Directed by
Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud
Rating:
Monday, 8 July 2013
After plowing through the first 5½ seasons of Breaking Bad (the greatest TV show of all time), I’ve made a startling discovery: It has a prequel. Most fans of the show do not know this, but in 1995, a motion picture was released that profiled the lives of Walt, Jesse, and everyone else roughly one decade before their forays into the treacherous world of crystal meth, RVs, ATM machines, and zesty slow-cooked chicken.
That motion picture from 1995? You guessed it: Clueless (the greatest movie of all time). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Clueless is the prequel to Breaking Bad.
Was there a secret fraternization between Amy Heckerling and Vince Gilligan that foreshadowed the way their characters would develop? Did they disagree about what was a more valuable commodity in life – crystal meth or an Alaïa? (For those who do not know, that is a “totally important designer.”) Did they have confrontations about which vehicle was more rad, a Jeep or a Pontiac Aztec? They clearly had different opinions about what constitutes great literature (Walt Whitman vs. Mel Gibson), commercials (Los Pollos Hermanosvs. Mentos), and popular colloquialisms (“Yo!” vs. “As if!”).
Do you still not believe me? Let’s consider the central characters in both:
Mr. Walter White and Mr. Wendall Hall
Both are middle-aged, unhappy, bald high school teachers. Both of them fail to motivate their students, in spite of their enthusiasm about the subjects they teach (chemistry and speech, respectively). Neither of them earn significant sums of money (Mr. White has to work a second job at a car wash and Mr. Hall “earns minor ducats at a thankless job.”) In spite of their middle-aged angst and decided lack of masculinity, both are fundamentally low-key, family-oriented men (this doesn’t change the fact that they both need “a good healthy boinkfest.”)
Now, the real question: What could drive these ordinary, friendly, slightly nerdy and square teachers to a life of crime and running from the law? The answer lies in unexpected relationships with their former pupils.
Jesse Pinkman and Travis Birkenstock
During high school, Jesse Pinkman and Travis Birkenstock did not exactly light the world on fire. Jesse failed the chemistry class he took with Mr. White, while Travis had 38 tardies in Mr. Hall’s speech class. Jesse’s parents threw him out of the house multiple times, while Travis’ parents forced him to take the bus to school.
But their biggest similarity is their use of recreational drugs. Jesse is seen using drugs of all varieties, while Travis a “roadie” who offerspot to Cher and Tai when they come to the val party. Of course, we eventually discover that Jesse is a meth dealer, while Travis . . . well, it’s not incomprehensible to believe that at some point he has been a seller of illegal substances. Both join AA to try to curb their habits, but it doesn’t ever reallytake. Both are capable of causing tremendous harm, as when Jesse singlehandedly causes a major plane crash, while Travis ruins Cher’s shoes at the val party.
The desperation of Mr. White and Mr. Hall leads them to team up with Jesse and Travis to endeavor on building a drug empire in the American southwest. Their unlikely partnerships somehow bring out the best in each of them.
They each strive to be drug lords to support the women they love:
Skyler White and Ms. Geist
Both Skyler and Ms. Geist help solve disasters: For Skyler, it’s the accounting disaster at Beneke Fabricators, and for Ms. Geist, it’s the Pismo Beach disaster.
Jane Margolis and Tai Frasier
Jane and Tai both love the “bad boy” (hence, their affinity for “Rollin’ with the Homies”) so naturally they are both powerfully attracted to Jesse and Travis. And for a little while, it appears that they improve the ever-tortured lives of their boyfriends. But the sad reality is that this happiness is ephemeral, as lethal drug overdoses tragically cut their relationships short (although Tai did not OD, Brittany Murphy did).
Saul Goodman and Mel Horowitz
Mr. White and Jesse/Mr. Hall and Travis need solid legal expertise to get their drug operations out of sticky situations with authorities. Enter Saul (“Better call Saul!”) Goodman and Mel (“Get out of my chair!”) Horowitz. Both are lawyers who have no hesitation in going all out for their clients, whether that means hiding drug money behind the walls of their office or pulling an all-nighter at the house (with a quick Subway break). There are minor differences – Saul advises clients to avoid IRS scrutiny by investing in paintball arenas and nail salons, while Mel indulges his own money in his luxurious home (dating back to 1972) and ClaesOldenburg sculptures.
So who precisely are the federal authorities that Saul and Mel assist our heroes in getting away from?
Hank Schrader and Rude DMV Guy
Hank Schrader is the Assistant Special Agent with the Albuquerque branch of the Drug Enforcement Administration. By all accounts, he is the biggest badass at the DEA due to his relentless quest for the legendary meth cook Heisenberg. Of course, unbeknownst to Hank, Heisenberg is none other than his own brother-in-law, meek Walter White.
Rude DMV Guy claims that he is the “messiah of the DMV.” When Cher takes her driving test, he refuses to take her to practice lefthand turns. He has a relentless quest to prevent automobile accidents and bad driving, but unbeknownst to him, Cher is a “virgin who can’t drive.”
Walt and Jesse confide in Saul Goodman to elude the tight grasp of the DEA. Cher confides in her father to pay her parking tickets. In each case, the authorities prove incompetent in making the streets of the city any safer – from both Heisenberg’s blue crystal as well as from reckless teenage drivers.
Gale Boetticher and Josh
Gale and Josh are both environmentally-conscious self-described “nerds” who would rather curl up with a book by Walt Whitman or Nietzsche than indulge in the lavish lifestyles of crystal meth dealing or corporate law. Both love coffee (Josh is told by his ex-stepsister, “You don’t want to be the only one at the coffee house without chin pubes”) and both are eager to learn from their beloved protégés – Walter White and Mel Horowitz. But their most important similarity: Their less-than-stellar dancing skills. Josh dances with Tai so she won’t feel so bad after doing this, while Gale’s dancing skills have already been immortalized forever. Gale gives me a toothache.
Skinny Pete and Badger, and Murray and Lawrence
Skinny Pete and Badger are ambiguously close BFFs who also work as drug dealers and part-time friends to Jesse Pinkman. Murray and Lawrence are ambiguously close BFFs who shave each other’s heads and cause Murray’s relationship with Dionne to be like “that Ike and Tina Turner movie.”
Wendy, the crack whore at the motel, and Amber
Wendy and Amber are both girls who come from the wrong side of the tracks (definitely not Betties) and end up as powerfully visceral illustrations of what happens when you abuse drugs (you end up turning tricks) and when you abuse clothing (you end up being “fashion victim.” Or is it “ensembly challenged?”) Wendy is shown having an insatiable appetite for root beer, Amber has an appetite for copying Cher’s wardrobe. And both see no end to jokes about balls flying in their faces. But hey, whatever!
Tuco Salamanca and Elton
Tuco and Elton are both bad-temperedmembers of the elite class who have no qualms in demonstrating their wealth and superiority to those with less power. Tuco is the nephew of Hector Salamanca (AKA “Tio”) and has really only attained his status as the meth kingpin of Albuquerque as a result of his familial ties to the Mexican drug cartel. Elton, “a snob and a half,” is the son of some rich guy everybody should automatically know without asking who can apparently get tickets to everything. Both yield their power in reckless ways leading, in one case, to a spectacular demise, and in the other, a sexual rejection (I’ll let you guess which is which). Now, if they could only find their Cranberries album.
Bogdan, the car wash owner, and the Guy Who Robs Cher
In season four, when Walt and Skyler attempt to buy the car wash from Bogdan, he refuses to accept their offer of $800,000 and demands an absurdly high selling price of $20 million. Both of these robberies are abhorrent.
The Honduran women at the meth lab who get deported because of Walt, and Lucy, the El Salvadoran Maid
Ted Beneke and the Rude Lawyer in Suspenders
Whether it’s refusing to pay the IRS in back taxes or refusing to celebrate the semi-incestuous love between two teenagers, neither of these losers comes close to being a Baldwin.
Los Pollos Hermanos and The Mall
When you feel impotent and out of control (which you really hate), you need to find sanctuary in a place where you can gather your thoughts and regain your strength. In Los Angeles, that place is the mall; in Albuquerque, that place is Los Pollos Hermanos.
Obviously, there are some glaring omissions from both (Where are Cher and Dionne in Breaking Bad? Who are the Clueless equivalents of Gustavo, Mike Ehrmantraut, and, of course, Tio Salamanca?) But if these comparisons were any closer, Breaking Bad and Clueless would literally be the same thing, and as Cher and Josh’s romantic liaison demonstrates, being part of the same thing is sometimes definitely not a good thing.
So, in conclusion, Vince Gilligan must be a big fan of Clueless. But are there other movies or TV shows that he must have watched and loved to find inspiration for the characters and events in Breaking Bad? Thoughts or disagreements about this potentially unexpectedly compelling comparison? Let me know below before I start feeling like totally buggin’.
The beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Saturday, 15 June 2013
There are very few times that I have felt this connected to film characters. Richard Linklater’s beautiful, heartfelt, two-decades and counting romantic saga has taken a generation of filmgoers and swept them off their feet. At no point do Jesse and Celine overstay their welcome with the audience. At no point do they fall out of reality. They are absolutely relatable and true at all times. I could watch these characters forever.
Finally, we get to the third chapter (and I pray that it is not the last). We drop in on Celine and Jesse in Greece. By drop in, I mean just that. It is not some artificial meeting or any event that we have been looking forward to seeing. It is dropping us into a day in the life of the most irresistible couple in modern movie history. To avoid spoilers and maybe ruining the experience of Sunset for you, I will stay away from details.
Before Sunrise (1995)
I was too young to watch this movie at any time close to its release, but it still was able to place its hooks on my heart and not let go. We first meet Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) on a train bound for Vienna. They meet, talk briefly, and somehow develop an attraction to each other that neither one can really explain. They spend the entire night in deep conversation, learning the most intimate details about one another and their thoughts on the world, all leading up an early morning checkpoint when they must part ways. Every moment of the film is authentic and somehow exhilarating. Maybe that is just my obsession with dialogue-heavy scripts, but these characters are just so real. Jesse is sort of an asshole. Celine is extremely bitchy. Together, they are perfect and they would not take it any other way. Neither would we.
What is most interesting about this film is how the film was able to speak to a generation. The back of the DVD says that it is “a valentine to young love forever”, which is something that has always stuck with me. It is messy, frustrating, naïve, and yet incredibly beautiful. There is a time when they are in the play room at a record store listening to a Nina Simone song and there are no words spoken. The camera just shows their faces, their expressions, and their reactions. If you watch this scene alone, you will know what these characters are all about. The performances are so indelible and genuine. If I didn’t know better, I would think that they are playing themselves and they were in love. They become these characters, and they never let me completely stop thinking about them.
The film ends in a way where their fate is somewhat unknown. We ache for a film to check in with them six months later. We need to know whether they continue the romance, whether they did the deed, whether they truly were as inseparable as they were for those fleeting hours in Vienna. Luckily enough, Linklater felt the same way.
Before Sunset (2004)
Now, it was after this film came out that I caught up on the series. I watched them back-to-back, which some will think may have ruined or skewed the experience, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Sunrise can stand alone as its own film, and if I did not know that there was going to be a look-in on Jesse and Celine every nine years, then I could have stood the pain of the uncertainty. I could not have done that for almost a decade knowing that there was more to the story.
Sunset takes place in Paris nine years after the original encounter. Jesse is on a book tour promoting the story of his chance encounter with a French girl and how they fell in love under the stars in Vienna. Celine hears about it and shows up at the bookstore just an hour or so before Jesse has to catch a flight back to New York. They use that brief time to talk, explain, commiserate, and again engage in deep conversation. The two characters are made for each other, and the actors (both co-writers on the film with Linklater) have lived with the characters for almost a decade and perfected their back stories and made this film, shot in real-time, an absolutely beautiful blur. The dialogue is just as poignant and insightful. The story is even more believable and sound. This movie is some kind of miracle.
What makes this film so interesting is that it would not exist without the first film. It seems almost impossible for this film to make any sense without viewing Sunrisefirst. Yet somehow, this may be the best of the trilogy. Maybe it is the real time. Maybe it is the fact that this movie is both heartbreaking and hopeful. Maybe it is because the actors finally show some real emotion. Maybe it is the romantic backdrop of Paris. Maybe it is the current situations of the Jesse and Celine that cause the conflict. Maybe it is just admiration and fulfillment of our thirst for wanting to know what happened to them. No, it is every one of these things and more.
The film ends in a way that is impossible to describe without ruining it. It is the ends of the films that really make the series so astounding and hard to let go. This film in particular has one of the best endings in film history. It fades out right before something is about to happen, leaving the audience to create their own ideas. Is Jesse a romantic? Are we romantics? This film will make you decide.
Before Midnight (2013)
The movie has a slightly different format than the previous two. In those, Jesse and Celine were essentially the only characters with more than a line or two in the film. This one starts out differently, and one of those deep conversations they typically engage in actually takes place at a dinner table with six other people. This is the crucial scene in the movie. We see how they interact with other people. We see their past experiences have shaped them and how they have grown since. We see in their performances everything we need to know to catch up with their story. It is a remarkable scene that I can only describe as being Sideways-esque, which if you don’t know, is about the best compliment I can give a film.
The format eventually focuses in on the characters and we get those details we wanted. We also see these characters really open up for maybe the first time. They are so self-deprecating and personal when they fight. We see how unhappy with life Celine is and how sarcastic Jesse is. We see glimpses of the couple that met 18 years prior in Vienna, but that spark and the ambition of the characters has almost completely faded out. The fights are excruciating to watch and easy to relate to. It is like watching The Puffy Chair or Your Sister's Sister. We feel the pain that they do, and so many harbored feelings are revealed that have been haunting them for years. The audience is frustrated, the characters are furious. The final half hour or so of this film, taking place almost solely in a hotel room, is drama at its finest. Sorry if this is corny, but Judd Apatow…THIS is 40.
The performances in this film are even better than the previous two. In those, Delpy basically stole the show. In this film, though, the emotional ante is upped in a major way. Delpy breaks our hearts as the seemingly coldhearted and paranoid Celine. Hawke continues use his passive aggressive comments to come off like the good guy but making it clear that he is has ulterior motives in his statements. Hawke should do more movies like this. He is the absolute best with dialogue-based movies (see Linklater’s Tape if you aren’t simply convinced by these three films).
I have never really been haunted by a movie quite like I was after watching this movie. I was thinking about it the rest of the day. It probably ruined the next movie I watched because it was still in my head. It takes so much more out of the audience to watch this. The true feelings are shown. The first two films were romantic and brief. This film is gut-wrenching and frustrating. Somehow, Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy are able to make another near-flawless ending. Again, it happens right before something is about to happen, but if you know as much about these characters as I do, you can almost figure what their fate is. All three films have an ending that could stand as the end of the series, but I cannot help but selfishly hope for more. They have done a remarkable job at not making any of these films seem forced or overly cinematic. They are almost like documentaries, dropping in on their lives and revealing details in ways that are not obvious or trite. Looking at the trilogy, for me it stands as the second best ever. I do not think it is over, though. Come 2022, I am sure that we will be seeing the quick development of another flawless masterpiece checking in on Jesse and Celine at age 50. I know I say things like this a lot, but I honestly cannot wait to see where it goes from here. I will be first in line.
Rating: 4 stars
Friday, 14 June 2013
Directed by
Shane Black
'Twas the night before the Man of Steel premiere
And where am I found?
At the movie theatre of course,
But not to see Superman hit the ground.
As the lines start to build
For the late Superman show
I'm there for a different superhero
One most fans already know
For I was just catching Iron Man
The third installment you see
"Better late than never"
Was my viewing decree
As I entered the theatre
Six weeks after its release
I did not expect a crowd
I'd watch my movie in peace
In fact there was one other guy
Seated before the movie had begun
He said, "Someone else hasn't seen this?
Good, I'm not the only one."
As Iron Man 3 began
We saw Tony Stark at Christmas time
He is busy building suit after suit
Fully prepared to stop the latest crime
He's having many struggles
With anxiety and sleep
Remember The Avengers
And the peace he had to keep?
In fact just the mention of aliens
Or anything with The Avengers saga
Make Tony Stark freak out
Seriously, he goes gaga
Throw into the scenario
A terrorist who is mad
He calls himself The Mandarin
Trust me, this guy is bad
While Tony continues to struggle
Dealing with his past
He tries to find The Mandarin
While Pepper wonders how he'll last
Iron Patriot helps out,
That's War Machine's new name
The government re-vamped him
Trying to garner him more fame
As places continue to be bombed
Without a sign of any bomb parts
Tony tries to figure it out
Using his dry and witty smarts
Then The Mandarin hits too close to home
Really, really close in fact
Like literally destroys his house
The odds against Tony are stacked.
Stark is forced to rediscover
His motives behind it all
Why he hides behind the mask
What caused his latest downfall?
When the film comes to its end
And the credits have begun
One thought rolls through your mind
"Man, these films are fun!"
Does it live up to the others?
The first two were so great!
It probably falls a little short
Which was its inevitable fate
It is hard for this to try and eclipse
The legend of 1 & 2
Add to that the landmark Avengers
What more could this film do?
It was able to continue the story
Of the incomparable Iron Man
Thanks to Robert Downey, Jr.
Tony Stark will always stand.
There's never been a better role
More suited for one dude
Than Robert Downey and Tony Stark
They have the same temperament and mood!
So where does Iron Man go from here
After installment number three?
Obviously, The Avengers 2
Which fills my heart with glee!
And looking forward, who really knows
How many Iron Man's there'll be
I say they make as many as they want
As long as they star Mr. Downey.
Rating: 3 stars
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