Shall we anticipate the FIFTH SEASON of the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius)
Posted: September 30, 2013 at 3:03:44 AM
getting my explosives ready for joe's "tv rushmore"

ha morbs whatre u doin in here

Reglue.

Or basically what brio said

he just orphaned lydia's kid for no real reason

She wanted his wife dead. Kind of a reason.

kids prob better off w/o her, not a nice lady

Morbs is being a killjoy because people like the show and didn't praise Newhart.

y'all can go to the movies now!

oh yeah i forgot that she wanted skyler dead - still not a hero

But movies are shit, politics is shit, people are shit, everything is shit. C'mon, Morbs, let us have our fun before the heat death of the universe.

PS, speaking of movies, Need For Speed looked like the worst thing in the world.

nah i don't think it has to have 'something to say' to be great, i don't think many cary grant movies have 'something to say' but many many cary grant movies are truly great (that said one cary grant movie i kinda do think has 'something to say', notorious, is easily the one w/ the largest place in my thoughts or whatever). pure exhilarating ecstatic entertainment is nothing to be dismissed but if there's something more, if it can do that plus tell me something about myself or the world or humanity or whatever or even if what it tells me is bullshit or if it ultimately doesn't even tell me anything but make me ask those questions and answer them myself then that piece of entertainment lingers w/ me and becomes a part of me in the way that the bible or whatever does for religious ppl. where it breaks down though is that i will easily always prefer the perfect hollow entertainment over the earnest ambitious well intended slog. and tbh the entertainment doesn't have to be that perfect. love scandal, have yet to watch treme. love revenge (well, like revenge), tons of frontlines piling up on my dvr. what's interesting to me about breaking bad and encouraging also (though i am very likely kidding myself on that front and just trying to not pretend that the 'golden age' is very nearly done) is unlike the wire or deadwood which would be almost impossible to replicate unless yr one of those davids and any attempts to do so would just be embarrassing and maybe unwatchable, breaking bad merely requires really good writing, really good plotting, really good acting. it just requires the commitment to that level of execution (justified approached it briefly for about a season) and the ratings of this last season gives enough incentive to yr amc's etc to invest in that kind of 'quality' model of tv instead of just following the increasing blockbusterizing of tv a la game of thrones and walking dead.

Got serious Texas Chainsaw vibes when Jesse was speeding away from the compound.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jd7XgpfH-jI/ULQJmZ6ky9I/AAAAAAAAEGs/yT_oue2X-Nk/s640/The-texas-chain-saw-massacre-marilyn-burns12.jpg

i don't think many cary grant movies have 'something to say'

wrong again

what was up w jesse in the woodshop

xpost man take it to another thread

Another vote for "well-made pulp." Watched this in a crowded bar where the crowd gave touchdown cheers whenever Walter delivered vengence.

is there even an argument that breaking bad had "something to say"? shit can be pulpy and still meaningful

Breaking Bad is about the moral conflict between intentions and methods

i think i get the point about well executed entertainment & this show not really having something beyond that to say - i read interviews where gilligan and others seem baffled/dismayed by the 'team walt' viewers who root for him no matter how terrible and abusive he is - but of course they are, the show makes him look cool, ultimately.

but yes it doesn't have "something to say" in the infuriatingly heavy handed and obnoxious way a show like Mad Men does

whee that was very satisfying. p much as close to a 'happy ending' as could be imagined (including added bonus of badger and skinny pete having a nice wad of cash to keep them good for a while) without going off the narrative rails. which is a relief cuz i feared it going so dark as to tarnish it as a whole for me.

'team walt' viewers who root for him no matter how terrible and abusive he is

Obama joke here

what was up w jesse in the woodshop

Hard lol. Yeah, though, kinda forgot about that.

Morbs have you ever seen this show it's p. good

he's just here to shit

i dont think bb has nothing deeper to say there are things about inequality in the usa and the disrespected working man, and it says stuff about personas facades and what people are really like, but on the other hand it is mostly just a sick ass thriller, tho i do think people overrate the depthiness of some other shows which just happen to be wildly entertaining too

if aero likes it, i will try it when i have time

(ie when i quit film criticism and watch the series DVDs i already have received as gifts over the last 4 years)

surrounded by klostermen

klostermans

klosterwymyn

tbh i think it was a little pat to follow up 59 episodes of "Walt has an idea about how to make things right, but nothing goes according to plan" with one episode of "pretty much everything goes exactly as planned"

tbf most of walt's specific plans went right, they were just unfortunately in the aid of really stupid bigger schemes.

i don't want to derail but there's so much good stuff on 'mad men' to me - whatever issues don has w/r/t his messed-up childhood comes off heavy-handed, but the writers on 'mad men' are v interested in how sexist society is & how women like peggy, joan, megan and even betty navigate it in different ways, i like this, it's unusual

alyssa r. always good at thinking about things in a different way

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/09/29/2698331/breaking-bad-recap-felina/

xp so this show says something very deep, namely that even if you are really really smart you probably shouldn't try to build a meth empire.

I love when it's v v clearly Walt talking on the phone and she's like "who is this? Todd?" out of some wishful thinking.

i feel like this episode needed one last scene.

like the akward scene where Jesse walks into Badger's place and is like "i wasn't in Alaska, you assholes"

or he just just drives all the way to alaska. until he reaches a twon called Cicely - wjere he gets a job posing as a young, malpractice-prone doctor.

xposts - so many xposts

i bought blue meth guys - by the way

put it on some vanilla ice cream

so ridic that Todd had a Lydia ringtone haha

glad they didn't fuck up the ending. classic show.

final shot of Jesse was obviously him warming up for his role in Need For Speed.

i mean trust me i'm not a humanities guy, if you want to sell me on 'art is ultimately worthless and useful as at best a diversion' i'm a pretty easy sell, leon wieseltier can write all he wants but he's never gonna convince me some grad student deconstructing larkin is contributing as much to humanity as some grad student working on cancer research, and the part of me that thinks 'no, some art is worthwhile and does enrich our lives more than say any random cheeseburger' might just be whatever (probably not small) part of me is a stunted adolescent and that the part of me that gets an emotional reaction from yeats or netrebko or whatever is part of the same spectrum that gets a much much much smaller emotional reaction from someone saying 'no gnus is good gnus' cuz man remember the great space coaster and ultimately all of it is garbage or masturbation or nonsense like religion and politics and that the reaction you get from art that 'speaks to you' or whatever isn't really any different or more 'worthy' than the reaction you get from art that just entertains you, that both are just some mix of narcissism and relief from boredom and the awareness of imminent death temporarily shoved aside but i'm not so sure. and again i LOVED breaking bad and i think what 'limits' it, what makes me wonder if i'll feel the need to watch it again in a few years, is precisely what makes it a useful template for future 'quality' tv, that attempts to recreate deadwood or the wire or omg mad men are pretty much doomed from the start the odds of it being watchable nevermind great so stacked against it but there's no reason someone couldn't create another breaking bad, there's no reason tv can't routinely be this good. meanwhile aaron paul seems like a nice kid and i hope he actually is a good actor and this wasn't just a good performance and that he gets work that allows him to show it in the future.

that all makes sense - definitely can see this show's greatest contribution in the long run prob being a model for better TV, most specifically with what it did with long-game plotting, cohesiveness and working toward a satisfying ending

Gilligan sometimes uses the word "showmanship" in interviews to describe what he's doing or going for and i think that's apt. not to say the show is hollow or artless but sometimes i feel like there's jazz hands ready to shake out of the sides of the screen.

Breaking Bad and Gravity -- a week bookended with showmanship in the best possible sense.

Tell morbs that Groucho made a cameo!

rmde at the people who watched 6 seasons of this and are suddenly calling it "well made pulp." I guess all crime fiction can be considered "pulp" (in what world is that still an insult btw?) but this is some of the greatest crime fiction ever made imo.

idg the idea that rewatching TV is a measure of quality either. seems like people are more likely to rewatch comfort food than "quality TV", but rewatching in general is pretty sad and not really something to celebrate unless you're a student or a professional or something.

otoh I tried to watch fuckin' mad men twice and I was like...I do not give a shit about these people I hope they all get tortured by nazis in the new mexico desert

for me the great thing about this show is the ride it took the characters on. so many of them changed so much, in such interesting/engaging ways... i've had a lot to beverage, so i'm not sure how to articulate this right....
its' good.

ya. xpost

there's no reason someone couldn't create another breaking bad, there's no reason tv can't routinely be this good

so wrong in so many ways

someone will create a show this good again prob