Drive is not the Fast and Furious-esque action car movie it is portrayed as in most of its marketing. I was even a bit fooled despite reading up a bit on the film; I should have taken heed when I read an interview with Ryan Gosling where he said he wanted to make a “violent Pretty in Pink”. There are a few car chases, and they are shot extremely well without the ubiquitous  shaky-cam, but they are definitely not the focus, nor all that impressive as set-pieces (the first 10 minutes or so are brilliant stuff, though). What’s here is an 80s love story with the requisite soundtrack that turns into a slasher flick with Cronenberg-styled violence. I’ve seen that last point mentioned numerous times, but my friend said it exiting the theater; I’m taking that connection from him, not fellow amateur internet film critics.

This film is not for people who cannot stand silence. There are long pauses that I thought were a bit too much at times, where Gosling’s character (this is all I can refer to him as, since his name is never uttered) comes off too stilted. But I guess he’s so damn handsome that his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) can’t help but fall in love with him. It doesn’t hurt that he’s good with her kid and helps with the groceries, I guess. Oh, and that he’s a badass stunt driver and wears a sweet bomber jacket. What girl with a husband in prison wouldn’t die for a man like that? But obviously, once that husband is released from prison, all hell breaks loose.

The drawn-out silences and patient, long shots make the sudden and brutal violence in the film all that more shocking. There is a great scene where the violent nature under the shy and almost mute veneer of Gosling’s character is hinted at, and once he’s thrown into a situation where he needs to protect his cute neighbor and kid, it’s no-holds-barred retribution. The only previous Nicholas Winding Refn film I had seen was Bronson and that was pretty brutal, but I wasn’t expecting such explicit bursts of blood spatter in every way imaginable. That such violence occurs in what is otherwise an extremely slick and cool film could make it seem indulgent, but it works in the framework of the film. Once the switch in Driver (ok, I’ll just call him that now) is flicked, he turns into some Travis Bickle-type character; now this is the reading that I’ve stolen from other internet film nerds. And it’s not like the film doesn’t acknowledge how crazy the violence is — there’s one amazing scene in particular that cements Driver as a psychopath.

While the film is really all about Driver, the small supporting roles from Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston are both fantastic, and Carey Mulligan is perfect as the prototypical cute neighbor. I would have probably liked to see a bit more of the first two, but Drive is streamlined to a barebones plot where no scene is superfluous. So while some scenes might seem like they drag, there is nothing pointless in the 100-minute running time. There’s no backstory to Driver, the romance between Driver and Irene is set up through a few quiet scenes and a montage scored with a song straight of out the 80s (that’s a bit too cheesy for my taste), and the criminal associations in the film are relayed through brief conversations where there’s almost always something else going on.

Neither is a shot wasted (outside of one bizarre slow-motion, inside-the-car shot — you’ll know what I’m talking about). I’m glad I got to see the film in one of the big theaters in my local multiplex, because Refn, as @MilesTrahan put it, “can shoot the fuck out of a film.” The cinematography alone makes the film worth a watch, but when it’s combined with a character as memorable as Gosling’s despite his paucity of lines, a bunch of great supporting performances, unflinchingly awesome violence, and an atmospheric synthetic soundtrack, you’ve got one of the better films of the year — despite it going against mainstream expectations. Take a date if she can stomach seeing the life get stomped out of a guy’s face.

While the House voted on health care reform, the best show on television came back with a bang — more like an explosion really. You’ve seen it in every promo. The twins calmly walking away from an exploding van was just the cherry on top of an episode which featured them being total badasses without saying a word. (Apparently, that was a real explosion.) I think badassery has an inverse relationship with loquaciousness.

The episode was both wrap-up and set-up, dealing with the consequences of the crash of last season, but also dropping the bomb of Skylar knowing where Walt got all that money, and Walt revealing the exact nature of his business — he’s a manufacturer! He also declines a 3-million-dollar offer– but I feel like he’ll come crawling back to that in a few episodes.

Meh, you know what, screw this; I can’t bring myself to write about a 43-minute episode of television. Sure, I can conjure up a blog post about a film that’s three times as long, but I don’t think anyone is coming to this blog for a mediocre-to-bad analysis of a Breaking Bad episode. Am I wrong here? I’ll direct you to a couple of reviews if that’s what you really want.

A.V. Club
Alan Sepinwall

The more important thing today is health care reform. It passed. But that I can’t write about at all because I know nothing and I don’t like to pretend I know something when I really don’t — unlike 90% of people out there. And approximately 99% of the protesters. This is why I write about baseball a lot — because I know it better than you. My fantasy results prove it! But yeah, I’m happy the Democrats at least showed some semblance of balls pushing this through. So the blog post title is a lie, ok? So sue me. Hell, Glenn Beck tomorrow might be better than tonight’s season premiere episode of Breaking Bad.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the cold open for tonight’s episode had to be the most bizarre I’ve ever seen.

So one of my GIFs showed up on one of my favorite blogs this past week. One of my prouder internet moments, sadly. To think I peaked like two years ago getting linked by Deadspin. When I posted this news on Twitter, someone mentioned Breaking Bad GIFs. And on the blog linked above, someone also asked for Breaking Bad GIFs. Between those two wishes, and the Season 2 release on DVD next week, and Season 3 starting the next week, I decided to fill this void on the internet a little bit.

The show is easily one of the best on television. As I’ve stated before: Mad Men and Breaking Bad are basically 1A and 1B. And they compliment each other well, as one is set in a 1960s fantasy world littered with obscenely attractive human beings, while the other is a contemporary story following a middle-aged, dying high school science teacher whose life is as depressingly real as it gets — at least until he decides to cook meth.

You’ll have to hit the jump to check out the eight GIFs arranged in perfect harmony. I may have to fix the very first one, as not being able to make out some of the text is annoying the shit of the OCD side of me.