Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad (2008-2013, 5 seasons) is a neo-western-crime drama created and produced by Vince Gilligan, starring Bryan Craston as professor Walter White and Aaron Paul as the junker Jesse Pinkman, with Bob Odenkirk as lawyer Saul Goodman and Giancarlo Esposito as drog boss Gus Frig. Breaking Bad is considered one of the greatest tv series of all time. an American neo-western crime drama television series. BB is widely considered one of the best tv series of all times as he won a great number of awards, including 2 Golden Globes, 16 Primetime Emmy and 2 Critic’s Choice Awards.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the chimical genious Walter White, also professor in statal high school and father of a family, discovered he had cancer. With a son, Walter Jr who is disabled and a wife (Skyler), to provide for, Mr White decided to think how to make money in the short slice of lifetime he had remained. Mr White was indirectly introduced to the obscure drugs world thanks to his brother in law Hank Schreder- Skyler’s sister’s Marie husband, who was a DEA officer. Mr White with his former student Jesse Pinkman, a depraved young junkard, started to cook meth’s cristals, using a chemically perfect formula. Mr White’s product created many illusions between addicted and started to be widely required as the two become business partners in both cooking and selling met. This unexpected turn point in Mr White’s life brought him in contact with other drug dealers and mafia-cartels: torrents of money arrived in his pockets but also a great deal of violence, deaths and truble. Mr White is constantly risking to break apart with his family and relatives but he isn’t able to quit the only one job which pays well his magical skills. Jesse, on his hand, constantly manages to “survive himself”, and his friendship with Mr White opens new job opportunity as well as a promissed new type of lifestyle.

I’m currently watching this tv series - I’m through season 4, so don’t spoil it for me- but I’ve already feel the urge to write something about it.

• Breaking Bad combines perfectly drama and irony, affection and violence, being both hilarious and serious. The story is told by two different perspectives, Mr White’s and Jesse’s. Along the show, technical adjustments of the camera are made in a few points, expecially when Jesse is high. It is incredible how not even a single episode is banale or boring, you could keep watching BB forever.
• Both Craston and Paul are fantastic, they define perfectly the characters of Mr White and Jesse. Mr White’s facial expressions are formidable, such as Jesse’s rude tone of voice or his rapper walking style.
• The environment: Albuquerque is seen for good and for worst, from the desert-countryside paths to the city center and suburbs. Realistic and inclusive.
• Normal life is portrayed by Walter Jr whilst the bronx misadventures are more linked to Jesse’s experience. But Mr White and Jesse are simply to faces of the same reality, which cannot exist split apart one from the other.
• Secondary characters such as Skyler, Hank or Marie, are not so secondary: they have a strong personality and are active throughout the series. Their contribution change the curse of the story, which is quiet unique in this kind of crime-drama.
• An unspoken drug world. BB shows not only the production-distribution of drugs but also the effects on addicts, with its subsequent rehab or deaths.
• Mr White seems the perfect prototype of the intellectual or Mr Gus presents himself as a super-honest business man -with his loved “Los Pollos Hermanos” hamburger house- is, at the end of the day, the king of the meth-market. How can apparences be faked so well?

Tv series rating: 5/5 stars. A must see. 

The Post

The Post (2017) is a political thriller directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, starring Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, Bob Odenkirk (as Ben) and Sarah Paulson. A great cast, a great story. The Post is running for 2 statuettes at the 90th Academy Awards - Best Picture and Best Actress for Meryl, and it is already included in top 10 movies of the year list.

But is The Post as interesting as the critic claims?

Well, firstly let’s introduce the story: in the ‘70s the journal The Washington Post decided to post the sensitive and top secret docs of the controversial Pentagon Papers – regarding Vietnam’s war, after the Ny Times was put out the games because of an injunction that restrained reporter Neil Sheehan to continue publishing its investigation. It is the Post’s reporter Ben Bagdikian who produced a dangerous super-scoop in order to salve the reputation of the paper.

• This movie advocates the right to tell a story and the “constitutional” free press. Untrustworthy government and political uncertainties are the basis of this 70s crisis but are problems that clearly deal with nowadays administration.
• If I had to choose a great actress in order to portray the 70s’ only woman in the press room, which one I would choose? Meryl, you rock the house. Lucid performance and once again, nominated.
• The movie itself in spite the message and the theme covered, The Post is all but entertaining and funny, as the official critic liked to write black on white. Other journalistically/ inquire movies have been made recently, as Academy Award Winner in 2015 “Spotlight” or “Truth”, which were, in my opinion not only more “moving” but also more interesting in the storytelling. But Vietnam is Vietnam, right?
• Boring, boring and… BORING. Great cast, great director, good story. That’s not enough to make a good movie ! The scenes are too long, the narration is as slow as Dante climbing Purgatory’s hill. 
  The only one which outstanded, in my opinion was, Bob Odenkirk. My reaction when I first recognize him after years and years not seeing his face (remember lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad series?) was “oh god, how old is he now?”. That was the only moment when I’ve felt alive during this movie.

Movie rating: 1.5/5 stars- One point for Meryl, an half for the story.