That Thing You Do!

A Charming, Loving Piece of Americana

        Tom Hanks' debut as a writer and director is a tribute to a bygone era of both the American music industry, and the country itself. Set in the summer of 1964, That Thing You Do! tells the tale of a young rock band that writes and records an earworm of a pop tune that catapults them to stardom. The band is The Wonders (formerly The One-ders, trying to be as clever as The Beatles), fronted by songwriter and lead vocalist Jimmy (Jonathan Schaech), and featuring the talents of guitarist Lenny (Steve Zahn), an unnamed bass player (Ethan Embry) and jazz drummer Guy (Tom Everett Scott). They're accompanied on their journey to the top by Jimmy's doting girlfriend Faye (Liv Tyelr), and are eventually handled by Play-Tone Records manager Mr. White (Hanks).

        I wasn't around when The Beatles first made a splash in the United States, but Hanks' knowledge of, and exuberant enthusiasm for, that moment in time is evident. The Wonders play a showcase in Pittsburgh, a kind of American Idol on a more modest, charming scale that is no less a ticket to the big time. They make a cameo in a Frankie & Annette-style beach movie. They even get the chance to play a big television showcase that features astronaut Gus Grissom (Bryan Cranston). But most of all, it's the music, from the Oscar-nominated title tune, to The Wonders' B-sides and the catalogue of the other Play-Tone artists with whom they tour, all of the music sounds like some lost hit or novelty that went undiscovered until now. "That Thing You Do!" in particular is used over and over again, but it never grows tiring, and when the credits roll you'll find yourself searching iTunes for the soundtrack.

        Beyond the film's ability to crystalize this very particular moment in time, it also works on its own merits as a piece of cinema. The cast is perfect, from charming leading man Everett Scott (who is a dopplegänger for a young Hanks) to the hilarious Zahn, who delivers many of the film's funniest lines and contributes to the bubbly energy that pervades the proceedings. Hanks himself is an expected scene stealer as the slick Mr. White–"Have I told you boys you look fabulous in [insert color here]?" he's fond of saying before a performance–though he never overshadows the young talent at the focus of his story. The film is also expertly edited, and keeps things moving at a good clip throughout, making the whirlwind sensation that comes with being a one hit-wonder phenomenon all the more tangible to the audience. (A nice extended cut of the film exists on DVD, but is only recommended for fans).

        That Thing You Do! has an infectious energy that cannot be denied. I was first captured by its sunny magnetism eight years ago when I was home sick from school, and stumbled on this "Tom Hanks boy band movie" (which was the little that I knew of the film) on TV. It immediately became a favorite, and to this day I find myself listening to The Wonders' big hit song on loop. The film has an edge of reality to it, with a sobering but appropriate ending that shows the fate of the band, but that's part the charm. That Thing You Do! depicts a moment that could never have lasted, but preserves it as the joyous time that it was. 9/10

My Favorite Films of 2014

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. I've had two busy semesters of student filmmaking, and took the summer in between off from writing reviews. For my own sake, I thought I'd do a year end wrap-up, which I haven't done before. These are, in no particular order, my favorite films of 2014. There are still a good many films I've missed or have yet to see, so I may amend this list in the coming weeks.

The LEGO Movie
Phil Lord and Chris Miller's delightfully cheery and anarchic animated film was one of the most creative and touching movies I've had the experience of enjoying all year. From the wonderful cast (Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, and Morgan Freeman, to name a few) to the colorful and top-notch animation, The LEGO Movie is a new classic that, despite being based on a popular toy, is as thoughtful and moving as anything I've ever seen from Pixar.

Edge of Tomorrow
Doug Liman's sci-fi action film is probably the best film you weren't aware of this year. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt star in the Groundhog Day-esque film in which Cruise's cowardly character must relive the same events over again each time he dies, during an alien invasion. Like Groundhog Day, this film knows how to introduce humorous new twists each time you think it might outstay its welcome or grow stale. It's a fine showcase both for Cruise, playing against type as a slick rat forced into heroics, and for Blunt, who owns the role of a seasoned veteran who helps Cruise learn to fight the enemy. From head to toe, this film is much, much better than its bland title suggests.

22 Jump Street
Phil Lord and Chris Miller had quite the year, first by filling the void of February with The LEGO Movie, and then by making a repetitive, redundant action-comedy sequel that may top its predecessor. 22 Jump Street tells essentially the same story as 21 Jump Street (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum's undercover cops go to school and become/re-become friends), but the sequel is completely self-aware, and is perhaps the most meta film of the year. Filmmaking and sequel jokes abound, pointing out every cliche along the way, while Hill and Tatum (along with the rest of the cast) remain hilariously captivating. There's a creative energy in 22 Jump Street that overflows to such an extent that the end credits are the funniest part of an already consistently great comedy. I never thought I'd really be saying this, but can I have 23 Jump Street now?

Guardians of the Galaxy
I like the Marvel movies a lot, though they can be a bit forgettable from time to time. Guardians of the Galaxy is a comic book film swimming in personality, from Chris Pratt's swaggering Star-Lord, to the fantastic soundtrack of 60s and 70s pop and rock that gives it a groove that most other blockbusters lack. Guardians didn't blow me away with spectacle, or wildly exceed my expectations, but it's just so damn fun. Co-writer/director James Gunn is obviously having a blast with his ragtag group of title characters, including Bradley Cooper's scene-stealing Rocket Raccoon, and, I'm anxious to see where he takes them next.

The Imitation Game
Full disclosure, I'm a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch. Whether he's playing Sherlock Holmes or a fire-breathing dragon (especially if it's happening on The Colbert Report), I'm there. Well, not for The Fifth Estate, but that's another story. I probably would've liked The Imitation Game because of Cumberbatch alone, but the story of Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park working to break the Nazi Enigma code is so intriguing in its own right that the film excels even more when all involved turns out great work. Cumberbatch is particularly good as the unsocial and brilliant Turing, but Keira Knightly, Matthew Goode, and Mark Strong also bring wit and fire to their characters. Though a partial biopic about Turing (the film features some of his life at school and after the war), The Imitation Game functions as an excellent spy thriller, with the tension mounting throughout the narrative as lives hang in the balance. It's smart and thoroughly interesting entertainment.

Gone Girl
Wonderfully dark and cynical satire. That's what David Fincher's adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel is, in addition to a great mystery thriller. Rosamund Pike turns out a star-making performance as the titular missing spouse of Ben Affleck's Nick Dunne. Gone Girl is a biting look at marriage and the media (specifically that of the Nancy Grace kind) that is twisted fun, beginning to end. Just when you think you've figured out the mystery, the film pulls the rug out from under you, and you realize just how smart Fincher and (especially) Flynn are in weaving their tale. Gone Girl is a film best experienced with little to no knowledge of the plot or characters going in, so if you haven't seen it or read the book, you're in for a devilish treat.

Birdman
Now this is a unique film if there ever was one. It's the story of a once-successful superhero film star (Michael Keaton) attempting to resuscitate his career with a Broadway play written and directed by, and starring himself, and the battles, both real and imagined, that he faces in mounting it. Keaton is absolutely fantastic, and he's surrounded by an equally strong cast that includes Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Zach Galifianakis. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's direction and Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography are simply masterful, as the entire film is made to look like one long, continuous shot. It might sound like a gimmick, but it serves the story, and, above all, the performances. Birdman is an incredibly immersive film that should not be missed. It's a cinematic experience like no other I've had this year.

The Grand Budapest Hotel
I'm not a devout fan of Wes Anderson, but with the The Grand Budapest Hotel he's crafted a film that is my new favorite of his, as well as perhaps his most commercial film to date. Don't take that the wrong way, it has broad appeal because it's so charming, funny, and even thrilling. Anderson continues to exhibit a mastery of his own beautiful storybook visual style, and he provides Ralph Fiennes with a hilarious and nuanced character in Monsieur Gustave H., the concierge of the titular vacation spot. If you've yet to see The Grand Budapest, you won't be disappointed when you find it to be one of the funniest and most endearing films of the year. If I had to pick just one, this would be my absolute favorite of 2014.

The LEGO Movie

Not Your Average Product Placement

by Hunter Isham

        Months from now, when we're once again entrenched in the awards season releases that tend to fill up the year-end "best of" lists, don't be surprised if you find The LEGO Movie alongside those prestige pictures. It is, without question, one of the most imaginative films I have seen in quite some time, more than earning its right to exist despite being a giant commercial that will no doubt sell millions of LEGO sets. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the writer/directors of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and directors of 21 Jump Street (and this year's upcoming 22 Jump Street), have created a film that is fast, funny, and creative in the way you would expect a Pixar release to be, although with an extra dash of subversive and satirical humor for the grown-ups.
        Taking place in the LEGO universe, the story centers on Emmet, a construction worker who is more than content with his life in the corporate-run, homogenized world he inhabits. Before long, he is mistaken for a Master Builder (one of a group who build things with their creativity rather than instructions) known as "the Special," and he sets off on an adventure to stop the evil Lord Business from using a secret weapon to bring about the end of the world. Although The LEGO Movie's plot may seem ripped from about a dozen other blockbusters, that's part of the point, as it subverts conventions with its wit, and dazzles with a unique visual style.
        An ingenious combination of stop-motion and computer generated animation (though mostly the latter) makes the film look as though these were real, tangible LEGO pieces that happen to move and talk on their own. Imagine if Toy Story's Buzz and Woody were truly photo realistic, and that's what The LEGO Movie delivers. It's an interesting approach that becomes more and more relevant to the story as it progresses, and it never distracts in the way having such realism in a Pixar film might. I would wager that for most audience members, this will be the first time since 1995's Toy Story that they are shocked to see what truly looks like toys come alive. Of course, one of the key's to Pixar's characters coming to life is the wonderful casts the studio always assembles, and Lord and Miller have done the same for their block-buster.
        Chris Pratt brings his heart, humor, and charming naiveté to Emmet, making him a frequently entertaining and intriguing protagonist who finds himself in the role of an unlikely hero. If you're at all familiar with Pratt's work on Parks and Recreation, you will not be disappointed by his work in LEGO form. Morgan Freeman is similarly cast with his past work in mind, as he voices the sage-like Vitruvius, a character who might as well be Gandalf or Obi-Wan Kenobi with the voice of Bruce Almighty's God. Vitruvius is an excellent send-up of the wise old man character found in so many hero stories, and Freeman plays up the character's absurdity without losing his gravitas. Will Arnett brings LEGO Batman to life with a deadpan and egomaniacal delivery that will make you wish he had his own film, as he steals scene after scene. Elizabeth Banks, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, and Will Ferrell round out a central cast of characters that are just as fun and captivating as their compatriots (Brie in particular does great work as a unicorn/cat combination who struggles to stay upbeat through the dangerous adventure).
        The LEGO Movie is, plain and simple, joyous fun with a good deal of heart packed in for good measure. It does what few big movies do these days by taking you on an adventure that feels wholly original despite it's origins not just in a toy, but in all the films it lampoons and to which it pays homage. The charming characters go a long way toward making The LEGO Movie the film that it is, but the sly sense of humor that Lord and Miller bring to the table truly puts it over the top. The vocal talent's they've assembled are known for their collective work on Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and Community, and trust me when I say that The LEGO Movie fits in perfectly with those deliriously funny comedies. It's a rarity for a movie for the entire family to truly operate on different levels, reaching audience members of all ages, but that's exactly what The LEGO Movie does, and it does so with ease. Cynical moviegoers tend to groan at the appearance of yet another sequel or movie based on a toy or board game, but if the next film in the LEGO franchise arrives with the same creative spark of this first installment, I'll greet it with enthusiasm and an ever-growing itch to dig out my old LEGO kits. 9/10

A Few Extra Thoughts...

Explaining Mr. Banks

by Hunter Isham

        Outside of the formal review, I'd like to say that some of the criticism lobbed at Saving Mr. Banks is quite unfair, the most egregious of which is that the Disney Company has created a film to whitewash its own history. Kelly Marcel's screenplay was written for producer Alison Owen without any assistance from or cooperation with Disney, right down to the many Poppins song references woven throughout the film. Once landing on the annual Hollywood Blacklist (the top un-produced screenplays, as voted on by producers and executives), it garnered Disney's attention, and went on to be produced with very few changes. How do I know this? I've read a draft of Saving Mr. Banks written before it was purchased by Disney, and the film that was made is virtually the same as the one on the page from more than two years ago. This is all to say that you can call Banks revisionist history about Disney by Disney, but it was neither commissioned nor destroyed by the corporate machine. The film would never have been made without the company's consent, and given the intellectual property used onscreen, not to mention Walt Disney appearing as a character, that consent would never have been given to an outside entity. Disney can only be blamed for bankrolling the film's production, and marketing it to the masses, but not for writing (or rewriting) it. Saving Mr. Banks is hardly propaganda, but it is a soft-edged version of history that, like most movies, gets some things right and some things wrong, but it's all done in the name of the story. I can't claim that it's a perfect film, but it does what it sets out to do very effectively, and if anyone beside Disney had made this film, the vitriol would likely be minimal, allowing the craft to take center stage. Banks doesn't deify Walt Disney and the people behind the film Mary Poppins, but it shows they had a passion for making a great film, which they ultimately did, but it also makes clear that the film would not be as it is without the input of P.L. Travers.
        The notion of film being revisionist history is a touchy subject in general, but I think both the subject matter and the medium must be taken into account. First of all, a narrative film should first and foremost tell a story, and should that story be a true one, we can only hope that it's told with as much accuracy as possible, but not so much that it's to the detriment of the narrative. The phrase "based on a true story" should be taken seriously, so it should not come as a surprise when a real event portrayed on screen has been altered in someway. A textbook or documentary can be held to a higher standard, and a narrative film can be if claiming to tell the absolute truth, but that is rarely the case. Although I don't recall "based on a true story" being present at the beginning of Saving Mr. Banks, it's present in the marketing campaign, and the film has been sold as no more accurate than any other. I would expect a film like Lincoln to be more meticulously detailed and accurate than Saving Mr. Banks, but ultimately what matters in any story is what it all means. Every film, no matter how arty or trashy, has some kind of theme or purpose, be it as simple as friendship, or as complicated as communicating the vexing qualities of the ever-changing landscape of geopolitics. The fact that Saving Mr. Banks manages to be about more than the events portrayed on screen is commendable. It makes its easily stereotyped characters human and it says something about the creative process. Earlier this year, an independent biopic about Steve Jobs was pounced on for simply being dull. I haven't seen it, but it apparently has no real reason to exist, as it offers the audience nothing new or insightful about its main character. A film must command an audience's attention, otherwise we'd all walk out of the movies asking why we just wasted two hours of our respective lives. When a film rewrites history without lying about it, it hopefully serves the story. I'll trust the audience to be smart enough to figure that out.

Saving Mr. Banks

Disney Does Disney

by Hunter Isham

        I've been drinking the Walt Disney Company kool-aid since before I could read and write, so my interest level in Saving Mr. Banks, the film that tells the story of how Walt Disney finally got Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers to sign over the film rights to her books, was fairly high both during its production and leading up to its release. Although I can see its shortcomings, I was absolutely charmed by its excellent cast and surprisingly nuanced screenplay. Banks comes not just from the family-friendly, whitewash machine that is the Mouse House, but also from John Lee Hancock, director of the good yet overrated The Blind Side, so the potential for this film to get too sappy for its own good was never out of the realm of possibilities. However, Hancock and his team have delivered a film that manages to fit the Disney mold while delivering a story with real meaning.

        Anyone expecting Banks to be a story about Walt Disney, or even about the film Mary Poppins, will be in for a rude awakening, as it looks to Mrs. Travers and recalls how her childhood in Australia inspired her writing later in life. These flashbacks to a kind, young-at-heart father with a terrible drinking problem help to shade Travers' fierce protective attitude toward Walt and his creative staff when they attempt to pitch her on their vision of her stories for the big screen. She fears that old Uncle Walt will turn her stern flying nanny into a twinkly cartoon, and she simply cannot abide by cartoons. That sentiment seems at once silly and horridly uptight, but the film avoids the caricatures that Travers and Disney could so easily be portrayed as with a script that is brought to wonderful three-dimensional life by a stellar cast.

        Emma Thompson is fantastic as the aggressively dour Mrs. Travers, bringing a warmth and logic to the author's feelings and actions that make her simultaneously sympathetic and charmingly annoying. Thompson knows just how much heart to bare, and just how much to cover up, making the subject of her portrayal a misunderstood person worth rooting for, no small feat when her adversary is Walt Disney himself. Tom Hanks brings a similar balance to the legendary animator and mogul, showing him as a businessman, public persona, storyteller, and, ultimately, a human being. Although Hanks looks nothing like Disney, and doesn't sound much like him either, he slips the persona on like a glove, and disappears despite his own iconic traits as an actor. Colin Farrell is wonderful as Travers' playful but troubled father, bringing humor and depth to a role that could easily have been two-dimensional. Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak perfectly inhabit the roles of Mary Poppins writer Don DaGradi and the songwriting Sherman brothers, respectively, conveying the honest exasperation that comes from trying to please two artists at opposite ends of an opinionated spectrum. Paul Giamatti is warm and pleasant as Travers' driver Ralph, a character whose daily cheer would have been hard to endure were it brought to life by a lesser talent.

        Such a strong ensemble would be wasted were it not for Kelly Marcel's screenplay*, a work that perfectly straddles the line between honest emotion and sentimentality, something the best of Disney entertainment has done for decades. It humanizes both P.L. Travers and Walt Disney, the former as a strong-willed individual whose difficult past colored her future, the latter as a businessman who serves imagination before profitability. She could have been a shrew, and he could have just been the charming television persona audiences knew from The Wonderful World of Disney. There are certainly moments when the story and its events can be presented as just a bit too on-the-nose, yet with the characters handled with such deft care, Saving Mr. Banks manages to be about something more than its purportedly "untold story." It's about catharsis, specifically that which can come through storytelling and imagination. Hanks delivers a knockout of a monologue near the film's conclusion that, though most likely fictionalized**, explains Disney and Travers' bond as artists who seek to right the wrongs of the world, to deal with life's regrets through inspiration and invention. The Walt Disney Company has, in a sense, done this with Saving Mr. Banks, clarifying its history without totally rewriting it. The story onscreen may not be completely real, but the people that inhabit it certainly feel real, and that's all that I could ask. 9/10

*Also credited is writer Sue Smith, but my understanding is that she wrote a more all-encompassing script about Travers' life that went un-produced, and was ultimately used more as a research tool for Marcel, and perhaps was partially repurposed in pieces for the flashback sequences in this film. When all is said and done, Saving Mr. Banks is Marcel's work.

**The circumstances of the scene are likely invented for the film, not its content, which involves to Walt's childhood in Missouri.

Frozen

Wonderfully Familiar, Refreshingly Progressive

by Hunter Isham

        It's been a while since Walt Disney Animation Studios turned out a picture that lives up to the legacy of its renaissance in the early 1990s. Truthfully, I think the last feature produced solely by WDAS that I saw theatrically was 2008's Bolt, as it was the first film released after Pixar's John Lasseter was named the head of the Mouse House's original animation division (plus it was well-reviewed, a rarity for Disney films at the time). I've heard good things about Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph, but with Frozen, Walt Disney Animation seems to finally come full circle in its own evolution, delivering a film that is befitting of the Disney name while pushing its traditional fairytale model in a progressive new direction.

        Loosely adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, the film tells the story of Anna and Elsa, the princesses of Arendelle, a norse kingdom. Elsa (Idina Menzel) is born with powers to manipulate the cold, creating ice, snow, etc..., and her parents make the decision to close off their family from the outside world to hide and protect her as she learns to cope with her ever-strengthening powers. Anna (Kristen Bell), the younger of the two, is kept in the dark about her sister's abilities, and is left with a life of optimistic solitude while she grows up as a practically only child. Years later, following a coronation gone wrong, Elsa flees into the mountains as Anna chases after, taking what starts as a generic Disney princess tale and turning it into a story about sisters finding each other for the first time since childhood.

        There's a prince, as well as a handsome mountain man (Jonathan Groff), not to mention the expected yet charming and thankfully restrained comic relief in the form of a snowman (Josh Gad) and a reindeer named Sven. They all play their important roles in the film's success, but nothing in Frozen plays out as you'd expect. Without spoiling the plot, I can say that this film is not just another Disney film about a princess finding the man of her dreams. You may not believe me midway through, or even in the film's climactic moments, but when the credits roll, you can look back at the story and see that every cliche was carefully placed to aid in subverting your expectations. If Disney has to keep making fairytale princess films, this is how it should be done.

        The more modern touch provided by the characters' dynamics may be what refreshes the potentially stale elements of the Disney formula, but one element worth retaining and restoring that Frozen excavates with ease and care is a soundtrack full of original songs that approaches the quality of the Ashman/Menken scores of the Disney Renaissance. Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez provide the film with wonderfully catchy tunes, beautifully performed by Bell and Menzel. "For the First Time in Forever," a duet between the isolated sisters, and "Let It Go," a power ballad expressing Elsa's freedom, are standouts. Menzel's fantastic voice brings the same passion she delivered on stage in Wicked to the latter song, an early favorite for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards. The one true complaint I have about Frozen's songs is that there are too few of them, as the film turns into more of an adventure than a musical as it progresses, but it's a minor quibble when Disney's tuneful toons are increasingly fewer and farther between.

        The one part of this film that left me a bit cold (sorry), was the resolution to its overall conflict. There's some business about an eternal winter that's hastily solved with an explanation that is one step too far into fantasyland than is logical, but it hardly tarnishes the events that lead up to it. The film's emotional arc between the two sisters is the real story here, and its resolution is absolutely wonderful. I was continually afraid Frozen would slip into its predecessors' old habits, but romance takes a back seat to a different kind of relationship that is no less loving. No film can ever replace The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast, but if Disney wants to keep making princess films, Frozen is an argument for its ability to evolve without losing its identity. Some may criticize the studio for churning out another safe storybook movie, but I for one am happy to see Disney making a film that feels new and old in all the right ways. 8.75/10

Breaking Bad

Originally posted to the DMI Review on 9/30/13

This is the story of Walter Hartwell White.

by Hunter Isham

        On January 20, 2008, following the critical success of Mad Men, the basic cable movie channel AMC premiered its second scripted original series. This show, pitched to the general public as a drama about a high school chemistry teacher stricken with terminal lung cancer who decides to cook crystal meth to leave his family financially secure, has surpassed its 1960s ad man predecessor in acclaim and, arguably, cultural resonance. Breaking Bad is now hailed as one of the greatest television series ever to be broadcast, and I can hardly disagree. It's exciting, moving, and an experience that can never be forgotten. September 29, 2013 saw Breaking Bad air its series finale, bringing to a close a story that will outlive both its creators and its current audience, and few television shows can claim to be as daring and satisfying as this one was.
        Created by Vince Gilligan, a writer for The X-Files, and starring Malcom in the Middle actor Bryan Cranston as teacher Walter White, Breaking Bad seemed like a curiosity when it premiered. Although there was acclaim, I was certainly among the crowd who had no interest in the subject matter, and the season one promotional art (seen above) only made me raise in eyebrow and think "what?". Add to this characters like Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman, a former student turned drug dealer whom Walt turns to for help who has a propensity for calling people "bitch," and I was absolutely certain I would never watch this show. I have a tendency to think I'll never like things I eventually love (see: The West Wing, The Simpsons, all action movies), but thank goodness I'm not too stubborn to give something a try. Breaking Bad broke open a world of characters and events that is as addicting as the methamphetamine Walt and Jesse spend so many hours cooking.
        Breaking Bad is the kind of show that is best unspoiled, even with the vaguest of summaries, so for the purposes of this reflection/recommendation, I'll try to keep it simple. Walter White breaks bad and cooks meth with Jesse Pinkman, but that's not all there is to the story. Walt has a pregnant wife, a son with cerebral palsy, and a brother-in-law in the DEA. This may sound more like a miniseries than a full-fledged television show; after all, how long can Walt and Jesse cook in an RV (once more, check the above ad)? Well, this show is all about change, something Vince Gilligan pitched the show with, and the story and characters certainly evolve. There are dealers, hitmen, kingpins, cartels, and so much more than you could possibly imagine. It's mind blowing to think of how the show started when you see how it all ends, and that's an unbelievable achievement.
        Gilligan and Cranston have thrown around a certain phrase every time they're interviewed: "We'll take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface." This was the former's pitch to the latter for the role of Walter White, and it's an unofficial motto of the show. Walt begins as a meek man struggling to live the boring life he's wound up with, and his show-opening 50th birthday is only a sad reminder of that fact. His lung cancer diagnosis, though apparently a death sentence, is when he truly wakes up and does something. This is a central arc in Breaking Bad, and it's perhaps the one quality that keeps us watching (and for some, rooting for) Walt as he embarks on a journey that changes his entire universe, making him much more than just your average anti-hero.
         Breaking Bad has cemented itself as one of the greatest television series of all time, and unquestionably the best that I have ever seen. I may have my sentimental favorites, but I have to respect the riveting, unwavering quality on display here. So much happens over the course of Breaking Bad's five season, six year run*, involving so many characters and events worthy of analysis and dissectoin, that more deserves to be said than what I can provide here. Jesse Pinkman alone could warrant more discussion than most lead characters on television. Everything that happens and every character that makes a memorable entrance and exit are a part of the greater whole of this series, but it's undeniably a show with a single element at its core. Breaking Bad is the story of Walter Hartwell White, a desperate man who found salvation in change.

P.S. I tried to recommend this series as strongly as I could without giving away much more than the basic premise. I hope those of you who have not yet given Breaking Bad a try seek it out. It's wholly worth your time, and I can't think of a series (of those I've seen) that better exemplifies the notion that we're currently in a golden age of television. Breaking Bad is quite simply the kind of accomplishment that the medium will likely not see again for some time.

*AMC extended the fifth season's 13 episode order to 16, and aired them over two years (8 in 2012, 8 in 2013).