Posts from Recently viewed movies.

Well, the Backrooms, as I understand it, is basically a rather vast and trippy universe with a variety of creative visions. Overall, it's a decent mid-tier experience.

Though among recent horror games, Obsession is more to my taste. A solid 9 Arandors out of 10.

Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

Rewatched it.
I once read a thought that if there's a work that generally has good ratings but you didn't vibe with it, you should give it another chance in 10 years. That's roughly how much time has passed, slightly more, since I first watched it. This time I liked it much more. In retrospect, I realize that when I watched it the first time, my empathy was developed about as much as Todd's. Now, at least, I've learned to understand the emotions of the people shown on screen. And in my opinion, this is very important for this series; there's a lot of psychologism here.
Essentially, this psychologism is what distinguishes this show from Better Call Saul. Breaking Bad often cycles back to the emotional state of the characters—here's Hank catching depression and starting to collect minerals, and because of that his wife is snapping. Here's Jesse being sad and hanging out with various scams; he's trashed his whole place. And a lot of time is spent demonstrating this. Over the years I've come to appreciate this more; before, it just seemed like filler to me, but still—Better Call Saul wins in terms of how interesting the events are. Because it also has psychologism, but they spend one scene on its demonstration, no more, after which the series moves forward. There is constantly some kind of action happening, even if it's conversational; the characters act actively. But Breaking Bad has many more passive, sluggish actions. But now, at least, I can objectively compare these series—at least from my current perspective—rather than relying on vague memories from years ago.
When I watched it the first time, I wildly hated Jesse and felt poorly about Hank; now I realize that was an extremely primitive view of things. I often read on the internet that Walt is this or that kind of bad and thought—"what are you guys talking about, he's literally did nothing wrong." I am amazed by the primitivity of my past self. This time I didn't hate anyone; on the contrary, I began to appreciate how the characters were portrayed—very lifelike types. And Walt, of course, is not "just a guy who wanted to help his family," but actually an explosive sore loser with an inflated ego who ruined people's lives just to compensate for his grievances that he achieved nothing in life. And Jesse and Skyler are his main victims.
In short, the series is good, but the prequel is still better.

I think Saul turned out better primarily because the show's creators were more experienced by then. And Breaking Bad was originally planned to be completely different. For example, they intended to kill off Hank at the end of the first season, but the flood of fan mail expressing admiration specifically for Hank forced the authors to change their minds and significantly extend his life.
A similar story with Gus. He was also planned to be introduced briefly, but Giancarlo Esposito's charisma won over the American audience, and he was given more screen time. In general, the entire series was built on the principle: "we threw together some exposition, and we'll figure out what happens next during the season."
They filmed a ton of stuff, then abandoned a number of ideas. There was even a scene where Walter essentially rapes Skyler, as there were too many negative letters addressed to the character and even the actress. But then they thought it over and decided not to make Walter too much of a scumbag. In short, times were a bit different, and the approach to filming content was too.

Siv, by the way, have you watched Fargo?

No...

By the way, you could check out El Camino, the conclusion to Jesse's story. It's not exactly a masterpiece, but in my opinion, it turned out alright.

No...

Check it out, decent series. Especially the first 3 seasons. And the feature film is own kind of okay.

El Camino

By the way, I still haven't gotten around to it.

By the way, you could check out El Camino, the conclusion of Jesse's story. It doesn't reach for the stars, but in my opinion, it turned out okay.

I watched it, but was too lazy to write a review. The movie is pointless; only the joke about calling 911 and the duel moment were cool. If someone didn't get enough of Todd, there's plenty of him here, but his aged face spoils the impression.

Check it out, it's a decent series. Especially the first 3 seasons. And the feature film is own kind of okay.

I'll keep that in mind!

By the way, I also recommend checking out Ozark. It's also a pretty decent series about how an ordinary office clerk gets dragged into the world of laundering money from the drug business.