Actor Bob Odenkirk, who portrays the iconic Jimmy McGill /Saul Goodman character in AMC’s “Better Call Saul” is currently wrapping up the show’s final season, which is now available to watch (or stream) weekly on AMC . And even though the show is coming to an end, there is still so much more in store for the actor; he is set to star in a new series, an adaptation, also on the AMC Network called “Straight Man”, as well as venturing out on a book tour for his newly released memoir “Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama”.
Starting to re-watch the series from scratch, it’s easy to see the why the show has been so incredibly successful. Odenkirk it’s a unique star with a wide acting range, playing an easily lovable character that you feel you can stand behind (as he cares for his mentally ill brother), even when he is doing sketchy things (bribing witnesses, forging documents, etc.) to get by.
Of course, not to be forgotten is the epic and one-of-a-kind construction that made ‘Better Call Saul’ into a 6 season prequel to ‘Breaking Bad’s’ 5 amazing seasons. Since the 6th and final season is currently underway – there will no doubt be an amazing opportunity to watch all 11 seasons in the binge of all binge marathons.
The shared characters and storylines, from Ignacio “Nacho” Varga to Michael Ehrmantraut to Walter White and Jesse Pinkman make for an amazing and truly gargantuan story arc. The final season of ‘Better Call Saul’ even includes a few “flash forwards’ to the post ‘Breaking Bad’ timeframe which currently also has the ‘El Camino’ feature in its time-space dimension.
Rising from his early origins as a stand up comic, then to writing for Saturday Night Live (SNL) to eventually an on-screen debut in “The Ben Stiller Show”, HBO’s “Mr Show with Bod and David” and of course, making his lasting trademark as Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad”.
If you want to learn more about Bob’s new memoir, more information about the book with a description from the publisher follows, below.
Bob Odenkirk’s career is inexplicable. And yet he will try like hell to explicate it for you. Charting a “Homeric” decades-long “odyssey” from his origins in the seedy comedy clubs of Chicago to a dramatic career full of award nominations–with a side-trip into the action-man world that is baffling to all who know him–it’s almost like there are many Bob Odenkirks! But there is just one and one is plenty. Bob embraced a life in comedy after a chance meeting with Second City’s legendary Del Close. He somehow made his way to a job as a writer at Saturday Night Live.
While surviving that legendary gauntlet by the skin of his gnashing teeth, he stashed away the secrets of comedy writing–eventually employing them in the immortal “Motivational Speaker” sketch for Chris Farley, honing them on The Ben Stiller Show, and perfecting them on Mr. Show with Bob and David. In Hollywood, Bob demonstrated a bullheadedness that would shame Sisyphus himself, and when all hope was lost for the umpteenth time, the phone rang with an offer to appear on Breaking Bad–a show about how boring it is to be a high school chemistry teacher. His embrace of this strange new world of dramatic acting led him to working with Steven Spielberg, Alexander Payne, and Greta Gerwig, and then, in a twist that will confound you, he re-re-invented himself as a bona fide action star. Why? Read this and do your own psychoanalysis–it’s fun! Featuring humorous tangents, never-before-seen photos, wild characters, and Bob’s trademark unflinching drive, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is a classic showbiz tale told by a determined idiot.
Get ready for Jimmy McGill’s transition into the iconic crooked criminal lawyer – Saul Goodman (played by the one and only Bob Odenkirk). The plot details have been kept hush hush so far, but below is what we do know about the official plot synopsis as of publication of this post:
“From the cartel to the courthouse, from Albuquerque to Omaha, season six tracks Jimmy, Saul and Gene as well as Jimmy’s complex relationship with Kim, who is in the midst of her own existential crisis. Meanwhile, Mike, Gus, Nacho and Lalo are locked into a game of cat and mouse with mortal stakes”.
It has also been confirmed that the farewell season of “Better Call Saul” which is the prequel for “Breaking Bad” will, wait for it!, absolutely feature appearances from both Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).
The announcement broke at the PaleyFest LA during a panel discussion with co-creators Peter Gould and Vince Galligan.
The first 5 seasons are, as before, available to watch on AMC+ and Netflix if you want to catch up or even start binge-watching before the final season airs.
The final season of “Better Call Saul” premieres on AMC on Monday April 18 starting at 9 P.M. ET/PT.
Sean 6 is set to be split into 2 parts; the first 7 episodes starting the 18th weekly and then the final 6 episodes will begin July 11th.
33 Anticipated TV Shows coming out, but there’s not enough time to watch them all!
There will be no shortage of new series and movies one can stream this fall. Netflix just announced its influx of movies (42) to watch. Next comes an avalanche of new TV series, 33 already scheduled for release during the rest of 2021, including new seasons of established shows.
With what feels like the countless number of streaming platforms (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, Showtime, you get the point), there are almost too many options to know where the heck to start!
Don’t worry, though, the launching new streaming options won’t end in Fall, your TV watching bonanza will be far from over as the holiday season approaches. The gift of streaming will be seemingly boundless, in particular, due to the release of two upcoming Marvel series: “Hawkeye” and “Ms. Marvel” in addition to Netflix’s “The Witcher”.
The future overall looks bright in the digital entertainment realm, at least with regard to “choice” and seemingly endless options, viewers have so much to watch, even as many of us are also already waiting for the long-planned currently-in-production status of Game of Thrones spinoffs and Lord of the Rings TV series to wrap up and finally come to our screens.
In the meantime, below we picked the top 5, out of a total of 33, not including the 42 upcoming movies, that should definitely be on your list to consider for your screens this Fall.
Succession: Season 3 – HBO – October dates and times TBA:
John Wick with a milquetoast twist? No, much better than that…
Are you, like me, someone who just has to watch any movie with Liam Neeson after “Taken” where he plays an underestimated character doing mega damage to the bad guys? Was “John Wick” (and 2 and 3 etc) a worthwhile experience but you could imagine a bit of Bob Odenkirk à la mode mixed in? You’re in luck (seriously).
The official blurb from Universal goes like this: Emmy winner Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul, The Post, Nebraska, Breaking Bad) stars as Hutch Mansell, an underestimated and overlooked dad and husband, taking life’s indignities on the chin and never pushing back. A nobody.
Add to this his “particular set of skills” and ominous past and you have an inspired next step in this now established feel-good as the blood-flows genre. (trailer below)
At a time when, metaphorically, perhaps all of us feel like we are bullied once too many times, and when the vagaries of trying to live in peace have us at wits end, watching this could be the antidote to all those pent-up feelings.
However, if going to see it live in a movie theater still seems too dangerous, you will soon be able to stream – if you are willing to pay for video-on-demand.
As of Friday, April 16th you will be able to purchase to stream at the usual VOD outlets (most likely, Apple, Amazon and others) and there’s even a blu-ray disk in the offing which has pre-order options already.
Directed by Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry), and written by Derek Kolstad (John Wick), a great cast that includes Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul, The Post, Nebraska) and co-stars legendary Emmy winner Christopher Lloyd as Hutch’s father, musician-actor RZA as Hutch’s brother, whose own hidden talents aid Hutch in his quest for vengeance.
Here is the description provided on the official web site by Universal Pictures:
Sometimes the man you don’t notice is the most dangerous of all. Emmy winner Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul, The Post, Nebraska) stars as Hutch Mansell, an underestimated and overlooked dad and husband, taking life’s indignities on the chin and never pushing back. A nobody.
When two thieves break into his suburban home one night, Hutch declines to defend himself or his family, hoping to prevent serious violence. His teenage son, Blake (Gage Munroe, The Shack), is disappointed in him and his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen, Wonder Woman), seems to pull only further away.
The aftermath of the incident strikes a match to Hutch’s long-simmering rage, triggering dormant instincts and propelling him on a brutal path that will surface dark secrets and lethal skills. In a barrage of fists, gunfire and squealing tires, Hutch must save his family from a dangerous adversary (famed Russian actor Aleksey Serebryakov, Amazon’s McMafia)—and ensure that he will never be underestimated as a nobody again.
Nobody is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry), from a script by Derek Kolstad, the narrative architect of the John Wick franchise, and co-stars legendary Emmy winner Christopher Lloyd as Hutch’s father and multi-hyphenate musician-actor RZA as Hutch’s brother, whose own hidden talents aid Hutch in his quest for vengeance.
The film is produced by Kelly McCormick, p.g.a, and David Leitch, p.g.a., the filmmakers of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde, for their company 87North, by Braden Aftergood, p.g.a. (Hell or High Water, Wind River), for his Eighty Two Films, and by Bob Odenkirk and Marc Provissiero (Hulu’s PEN15) for Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment. The film is executive produced by Derek Kolstad, Marc S. Fischer, Annie Marter and Tobey Maguire.
Want know more about shorting? About the shady and complicated scams? And also see an incredible film?
The Wolf of wall street is simply a great movie. It’s even better though if you watch it in the context of stock market mania. Just like the one that’s happening now.
Beyond the fact that the story is incredibly entertaining it does also get into the heart of the “pump & dump” boiler room mentality. While the so called ‘retail investors” who are riding the Robinhood stock purchasing app to what they see as well deserved revenge on Wall Street, and Belfort who was the real life “Wolf of Wall Street” was more of a wannabe that couldn’t get into the establishment. He then set forth, with chutzpa and insanity and some drugs, built his own criminal empire, there are some very clear correlations between his tricks that made him rich and what the short-squeezing Reddit & Wall Street Bets chat room vigilantes are doing right now.
Can we all be like the guys, Jordan Belfort or Michael Burry, who was played by Christian Bale in the movie, and even though it was about going short, it’s sill ok, cause, Christian Bale?
History does exist, even if it happened before your uncle was born
Up until 1934 many things were legal and rampant that today, technically, are not allowed. Insider Trading is the most obvious and best defined, look up Martha Stewart and jail time if you want to know more about that.
Collusion in the market is another less well known practice, also known as “pump & dump” that has as many variations as Ponzi schemes and, though illegal, will never be stamped out. The technical terms for Colluding in relation to stock trading are “securities fraud” or “market manipulation.”
Not to get technical but here’s an partial excerpt of the legal specifics:
15 U.S. Code § 78i – Manipulation of security prices
(a) – (2 To effect, alone or with 1 or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security registered on a national securities exchange, any security not so registered, or in connection with any security-based swap or security-based swap agreement with respect to such security creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.
Confusing? Yea, but at the bottom it all it’s just…(parody)
It you have followed any of the unfolding madness with the “retail investors” and the revolution of unstoppable market manipulation that is heroic, not criminal cause, um, the other guys (Wall Street) are much more criminal.
The problem is, it’s all true! Yes, the idea that pumping up GameStop, which is basically a random stock that was cheap and easy to pump. This is basically making a mockery of the traditional idea of investing and of the laws against stock manipulation. But the market is, as so many are pointing out, basically a sham already.
A lot is made of the bad and nasty “shorts” who think that, just because GameStop is a company with basically no future prospects, they think the price would like, do down. Strange. That’s ok though, we can pump it up and the squeeze force the shorty shorts to cover (buy back shares) and that will send the price soaring.
short shorts by Tesla
Then we can all be like the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort and also totally like The “Big Short” guy, Michael Burry, who was played by Christian Bale in the movie, and even though it was about going short, it’s sill ok, cause, Christian Bale.
2008 was bad and done by very bad people that got away with it
And yes, it’s pretty much all a nasty business. But the nasty pros are the worst. And the whole system is a sham. And, anyway 2008. Right. Maybe this is like occupy Wall Street but for real. Occupy it literally inside of the market. Where they live.
So, in a nutshell it’s a mockery of a sham. And a travesty. So it’s a mockery of a sham and a travesty.
Seriously., though, perhaps pumping cheap stocks from around 5-10$ up to $500 or higher by coordinated buying executed by internet mobs should be made legal. Each “investor” can jump in and out where-ever they choose and daisy-chain into the wealth that dreams are made of.
Universal basic is basically good, really good
Perhaps this can be the new government stimulus plan. Give every citizen a “free” stock buying app like Robinhood (but a new one cause we all hate those guys now) and have each account pre-loaded with, say, $1000.
Then let everyone know that it’s ok to join Reddit groups or watch TikTok stock market gurus and everyone, like a swarm of locusts can just pump a stock up to the moon and then sell and crash it and move on to the next one.
Naturally, it will be necessary to always start with a stock that is cheap so the early buyers can get really, really rich when the stock (who care what company it is, right?) goes up around 32,000% is, say, a week. That’d be good.
I am looking for how this casino of the common man would be worse that the current system, and it’s hard to find a flaw. Maybe read a book? Naw, just buy and buy and get rich with stonks forever. Amen.
The story that won’t stop and the very fine people on all sides
No heroes, plenty of villains and lots and lots of nonsense and stupidity. But before getting into the nuts and bolts of this tragic “new” phenomena, take a second and think about all those media stories, in nearly every online media outlet, even hitting local news.
Each “take” on the story has a different slant and spin and almost none go into the boring and complex technical details of stock trading schemes. Most, it appears, are cheering on, implicitly, the “main street” buyers in an imaginary “war” on Wall Street.
[Disclaimer: Nothing in this article should be construed as legal or financial advice.]
That will get you more clicks.
A few will point out that GameStop, the company that is, which has no real prospect to rise from its comatose state into a Tesla-like world beater, regardless of how high the stock climbs for a few weeks or so.
And they will, rightly, warn that in this game, the “innocent” main street “investor” will lose in the end. Those are the boring stories. Not as many clicks for them.
The longer more accurate story of what is going on touches on the Great Depression, the Dot-com bubble, the financial crisis of 2008 and an understanding of stock trading that goes beyond the patience threshold of the general public and the media, even beyond most so-called Wall Street Insiders.
History does exist, even if it happened before your uncle was born
Up until 1934 many things were legal and rampant that today, technically, are not allowed. Insider Trading is the most obvious and best defined, look up Martha Stewart and jail time if you want to know more about that.
Collusion in the market is another less well known practice, also known as “pump & dump” that has as many variations as Ponzi schemes and, though illegal, will never be stamped out. The technical terms for Colluding in relation to stock trading are “securities fraud” or “market manipulation.”
Not to get technical but here’s an partial excerpt of the legal specifics:
15 U.S. Code § 78i – Manipulation of security prices
(a) – (2 To effect, alone or with 1 or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security registered on a national securities exchange, any security not so registered, or in connection with any security-based swap or security-based swap agreement with respect to such security creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.
Enter Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets forum. Not saying that there is anything illegal about “loving” a company as a group and choosing to “support” it by buying its shares.
Even if the motivation (false and imagined) is to “hurt” the short sellers in some kind of Robin Hood attack, that’s probably not something the SEC would care about. Short selling professionals can take care of themselves.
Enter another part of history: the allegedly overvalued company effect
Attacking short sellers has become a kind of sport, particularly when it’s about an emotional connection that was partly responsible for a company’s shares being “overvalued” by traditional metrics in the first place. Once “overvalued” therefore, a target to be sold short by traders and hedge funds that believe in quaint things like profit to earnings ratios and the like.
While company’s share prices being “overvalued” is based on opinion and often wrong, there have been recent cases, since the NASDAQ bubble burst in 2000, that have added a somewhat new, larger, twist on the typical understanding of these types of situations.
Bubble is as bubble does
To take the biggest example, there is Amazon (AMZN) which would take a thousand page book to accurately and fully elaborate on, but for the sake of brevity a couple of points could be made.
It is well known that Amazon posted substantial losses for many years while the stock price generally continued to rise. This was attributed to shareholders’ willingness to forgo proof of financial success within the company and persisted in buying & holding in the hope that share prices would continue to rise and that the company eventually would show profits and more success.
All of that seemed to happen, in the case of Amazon, when viewed casually, and now there is a sense, among some, that overvaluation, in “outlier” cases, is no longer a valid reason to sell (or short) a stock. Everybody’s happy right?
The uses of inflated value is a sticky-wicket if you are the loser
Not everybody. Naturally there are many “bad” short sellers who likely lost by shorting Amazon during it’s unrelenting rise since 2000. They are unlikely happy.
But also, and here’s the rub, there were whole industries crushed by the power that came with that “over-valued” stock price that seems, from looking at reams of data, to have been used to finance the selling of goods at substantial losses for “as long as it takes” to damage competitors.
Ultimately, for Amazon, creating a possibly dangerous monopoly (or monopsony, as it were) position with the potential for further damage to not just competition, and the overall marketplace, but to society as a whole.
Tesla is a whole other story, but a completely unique one
However, the situation is clearly not black and white. An alternate opinion could be held regarding the similar, yet very different, situation at Tesla (TSLA). Short interest throughout the rise? Absolutely. Overvaluation by traditional metrics, yup.
But in this case there is both a technological argument to be made, as well as a geopolitical / moral one, that the company’s wider mission: “Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” is a more than validjustification for wanting to support the company, in any way possible, including through the purchase of it’s purportedly overvalued shares.
That kind of goodwill is the x-factor that is now being twisted into a justification for pumping GameStop (GME) into the stratosphere, beyond the kind of overvaluations that either Amazon or Tesla ever enjoyed (and that’s saying a lot!) while downplaying the “dump” part of the “pump & dump” scenario.
Of course here’s the tragic part; the dump phase always comes, and in reality, is the whole point. Next… ooopsy, while writing this the dump started with GME in the form of a drop from around $500 per share to $226.
For a sub-$20 stock, of course, that’s still extremely high and there will no doubt be gyrations in both directions before the final drop back to obscurity.
Twas ever thus, but still not nice
But the tragedy is in the idea, bandied about in the media and amplified in social media infinitely, that there are “Robin Hood” actors in this game (not the company but the dude in the forest in the movie).
In the end there may be a few that knew all along that “dump” was an integral and necessary part of pump & dump and I am sure there will be plenty of celebration of their “genius” exploits.
But the focus from any of us in the media should be at the tragedy of those that got lost in the hype and stupidity and chose to offer themselves up to the gods of GameStop, the market and Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets as cannon fodder:
”I was in my early teens during the ’08 crisis. I vividly remember the enormous repercussions that the reckless actions by those on Wall Street had in my personal life, and the lives of those close to me. I was fortunate – my parents were prudent and a little paranoid, and they had some food storage saved up. When that crisis hit our family, we were able to keep our little house, but we lived off of pancake mix, and powdered milk, and beans and rice for a year. Ever since then, my parents have kept a food storage, and they keep it updated and fresh.”
”I bought shares a few days ago. I dumped my savings into GME, paid my rent for this month with my credit card, and dumped my rent money into more GME (which for the people here at WSB, I would not recommend). And I’m holding. This is personal for me, and millions of others.”
”You can drop the price of GME after hours $120, I’m not going anywhere. You can pay for thousands of reddit bots, I’m holding. You can get every mainstream media outlet to demonize us, I don’t care. I’m making this as painful as I can for you”.
This is going way, way, over the edge, what’s next?
Trump and his supporters continue to follow the rhetoric that the election was rigged, fraught with fraud (despite continued evidence to the contrary) and that Joe Bidenstole the election.
Trump’s retweets of Quaid’s posts come after GSA Emily Murphy informed Biden that the Trump administration is ready to formally allow the presidential transition to begin. Perhaps that set him off…
Trump, as per usual, took to Twitter, and decided to retweeted a total of 5 old tweets from Randy Quaid, who has been very vocal in calling for a total 2020 election recount / do-over.
Producer, director, writer, actor, Quaid does it all in Tweets from hell
Randy Quaid, a fervent Trump supporter, has made headlines not for this acting, but for his bizarre social media posts, two in particular that showcase his political ranting in the most theatrical way possible.
Oddly, since Quaid is an actor (or at least a retired one) it is hard to tell if he is serious or if this is some sort of “long con”. He comes across as far more than deranged, mad, totally off his rocker – almost like it’s scripted.
And, yet, this is what he is known for – one of his most famous roles is in “Independence Day” where he plays an alcoholic, wacko, ex-military, semi-retired pilot who commits hari-kari in an effort to save the planet from aliens.
Could it be that some sort of actor-related (or real?) PTSD is causing his brain to think that he is in some imaginary sequel to his Independence Day role? Or maybe Trump is also thinking he is living an extension of his glory days as the mogul on The Apprentice – well, the answer to that one is obviously, yes, but, it appears that the strangeness and sickness is just mounting up for the third act. what will that be?
Some parts of the video, are literally innocent (?), as he speaks gibberish with green and red strobe lights flashing upon a closeup of his face.
“Is this the way America goes? From George Washington to George Soros? From oceans white with foam to a socialist swamp. Is this the way America goes? Is this really our future? Wake up you sleeping giant, the lilliputians have tied you down with their fantastic dreams of icebergs melting into dinosaurs and train tracks stretching across the Pacific water…”
