

All right, enough tangentially venting.

In short, I loved this film. I will fight you if you differ with my opinion. Or not.

Whatever.

Here's the trailer in HD, with admittedly shoddy music backing it.