Mike Goes To Movies

El Camino (2019) Note: Spoilers for El Camino and Breaking Bad ahead El Camino is a slightly difficult film to review. Like an old pair of slippers there is an inherent sentimentality and comfort to entering back into this beloved world created by Vince Gilligan. Breaking Bad is undoubtedly one of the best tv series of this past generation and so there is little doubt that all of its many fans relish an opportunity to get back to its story and characters. And with the show's creator, Gilligan, back at the helm for El Camino there is slim chance that any of the fans will pass up seeing how Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul's) story 'truly' ends. Now, BB itself had a satisfying ending even with Jesse's somewhat open-ended frantic driving away into the sunset in the El Camino. And so one of my biggest gripes about Camino is that it is a somewhat unnecessary addendum to the BB story. The film is very much epilogue-esque and though it does give finality and closure to Je...

Drive (2011) Recently rewatching Danish director, Nicolas Winding Refn's, Drive was an interesting experience for me. I had not seen it in quite a while (possibly since its release), however, I recalled quite clearly, that I absolutely loved the film when I saw it in theatres. Now, I still very much enjoyed the film upon this rewatch and, in fact, since beginning film school there are aspects of the film that I likely appreciated more now than I did the first time. However, there were a few notable issues I had with the film. Drive centres around the well-used 'Man With No Name' trope a la Clint Eastwood in Leone's 'Dollars Trilogy" or even Stephen King's Gunslinger in the Dark Tower series. As such, the audience is given very little information about Ryan Gosling's character other than he is an exceptionally cool and capable individual, foremost when it comes to driving. We know nothing about Gosling's background or his motivations other than...