"Can We Just Keep it Secular, Honey?"

Introducing The Latino Twins of Doom. I would expect nothing less than slow walking away from a fiery inferno of dead Mexican workers, Latino Twins of Doom.

Last year I watched a show called Breaking Bad. I don’t want to fall into the fan boy trap of hyperbolic gushing, so I will only say that the show was so balls-droppingly brilliant I was crying in a corner whilst listening to opera and giving myself Chinese burns. Trap averted.

I never thought I would simultaneously love and hate so many characters after the mountain-top experience that is The Wire. Having just watched The Tree of Life, I can say that in many aspects, what TOL is to film, Breaking Bad is to television. Not all aspects, but many. O.K, maybe we take the hyperbole, maybe we put it aside. But it should be said that Breaking Bad is one of the most exciting dramas on the talky box right now. Needless to say, I’m very excited for season 4. But I’ll be more excited after I’ve watched season 3.

I think Anita wonderfully described what we'll be doing, so here are my thoughts on 3.1 Finally!*

The opening scene gave me the heebie jeebies. Show me a man who is not shaken watching people crawl towards a shrine housing a creepy Indiana Jones skull and I’ll show you Omar Little. (I like The Wire a lot.)

I call it right now, those creepy latino psycho twins will haunt my dreams and my subway rides in the weeks to come. There’s a scene where they drive up to some family’s house, change their fly clothes for hobo clothes, then stare at a little girl before throwing their car keys on the horns of a goat. (Or a ram? Some kind of lamb? I’m not making any definite claims about what that was.) The little girl staring contest went on just long enough to make me think a massacre was imminent.

And then there was a massacre! The twins delivered on their implied bad assness, but those killed were Mexicans attempting to cross the border with some asshole white guy. What struck me as odd is the twins dnotdifferentiating between the baddie white man and the innocent Mexicans. It's like being a minority doesn't count! Even the way it was done, I mean, I've seen people blown up on television countless times, yet I was still creeped out by this. Also, the skulls on the Latino Twins of Doom’s boots are significant. I’m sure they’re referencing not only Alexander McQueen, but also denoting straight up OG-ness.

By far, the best part of this episode is Walter trying to explain to students at a school assembly how the plane crash from Season 2 could happen - but actually trying to rationalize his own actions. We get gems like “what you’re left with, casualty-wise, is just the 50th worse air disaster,” which could possibly be the worst thing to say to a room-full of traumatized kids. This is us seeing Walter’s flaws in stark daylight. The logic and mathematical problem solving with which he navigates social situations, often to his advantage in times of dangerous meth-cooking, is not useful here. Pure rationalization cannot solve these problems. If one life is disposable, what does that mean about any of us?

“We survive and we overcome, we survive, we survive.”

Hearing Walter insist this in front of a room full of people is amazing on so many levels.

In conclusion: GO SCIENCE! YEAH, Mr. WHITE! YEAH BREAKING BAD! YEAH, NON-FANBOY CRITICISM!

*Anita has had to ride my ass to get me type this. I don't know why I took so long. This is awesome.

Cue These Judges Who Judge Film Bluntly

Yes, there are many blogs on the interweb. We will concede this. But this one, we have plans for this one. ‘We’ being the self-appointed blunt judges. It may seem like being a judge, blunt or otherwise, should be a position appointed by someone besides oneself. It may seem like it, but not so. The only prerequisites to this position are an inordinate knowledge and passion for film…and a willingness to equate it with breathing. And we do. We’re like the fatally attracted Glenn Close to film’s Michael Douglas. The basically instinctive Sharon Stone to film’s Michael Douglas. But not the disclosed Demi Moore to film’s Michael Douglas. No, definitely not.

Roger Ebert wrote about how quality film criticism in daily newspapers is being swallowed up by the thirst for celebrity gossip. While we’re hardly setting ourselves up as the answer to this problem (Ebert is a saint of film criticism, all praise and glory be unto him. Two blunt judges were able to bask in his glory while sitting behind him at a TIFF screening), the intention behind this blog is simply to extend the conversations we generally have about film onto a wider forum. Between the three of us, we’ve watched a shitload of films (technical term). So as of now, we’re ready to move onto the next level. We’re ready to take it to second-base, to grope that proverbial breast and fearlessly share our ideas and insights with our faithful internets audience, who will hopefully include more people than those googling ‘grope breast.’

So boldly we go, like Michael Douglas in You, Me and Dupree (that’s right. We went there), into the realm of film criticism. Expect to see reviews, news, festival and awards show coverage and other film shizz.

So, here’s to film and discussing it and fucking loving it and also Michael Douglas is good too.