09.30.13 |
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Andy Greenwald, writing for Grantland (warning spoilers for the series finale ahead):
In the end, there was no art. Only science. And this was sort of the problem, wasn’t it? After five-plus years of watching everything break bad, the finale gave us 75 minutes of watching everything break just right. There was plenty of sweet coincidence and even sweeter revenge. The timing was deliberate, and immaculate…
But was it equally satisfying? I’m not so sure…There’s been a great deal of talk these past few weeks about how Gilligan is a moralist, but I have to say, I have my doubts. After last night, I’d say he’s an aesthete, one who admires clean lines and elegant design above all else.
This is pretty much exactly some of the problems (or questions?) I immediately had scattering about my head after wrapping the finale. Enormously enjoyable? Yes. And as always, the visuals and acting worked extremely well. But it felt a bit too tidy in the end.
Then again, maybe we’ll all have dramatically different feelings days, weeks or even years later. Already my feelings are starting to change on Breaking Bad’s earlier years, mostly for the better and some for the worse.
08.30.13 |
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TV critic Maureen Ryan, writing for The Huffington Post:
“Breaking Bad” is an undoubtedly a great show, but, as is the case with too many television dramas, for while there it didn’t really know what to do with its female characters. The AMC drama clearly struggled to make Skyler and Marie Shrader (wife of DEA agent Hank Schrader) anything but subsidiary figures who rarely moved into — or deserved — the spotlight. Their behaviors and reactions were easy to predict, and if the writers didn’t show consistent interest in their emotional lives and the women’s inner depths, why would viewers care about them, let alone have positive responses to them?
While I can’t express myself as eloquently as Ryan does here, I got the same feeling when reading through Anna Gunn’s NYT editorial. Gunn makes a lot of good points about some of the extreme Skyler haters on the show. But especially in Breaking Bad’s first few seasons, Skyler just wasn’t that fleshed out as a character; she was at times pretty easy to root against (Mad Men’s Betty, as Ryan writes about later, shares a very similar problem.)
08.16.13 |
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Andy Greenwald nails the big confrontation that ended Breaking Bad’s latest episode (Spoilers ahead):
Forget the delicate dance of cat and mouse a generation of TV built on coy delay had prepped us to expect. Here, the cat punched the mouse in the nose and called him a monster. The mouse then stood up, casually brushed himself off, and transformed into Satan. It’s awfully rare to see television so unafraid of delivering on what it has promised. And it’s quite possible that no show has ever promised more than Breaking Bad.
08.16.13 |
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The A.V. Club’s Todd VanDerWerff, writing a great companion piece to the Grantland article I linked to earlier this week:
In a way, this is the show simply taking the greatest weakness of clockwork plotting—a tendency to make everything all about one thing and the emptiness of character and theme that can provoke—and turning it into a strength through sheer relentlessness. With rare exceptions…every element of this story is about what happens after Walter makes his choice in the pilot. This isn’t a new thing to say about the show, by any means, but it’s often hard to appreciate just how thoroughly this kept the series from the kinds of goofiness that other clockwork-serialized shows have collapsed into.
08.13.13 |
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Andy Greenwald, writing for Grantland, explains why Breaking Bad’s finale has the chance to end the show on a better note than some previous critically acclaimed shows (e.g. The Sopranos, Lost):
Breaking Bad, to its enormous credit, isn’t about everything. It’s about one thing and always has been: Walter White’s calamitous path not from Mr. Chips to Scarface but from homeroom to the gates of hell. This framework has provided creator Vince Gilligan with a relentless, furious focus usually only possible after a few hits of the blue…every step he [Walter] has taken — from half-measures to full-on slaughter — we’ve taken right alongside him. We know exactly where we’re going because we’ve never lost sight of where we’ve been.
08.13.13 |
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Andy Greenwald, writing for Grantland, explains why Breaking Bad’s finale has the chance to end the show on a better note than some previous critically acclaimed shows (e.g. The Sopranos, Lost):
Breaking Bad, to its enormous credit, isn’t about everything. It’s about one thing and always has been: Walter White’s calamitous path not from Mr. Chips to Scarface but from homeroom to the gates of hell. This framework has provided creator Vince Gilligan with a relentless, furious focus usually only possible after a few hits of the blue…every step he [Walter] has taken — from half-measures to full-on slaughter — we’ve taken right alongside him. We know exactly where we’re going because we’ve never lost sight of where we’ve been.
08.09.13 |
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David Auerbach writing for Slate on Microsoft’s obsession with making Windows an essential part of the internet:
There was no room for a Stringer Bell–style dove to strike out and make a deal with an ambitious youngster like Marlo Stanfield (Google) or a wily long-standing rival like Proposition Joe (Apple) for a share of profits and a shot of innovation. (“It’s not even a thought, man,” Avon chided Stringer.) Why should they cut deals with the riff-raff? They had crushed Lotus, Novell, and Netscape. Office and Windows were stable, profitable behemoths. Sure, Linus Tovalds—aka Omar Little—was a perennial annoyance, robbing Microsoft of server profits by giving away Linux for free, but he didn’t threaten the main business.
Admittedly almost any piece that mixes in The Wire has my attention, but my mind’s a bit blown with this one.
08.07.13 |
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A terrific first person account from The A.V. Club’s TV editor Todd VanDerWerff, writing here for Grantland:
Through the rest of the evening, when people find out I was in Hall H, they ask me how it was, in terms you might usually reserve for a theme-park ride, and I have to admit that it was a lot of fun. But it doesn’t really last for me. It’s a series of carefully constructed moments, designed less to be long-lasting memories than in-the-moment staccato bursts of emotion. The reason to go to Hall H isn’t for the proximity to stars or the exclusivity of the footage — it’s to go to Hall H itself, to add this experience to the memory bank. For me, the day already begins to fog over, turning into a muggy haze.
08.02.13 |
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Director Nicolas Winding Refn, interviewed by The Dissolve:
Television has gotten much more aggressive, and much more mind-expanding and progressive than cinema, which is still the crown jewel, and will always be the crown jewel. We need to remember that cinema is not just about, “How much money did you make on Friday to Monday?” but also, “What is your actual interest?” Filmmaking is an art form, and the art can inspire. But if everyone’s afraid of standing out and risking polarization, which essentially means it’s a singular vision, then the world will become less interesting.
It’s a well spoken point. Among the film critics I follow on Twitter, TV discussion comes up again and again; we’re truly in a remarkable time period. I just haven’t seen film take the same risks over the last year or so, at least compared to years prior.
Alas, Refn’s “singular vision” reached a point of near parody in Only God Forgives. I’m generally a big fan of Refn’s work, and Only God Forgives is a visually striking, haunting film with a great Cliff Martinez score. But by the end the style excess and lack of dialogue felt suffocating.
06.28.13 |
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Matt Zoller Seitz on season six (warning, full article and my notes below contain spoilers for the season finale):
I’ll revisit this whole season again later this week and write an overview piece. For now this strikes me as Mad Men’s weakest season overall, often lacking the thematic, visual and rhythmic unity of seasons one through five – though there’s a chance that it’ll feel more complete and organized once I’ve had a chance to re-watch the entire thing. It might even seem to have a certain “drunk’s logic” to it, with the show flailing and lurching and stopping and starting like Don groping toward his epiphany.
I’m no critic, and nowhere near the TV intelligence of a master like Seitz, but I’d agree with his assessment. Thematic unity was something that when I think back to the earlier seasons was really prevalent: Don’s struggles in season one, the women characters being brought to the forefront in season two. Naturally when you get to know these characters after this much time, some jumping around in season six was expected. But not quite this much. And frankly, while the great acting helped a lot (reason number one this show remains clearly one of the best on televison) I didn’t buy Don’s ‘coming clean’ moment at all.
I still can’t wait to revisit those Peggy and Don scenes at a later date. Just phenomenal work. I have no idea where Matt Weiner will be taking us for the last season but I’m excited.