Breaking Bad withdrawal support society

i was thinking about creating a list of stuff that seems like it comes from the world of Breaking Bad somehow, or gets at similar themes.

For my money the original Breaking Bad was Charley Varrick. Walter Matthau plays a smalltime cropduster who turns to bank robbery, together with a hot-headed younger partner, all under a big Western sky.

http://lecinemadughetto.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/tuez-charley-varrick-01.jpg

Or for another angle on things, Canada by Richard Ford could easily be Flynn's version of events, for anybody who wonders about the fallout for him and Holly.

Must check out that Richard Ford...

I've been meaning to read Canada for a while, will bump that up my list.

fiction-wise, some of james crumley's novels prob come closest to the BB 'spirit'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Crumley

It's been years since I saw it, but at first BB reminded me of Blood Simple, the first Coen brothers movie, which is also kind of a very dark comedy of errors mixed with a violent thriller. I guess Fargo is kinda similar too, in fact it's not hard to imagine the Coen bros being an inspiration for the tone of BB.

BB >> Blood Simple

Tuomas maybe it's the narcissism of small differences, because i can see why you'd compare BB with the coen brothers, but i mainly can't stand the coen brothers while i really love BB. i think BB is more sincere, less self-impressed, more interested in character

but hey, whatever gets you through

Have you seen Blood Simple? I suggested that one exactly because (as far as I can recall) it's not as "Coeny" as some of the later films, it's not so self-impressed and has less artifice, therefore making it closer to BB. (Though I think BB does have it's share of artifice and self-impressed moments too, just think of the fakeout they pulled with the season 2 teddy bear cold opens.)

I began a rewatch of The Wire, which completely put the thought of Breaking Bad out of my head.

No Country for Old Men is completely in line with Breaking Bad.

Lol @ this thread! Have you read Methland?
http://www.samefacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/methland.jpg

wow, Charley Varrick sounds great!

and James Crumley! and Methland!

Great thread already

"when he runs out of dumb luck he's always got genius to fall back on"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Charley_Varrick.jpg

Somebody could probably do a decent one of these for Breaking Bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml9hAN5km14

Also recommended tv --the series about Pablo Escobar (Patron del Mal) was quite good. I never finished watching it because the episodes were dvr-ing all screwy and I got sick of dealing with it, but the show was muuuuuch more tastefully produced than your average novela, if that's what you might imagine (if you watch Spanish lg tv, which most ppl probably don't?)

Anyway I'm sure it has English subtitles. It was pretty good.

I'd call Canada minor compared with Ford's more celebrated books but "minor" for Ford is anybody else's major

not the same, but watching the first season of Orphan Black has helped to scratch the itch. the pacing & structure seem influenced by BB, like there were will be some crazy unexpected violent turn but it won't come as a cliffhanger like most shows would do it, it'll be 15 minutes before the end of the episode and then the end will be other thing entirely.

that's funny, I mentioned something on the BB thread about the show reminding me of '70s caper movies and the last one of those I watched was probably Charley Varrick. I didn't make the direct connection though. Is that the one where the bank is in a trailer and they steal the whole bank?

Here's the Patron del Mal trailer with subtítulos en English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLszT9sAktQ

charley varrick is fucking awesome

WINTER'S BONE

Charley Varrick is so great

Patron del Mal looks up my street, thanks for that. Wonder why there hasn't been a big Hollywood biopic of Escobar yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSpHeWRYYVE

oh the one with the trailer I was thinking of is Bank Shot

haha holy crap, watching Charley Varrick again and it all takes place IN NEW MEXICO. at one point charley is like, well, dunno if i can really fly us all the way across the border, i haven't done fancy flying in a long time and his hot-headed young partner is like WHAT GOOD ARE YOU THEN, that full-on utilitarian view of others as parts for the machine of your own schemes. and charley pulls off all these walter white moves, like switching dental records.. SO DOPE. it really is one for the fully-paid up member of Team Walt.

maybe something we haven't touched yet is something that captures the pressure cooker domestic drama of micro-lies that S2 embodied (and which filtered out through the rest of the show)..

i.e. ... Far From Heaven??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kZivVxB3vU

Watched Charley Varrick the other night, fun movie.

Joe Don Baker is always so monumental

You just know he was always smelling faintly of beernuts, farts and cologne

http://clickingbad.nullism.com/

my hand says fuck you for showing me that

Ripoff of drmeth.com?

tbh I cheated like hell on DrMeth and downloaded an autoclicker app - who has the time to hire hundreds of thousands of dealers?

a friend just told me he's been hired for the writing staff on Better Call Saul. He's super talented, so I've got hopes for that show.

clicking bad has given me as much fun as gta5 and the new batman combined, mega thanks for that tracer

can't.... resist....

I AM THE ONE WHO CLICKS

can't decide whether to play until I've bought the entire senate, then make enough money to buy both the mega-mart and the industrial complex in two consecutive clicks - either one of them seems like the end, right, though if you had the whole senate maybe not

pfft that's amateur level, I'm working on buying a planet

so i guess all i'm doing today is playing this game with "for the love of money" on repeat

pfft that's amateur level, I'm working on buying a planet

I have two stars, there's really a planet? given that the mega-mart increases risk 55% I figured it was instant game over

I just bought a Meth Star and I'm saving up for some Space Mules next. I have $1.39 trillion in the bank. Just another day in the life...

ok fuck it I'm going for the methmart

Taking this all the way baby. Every time I think it's gonna end it gets more cosmic

(I still think we're all actually mining bitcoins for the programmers)

https://soundcloud.com/audible/the-things-they-carried

http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2014/01/27/jonathan-banks-to-join-amcs-breaking-bad-prequel-better-call-saul/

is this is a more lighthearted comedy series featuring characters we know wind up having to abruptly escape their entire life or with an incidental and unceremonious death

I'm enbarrased to admit I dont think I ever twigged that the murdered Pollos Brother was his love interest partner. Does this suggest he also had a thing for Gale?

Him = Gus there, obv

Me either

Oh here we go, in an interview with Vince Gilligan:

Gus is a man who had one Achilles Heel, as far as we know: His burning desire for vengeance against the people who killed Max, who was very important to him. We don’t tend to nail things down on Breaking Bad. It’s fun to be a little mysterious, and it’s nice to have the audience come up with backstories on their own. Having said that, I personally think Max was more than just a friend to Gus. I think they probably were lovers. And therefore it was understandably a very crushing, terrible loss for Gus, one that he would never forget. That one bit of emotion that he allowed himself ultimately proved to be his undoing.

never picked up on that either tbh!

yes it isn't directed said out loud on-screen but rewatching the scene where max is killed i feel gus's reaction is too extreme not to be about a lover or actual family: he pretty much throws himself at hector (smoking gun still in fist) in grief and rage, as if to say "if you don't kill me i'll kill you" -- it's so out of (later) stone-cold controlled character that i felt the off-page emotional math was allowable, given they're plainly not actual biological brothers. so this might be esposito's on-set improvised reading on the day, as much as gilligan's pre-written backstory

the thing i couldn't decode in the same scene tho is when don eladio says to gus, "i didn't kill because i know who you are" (or "what you are"): who or what is he? is this a ref to his mysterious chilean past or his actual identity? (is this something explained later? i am slowly rewatching but it's interesting that i don't remember the exact unfolding of the story, so much as the gathering dread that any given scene i'm watching is going to end horribly… i mean lol many of them do but i feel like i'm intuiting a half-recalled awfulness more than remembering the actual narrative outcomes

directed s/b directly

Weird, I could've sworn it was explicitly stated/very strongly implied that they were lovers, but perhaps mine was just one of several possible interpretations.

I assume the "mysterious Chilean past" meant that Gus was ex-Pinochet regime, another reason not to be fooled by his surface fabulousness

Frank Pembleton is a good counterpoint to "devil always gets the best tunes" theory: great actor, fascinating character, flawed but totally one of the good guys

in the max-killing scene -- a few moments before max is killed -- gus says "i love this guy" (or something like that), but at that point it isn't clear (i don't think) that it's not just an expression of extreme buddyness with his cooking pal to convince don eladio how serious they are as business partners with the cartel

fairly sure max has never been mentioned before this scene -- haven't rewatched far enough to recall if he's subsequently mentioned (or appears in flashback)

I wish Skyler had gotten more iconic moments than "I fucked Ted" (which is admittedly the best)

Yeah I got the impression Gus's past was explicitly not explained and just left a menacing idea hanging.

^^^ yeah it was never explained

my mind immediately went to Pinochet too but eh who knows

Did Gus mention a wife and kid(s) at some point? I feel like it came up when Walt went to dinner at his place. Not that this precludes anything involving his former partner, and might have been for respectable businessman cover story reasons but still.

think vince gilligan's take is pretty definitive. gus and max were very close, probably lovers, though this isn't spelled out

Well, hector does say they should be called “the butt brothers”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/breaking-bad-movie-is-a-sequel-starring-aaron-paul-1159128

there is absolutely no need for this but if Gilligan has a great story to tell then oh well

when Better Call Saul was announced people had the same reaction and that turned out pretty well

I have a hard time figuring out what sort of interesting storyline they could pull off given the way BB ended - I mean, the last three episodes closed the book about as hard as it possibly could. still confident they'll pull off something brilliant though, that's what they do

people had the same reaction

I was totally down for an Odenkirk / Gilligan half-hour sitcom

I can't believe I only just found out about this! And there probably is no need but it should be totally worth watching based on what Gilligan did with BCS

I had never made the connection that Tuco was also in the Chupacabra episode of the X-files until today.

*googles* a Shiban ep!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqG8Li86_uI

oh god I forgot the birthday handjob in the first episode

new trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLUn2DFW4w

If this one's good I want the Francesca Liddy movie.

momentarily wondered if Mike Francesa had been cast as G. Gordon LIddy

Took me a couple of tries to figure out which thread I posted on the first time I watched the this...I guess here; I thought I posted more often, though. Anyway, through three seasons of a rewatch; still consistently good-to-great, though not, for me, as good as Mad Men (which it beat 71-61 in a poll thread).

One thing made me laugh the other night, one of the episodes after Skyler has broached her car-wash idea to Walt. You see her sitting at her computer--careful, methodical, cautious Skyler, the one who realized that Laser Tag was an awful idea and that they needed a well thought out cover story--and she's googling "money laundering."

Season 3 was 2010. Was the world's attitude towards one's internet footprint that much more casual then, or was this just a logistical gaffe on the show's part?

the former imo.

they cut the shot of her setting up a VPN and opening an incognito tab, for time

Nah, I think it’s in keeping with the character. Skylar’s bad at being bad.

I ordered a pricey sofa online two nights ago, and both my credit cards were turned down. I phoned Visa, and after about ten minutes on the line, they unlocked the account; they said they flagged it because I'd recently moved, and, I'm guessing, also because I rarely make large purchases on credit.

My Mastercard was still locked as of today--I hadn't tried to use the card again, but I wasn't able to log into my account, so I realized that was the problem. Another phone call, lots more questions. When the guy had me identify recent purchases, he got to something called Wish. It didn't ring a bell, so he told me it was an Amazon-type retailer.

Me: "Yes! I bought a Los Pollos Hermanos T-shirt the other day."
Him: "Breaking Bad?"

It was a great paradox. It was like we bonded over the T-shirt, and he was more ready to trust that I was who I said I was. On the other hand, probably not the best thing to come up when you're trying to prove that you're not someone who'd commit credit-card fraud.

Anna Gunn starts to look so much like Courtney Love towards the end of season 4. I googled the two names together and found at least one person who noticed the same thing, but I thought I'd find more.

Lydia ordering tea early in the final season--"You're really running me through my paces here"--is so funny.

i've spent the last couple months slowly going through this show. i adore it, but i've had to take a few breaks from it -- while it's completely absorbing and surprisingly hilarious at times, i find it really intense and sometimes almost too nerve-racking to watch.

after watching the first few episodes i told a co-worker that i'd found the bathtub/acid stuff a little hard to stomach and she kind of laughed, like, oh you have NO idea what's coming.

Not sure what she meant by that, the bathtub/acid thing is by far the grossest moment in the entire series.

Grossest but far from most immoral.

i'm about to finish season 4 but yeah i haven't encountered anything else that gross yet, at least a few moments that i found more horrifying tho

I rewatched the entire series when C was a baby, so coming up two years ago, and found it just as compelling and unsettling second time around. My sense of Walt having always been an asshole got stronger.

the bathtub scene is definitely the grossest moment of the series but far from the most intense - I'd say that goes to the box cutter scene, maybe the most nerve wracking thing I've ever seen on television.

Anna Gunn starts to look so much like Courtney Love towards the end of season 4.

I dunno how this came off in real time but it was strange watching the show on Netflix and just seeing her face drastically change from one episode to the next

it was like that in real time. one season she just showed up with a totally different face.

Seeing as JD is working his way through this for the first time, I'll hold off on anything too specific for the time being--was going to quote a great Saul line from Season 5.

The guy who plays Uncle Jack gives a really good performance--as does Jesse Plemons, who's just about the politest cold-blooded killer ever (I think Jesse calls him a psycho Opie or something like that).

Just looked him up. Michael Bowen--wow, didn't recognize him from Jackie Brown and Magnolia.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/pollos.jpg

Don't even think about making a move on my territory.

Just started rewatching Community with my daughter and Badger is in it!

wait til you get to Season 5

pic.twitter.com/yxd7Rw9Qpo

— Heyzazel (@Hayzazel) April 5, 2021