I am the one who knocks

Thanks to a blend of cold weather, a recommendation of a friend, and binge watching on Netflix, I have seen four seasons of the show Breaking Bad. Forget running from away from zombies in The Walking Dead and old world advertising agencies in Mad Men, Breaking Bad is basic chemistry yo in the ABQ.


Bryan Cranston (middle) leads the phenomenal cast of Breaking Bad.
Be careful, this show is addictive.
Credit

My blog title comes from the show's protagonist, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher from New Mexico who transforms from a normal family man to a mad scientist who delves into the drug cartel business with his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). The drug of choice? Meth.

I can honestly say the first season was average but watching from the beginning is essential to see the change of each and every character. As the series goes on, you see the slow burn of moral decay of a man who is just trying to provide for his family.

And then the fourth season comes along and man oh man is it the best season of television I have ever seen. Every episode is filled with so much tension that I hold my breath because each character is portrayed brilliantly and each line written with purpose. I cannot forget to mention the perfect antagonist to Walter, Gustavo Fring who is played masterfully by Giancarlo Esposito. Walt and Gus duke it out and the season four finale was mind-blowingly insane.



The poster for the fifth and final season. After what happened
in season four, I have no idea what's going to happen next.
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The fifth and final season of Breaking Bad has aired the first half already and the final 8 are coming this summer. No other show besides Game of Thrones matches the caliber of this show. If you have AMC or Netflix, watch Breaking Bad.

RANDOM RECOMMENDATION:
The salted caramel donut in Brindle Room located in the East Village. It is a tiny hole in the wall that's easy to miss. Go in and ask for donuts and they'll bring you one (or however many you want) fresh out of the fryer.

Raymart's Top 10 Movies of 2012

I love watching movies. As a cinephile, 2012 was a good year for movies and I have seen quite a number in the past year. There are some small foreign movies on my list and those that are well-known. I didn't put The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on the list because I'm INCREDIBLY biased and would have put it as my number one! So besides that movie, here are my top ten movies of 2012.

1. Holy Motors - French director Leos Carax takes you on a crazy road trip through Paris with a man named Oscar (Dennis Lavant). He makes nine appointments in a course of a day making costume changes each time. Imagine this: A flower eating troll abducts American supermodel (Eva Mendes) and then takes her down the sewers and makes a burkha out of her dress. Outrageous and utterly memorable, Holy Motors is a movie unlike any movie I have ever seen before which celebrates the love for movies and Lavant give the performance(s) of the year. Absolutely brilliant.

2. Zero Dark Thirty - The true story of how the CIA captured and killed al-Queda leader Osama bin Laden. Jessica Chastain is a commanding force as a CIA agent in director Kathyrn Bigelow's intense thriller which leaves you on the edge of your seat.  It starts off slow but builds tension as the movie progresses to the pulse-pounding climax when the U.S Navy Seal team goes on the raid. The greatest manhunt in history? You betcha.

3. Amour - Austrian director Michael Haneke won one of the highest prizes for film the Palme D'or in the Cannes Film Festival for this heartbreaking drama about a French elderly couple who are tested when Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) suffers a stroke. Her husband, George (Jean-Louis Trntignant) takes care of her as much as possible with her paralyzed state but it becomes increasingly difficult as Anne gets worse.  Riva broke my heart with a sublime performance and Trintignant does the same. Amour is a story which many can relate to (myself included) illustrating the consequences that comes with love at old age.

4. Cloud Atlas - Based on the book of the same name, Cloud Atlas has six different timelines that shows how life is interconnected in the past, present, and future. It is a love it or hate it film with an all-star cast featuring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Bae Doo-na (the standout) to name a few. The directors of The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers, have made a monumental piece of work with this film.

5. The Avengers - You assemble shawarma, a team of superheroes, and a powerful otherworldly villain, and some serious Hulk smashing on the side and you get one of the best comic book movies EVER.

6. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson makes his best film to date with this romantic comedy about a young boy and girl who fall in love and runaway together while everyone searches for them. It is not laugh out loud funny but it is indeed funny. The ambiance is what makes a Wes Anderson film and the quirky reality of this movie will make you love it even more.

7. Argo - Ben Afleck helms the true story about the Iran hostage crisis and how one CIA agent named Tony Mendez gets the help of Hollywood to rescue 5 of the hostages. It is a thrill ride with great storytelling and one of the best movies of the year.

8. Looper - A riveting time traveling sci-fi featuring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays a rogue looper, a hitman from the future whose job is to kill terrorists sent from the future in the past. However, his future self (Willis) has plans to change the past to prevent his wife from dying in the future. Yes, it sounds a little complicated but just watch it for yourself. And the ending? Genius.

9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Based on the novel of the same name, this is a poignant story about a shy teenager named Charlie who tries to fit in the strange world that is high school. He is also haunted by something that happened when he was a child. Exploring the themes of love, friendship, and adolescence, Perks is an emotional film you should not miss.

10. Skyfall - Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Bond franchise, Skyfall is one of the best Bond movies with Daniel Craig and Judi Dench delivering superb performances as Bond and M. However, it is Javier Bardem who plays the scary good and hilarious villain, Raoul Silva that was the highlight of the film. After 23 films, James Bond has still got it in him.

RANDOM RECOMMENDATION:

From Holy Motors, Australian pop star Kylie Minogue utterly surprised me with this song in the musical episode of the movie. Great song.

raymart reviews...The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

One of my favorite books of all time, The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien, has finally gotten the big-screen treatment after Peter Jackson decided to adapt The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) eleven years ago. The prequel to the LOTR, "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is the first of three parts about the tale of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who is whisked along an adventure after the wizard Gandalf asks him to accompany thirteen dwarves to reclaim their home in the Lonely Mountain from the Smaug the dragon.

Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is back! So are other citizens of Middle Earth
previously seen in the Lord the Rings trilogy like Galadriel (Cate
Blanchett),Frodo (Elijah Wood), and Elrond (Hugo Weaving).
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Awesome
> Fans of the book (like me) appreciate Jackson's faithfulness to the lighter tone of the book and the world of Middle Earth he's fully realized. It is a children's book after all.
> The whole cast excels in the movie, especially Martin Freeman, who plays the protagonist Bilbo Baggins and Richard Armitage as leader of the Company of Dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield. 
>The riddle in the dark scene between Gollum (played by the talented Andy Serkis) and Bilbo is done complete justice and hands-down the best scene of the movie for me.
>The costumes, the scenery, and the score are all spot on. 

"Misty Mountains" sung by the dwarves 

Not-so-awesome
>Those who know Peter Jackson's filmography will realize his works tend to be a bit overindulgent. Clocking a little under three hours, there is padding in this movie which is not in the book but in other of Tolkien's works about Middle Earth. I myself didn't care but those added scenes did slow down the pace of the movie towards the middle.
> If you didn't like of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you probably won't like this movie either.

Precious? Gollum meets Bilbo for the first time. This is where THE ring
gets into the hands of Bilbo.
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Bonus:
>It is technically audacious. Jackson came out with two versions for the theaters, one with the standard frame rate of 24 frames per second and the gorgeous and controversial High Frame Rate (HFR) of 48 frames per second. There is a noticeable difference to the eye between the versions after seeing both of them and I prefer the HFR version even though it did take awhile to get used to it. However, the movie plays just fine in 24 fps.
> It was the movie I was anticipating all year and it didn't disappoint. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" took me back to my childhood when I was reading the book for the first time as an eleven year old. Thanks to the Peter Jackson and company, Middle Earth never looked better and this movie definitely won over this fan. The next part, "The Desolation of Smaug", comes out in 2013.

The Sweet Tooth That Never Gives Up

I LOVE sweets. Pretty much when I travel to a new place, I usually go for food and it is usually a dessert or something that satisfies my sweet tooth. Like a strudel quest that took me away from the touristy area of Prague or going to Paris...to get bubble tea to stop the intense craving I had for it. In both instances, the quests were fulfilled even if it did take some navigation skills and local help.

Man the strudel of my sweet dreams. How I miss it so.
If only they delivered to the US...

What did I learn from my experiences searching for bubble tea in France, strudel in the Czech Republic, and the best gelato place in Italy? There is NOTHING that will stop my sweet tooth from getting to its ultimate goal. Language barrier? Learn the phrase "where is...". Works every time. Time-crunch? Walk faster. Cold weather? Yeah right.

Then I discover this delightfully sweet opportunity by Nomadic Matt to travel to Prague, Budapest, and Vienna. And immediately my sweet tooth starts guiding me...

PRAGUE: Stock up on apple strudel from Susta Strudl. Who knows when the world will end? Everyone say it is this year so it would be the best thing to do. I'll know to bring a thermos full of hot coffee when I go back. Also besides the Kafka Museum, I was eluded the Czech pancakes called palačinky. I'm going to have to learn how to say that. 

You see why that sacher torte is blank? It'll
have my name on it soon enough).
Credit: Sacher

VIENNA: Sit down and grab a piece (or two) of Sacher torte from the birth place of the best chocolate cake in the world. Oh how my sweet tooth aches. But wait there will be more sweets in Vienna like kaiserschmarrn, which literally means "emperors mishmash" which honestly does not sound as appetizing but the words caramelized pancake sure do. Munch munch time!

BUDAPEST: Okay, this is the place where my sweet tooth was like "huh?" However, a little search and bam!, the Gerbeaud cafe. A cafe that says on its home page "dare to dream sweet" is my kind of cafe. Cannot pass that up. They don't call it Hungary for nothing.

Woot woot, this is my sweet tooth! It's super happy to hear
 about this treat by Nomadic Matt!

My sweet tooth will forever be grateful (maybe not so much my dentist) to try all these decadent desserts. It can't wait to hear about the news on who wins. For now, pictures will suffice.