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***Official "Space Blanket" for Better Call Saul*** (6 Viewers)

Glad everyone loved the first scene as much as I did.  Up there with that sequence in True Detective.  

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
BTW any list of sitcoms that does not include the Beverly HIllbillies and I Dream of Jeanie is defective.  Jethro Bodine and Major Anthony Nelson were classic characters.
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Milburn Drysdale: Now, on your way home, if you see anything you want for Christmas, just pick it up and charge it to me. Jethro Bodine: Hot diggety dog! [Jethro and Elly May leave then Jethro returns carrying Janet Trego] Jethro Bodine: Come on Uncle Jed! I done picked out my present. 
===

Major Anthony Nelson: "Yes, Doctor Bellows"

 
Loved the cinematography in the opening scene. This show is good on multiple levels and one of them (going back to BB) has always been how they capture and shoot the landscape.

We all know that something is going to happen to Jimmy to finally send him over the edge to full fledged Saul. He's going to send Kim down the drain too when it happens and that will be difficult to watch. She made the poor decision to go with Jimmy so it's ultimately on her but will still be painful and I'll feel sorry for her.

 
Every episode has great cinematography, acting, directing etc, but I will begrudge that the overall story arc paced kind of slowly.  In season 1 we had the Kettllemans, Sandpioer and the venture into elder law, the fantasic Mike backstory episode, the fantastic Marco episode and a lot of interaction between Mike and Jimmy.  We saw Jimmy reject Davis and Main and decide to do his morally ambiguous thing at the end of S1.  That said, Jimmy messing with the Mesa Verde files is some major ####.  When Chuck figures it out, #### will hit the fan...

 
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Rove! said:
Every episode has great cinematography, acting, directing etc, but I will begrudge that the overall story arc paced kind of slowly.  In season 1 we had the Kettllemans, Sandpioer and the venture into elder law, the fantasic Mike backstory episode, the fantastic Marco episode and a lot of interaction between Mike and Jimmy.  We saw Jimmy reject Davis and Main and decide to do his morally ambiguous thing at the end of S1.  That said, Jimmy messing with the Mesa Verde files is some major ####.  When Chuck figures it out, shot will hit the fan...
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#### Chuck, he deserves it.  He's done nothing but sabotage his brother and all the while Jimmy taking care of him during his space blanket craziness.

 
Homer J Simpson said:
When Mike was watching the place you could hear the...I don't know what it's called...the air-compressor lug nut remover thingy. 

Drugs are are in the tires IMO. 
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Tires are cliché, and now impractical as border patrol has devices to "sound" the density of tires.  I'm guessing it was in the refrigeration unit above the cab of the truck.

 
Has there been any correlation between Chuck's worst space blanket episodes and the times he's screwed Jimmy over? I'm thinking Chuck kicks it here pretty soon.

 
Dr. Octopus said:
This takes place in 2004 (??) - did border patrol have those devices then?
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Boy, I would have to look it up.  My impulse is to say yes, but maybe not.  Certainly tires were a common thing to check back then.  I think there is a natural tendency to not mess with more complex systems.  Check the tires, sure, but if you mess up a refrigeration unit and destroy a load you have some potential ramifications, therefore that is where you put it.  You put it where they are reluctant to check.

 
Major said:
Glad everyone loved the first scene as much as I did.  Up there with that sequence in True Detective.  
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sad we can't have several more pages of Otis calling everybody nerds for knowing what a tracking shot is like we did for the True Detective scene.

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Wait! .... Otis is why we can't have nice things?!!!!
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Otis said:
Rewatched it tonight, great episode.

How many of you dorks honestly knew what a "tracking shot" was before this? Was there like one TVnerd review out there that everyone read and was like yeahhhhhomg that tracking shot was sick!
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Otis said:
This is starting to sound like an onslaught thread. Or the chess thread. I guess let's just go back to focusing on the TV show the way regular folks watch TV shows, rather than noticing the homage to Mitch Helenker's directing touch with the way the Markovian lighting was shading the background with the foregrand-background lenscasting in that one major scene in the denouement.
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A few classic long, unbroken take openings.

Touch of Evil '58 - Directed and written by and co-starring Orson Welles as a corrupt cop (also Charlton Heston as a Mexican drug enforcement official, Psycho's Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich), historically critics cite this as the end of the classic film noir cycle. Dressed to look like a US/Mexican border town, I think it was actually shot in Venice, CA. This 3:20 long take one of the best ever. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4

Some later homages/references

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Evil

The Player by Robert Altman, a neo-noir and starring Tim Robbins, a brutally satirical, withering indictment and savaging of Hollywood, references the classic unbroken take in Touch of Evil as the longest, than exceeds it (I don't see the scene on YouTube, below is an excerpt from Criterion LaserDisc - coming to Blu-Ray soon). Lot of Hollywood in-jokes peppered with about 60 cameos. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAdhODqCTVo 

Robbins plays a studio exec receiving death threats from a rejected screenplay writer, who descends into a world of murder and betrayal (and that is just the studio politics! :)  )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_(film)

A compendium of long shots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLFHdagIw6o

 
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Bob Magaw said:
A few classic long, unbroken take openings.

Touch of Evil '58 - Directed and written by and co-starring Orson Welles as a corrupt cop (also Charlton Heston as a Mexican drug enforcement official, Psycho's Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich), historically critics cite this as the end of the classic film noir cycle. Dressed to look like a US/Mexican border town, I think it was actually shot in Venice, CA. This 3:20 long take one of the best ever. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4

Some later homages/references

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Evil

The Player by Robert Altman, a neo-noir and starring Tim Robbins, a brutally satirical, withering indictment and savaging of Hollywood, references the classic unbroken take in Touch of Evil as the longest, than exceeds it (I don't see the scene on YouTube, below is an excerpt from Criterion LaserDisc - coming to Blu-Ray soon). Lot of Hollywood in-jokes peppered with about 60 cameos. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAdhODqCTVo 

Robbins plays a studio exec receiving death threats from a rejected screenplay writer, who descends into a world of murder and betrayal (and that is just the studio politics! :)  )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_(film)

A compendium of long shots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLFHdagIw6o
Click to expand...
Nerd

 
Bob Magaw said:
A few classic long, unbroken take openings.

Touch of Evil '58 - Directed and written by and co-starring Orson Welles as a corrupt cop (also Charlton Heston as a Mexican drug enforcement official, Psycho's Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich), historically critics cite this as the end of the classic film noir cycle. Dressed to look like a US/Mexican border town, I think it was actually shot in Venice, CA. This 3:20 long take one of the best ever. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4

Some later homages/references

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Evil

The Player by Robert Altman, a neo-noir and starring Tim Robbins, a brutally satirical, withering indictment and savaging of Hollywood, references the classic unbroken take in Touch of Evil as the longest, than exceeds it (I don't see the scene on YouTube, below is an excerpt from Criterion LaserDisc - coming to Blu-Ray soon). Lot of Hollywood in-jokes peppered with about 60 cameos. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAdhODqCTVo 

Robbins plays a studio exec receiving death threats from a rejected screenplay writer, who descends into a world of murder and betrayal (and that is just the studio politics! :)  )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_(film)

A compendium of long shots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLFHdagIw6o
Click to expand...
Beginning of Boogie Nights too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiXtFyZqvQQ

 
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Me too.  The houses of cards Jimmy has been building are about to come tumbling down.  Meanwhile Mike is embracing the Dark side at an increasing rate.  Not so long ago he was telling the Vet there were jobs he would not do. Now, the Vet does not have any concept of the type of things Mike is doing.

I'm hoping Howard loses his detachment tonight and tells Kim the thoughts in his dirty, dirty little heart.  I hope those thoughts include a Hoboken Squat Cobbler with a drive thru pick up lane.

 
Bob Magaw said:
A few classic long, unbroken take openings.

Touch of Evil '58 - Directed and written by and co-starring Orson Welles as a corrupt cop (also Charlton Heston as a Mexican drug enforcement official, Psycho's Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich), historically critics cite this as the end of the classic film noir cycle. Dressed to look like a US/Mexican border town, I think it was actually shot in Venice, CA. This 3:20 long take one of the best ever. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4

Some later homages/references

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_of_Evil

The Player by Robert Altman, a neo-noir and starring Tim Robbins, a brutally satirical, withering indictment and savaging of Hollywood, references the classic unbroken take in Touch of Evil as the longest, than exceeds it (I don't see the scene on YouTube, below is an excerpt from Criterion LaserDisc - coming to Blu-Ray soon). Lot of Hollywood in-jokes peppered with about 60 cameos. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAdhODqCTVo 

Robbins plays a studio exec receiving death threats from a rejected screenplay writer, who descends into a world of murder and betrayal (and that is just the studio politics! :)  )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_(film)

A compendium of long shots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLFHdagIw6o
Click to expand...
Solid post Bob.

I was a movie nerd growing up, reading Variety and books on screenwriting and production as a 12 year old. The Player was one of my favorite movies at the time. Too bad I didn't have the sack to apply to USC or move to LA after high school. I did apply to UNC-W but the film industry in Wilmington was in its infancy and I took the safe route going to the school a few hours west on I-40 instead. 

The opening scene of Fifi was impressive and a nice tribute to Touch of Evil. I listened to the podcast for the first time afterwards and Vince explained that the shot wasn't originally planned like that but unfolded as they were on scene filming. It turns out it wasn't one long 4:30+ take, but two separate shots, if you look close you can see the cut when the agents are inspecting the truck.

 
Likewise, Chauncey.

The reference to the "hidden" or disguised cut reminded me of this Hitchcock film, which you may already be familiar with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_(film)

It was staged like a theatrical play, and if not for the limitations of camera film length, would have been an entire move without a cut (didn't 2015 Oscar Best Picture/Director/Cinematography Winner Birdman also aspire to something like this, or at least extended unbroken scenes?). As it was, they would cut for the inevitable need to change out film reels in a way that tried to mask it, like in the middle of panning a camera around an object in the room where the main characters are momentarily out of view of the audience, etc., where the join wasn't obvious unless you were paying close attention

 
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