It’s Emmy time and the nominations were announced this morning in LA at the Academy of Arts & Sciences for the 62nd annual awards show. It was a big day for HBO as it’s show The Pacific received the most nominations with 24.

Other shows nominated for several awards include Fox’s Glee with 19 nominations, AMC’s Mad Men with 17, NBC’s 30 Rock and HBO’s Temple Grandin and You Don’t Know Jack with 15 each, ABC’s Modern Family with 14 and NBC’s Saturday Night Live with 12.

Also nominated in a big way was ABC’s Dancing With The Stars with 9, Showtime’s Nurse Jackie with 8, CBS’ Two And A Half Men with 6, CBS’ Big Bang Theory with 5. HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, CBS’ How I Met Your Mother and NBC’s The Office all tied with 4.

As it often does, HBO led with 101 nominations total. ABC, with 63 nominations, received the most for any broadcast network followed by CBS with 57, NBC with 48, FOX with 47, and mighty PBS with 32.

All in all it seems like quite a diverse group of shows were nominated this year and we congratulate all of the nominees. Plus, it’s nice to see people finally get recognized for their work including Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights as well as Betty White with her 20th nomination for hosting Saturday Night Live.

Click through for more nominees and be sure to check out the official Emmy site for more. The 62nd annual Primetime Emmy Awards air on August 29, 2010 on NBC.

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This should come as great news to fans of AMC’s awesome show Breaking Bad (especially our own Shannon Hood). AMC has closed a deal to renew creator Vince Gilligan’s dark drama for a fourth season. The network made the announcement this morning via an official press release.

The deal had been reportedly in the workd for several months but had stalled due to budget considerations for the fourth season. The studio had wanted the per episode cost not to exceed $3.1 Million while the show’s producers were hoping for more like $3.3 Million per episode. Apparenly, the must have found a happy medium, or ‘Split the difference” as they say in the biz, because the show is coming back next year.

Breaking Bad has performed decently in the ratings but has achieved critical success. It has also garnered star Bryan Cranston two Emmys for his work on the show and a best series nomination last year. Knowing how this season ended, I’m very pleased the show will have a chance to continue. It deserves to be on for a long time.

Click through for the complete press release from AMC.

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Hmm. Is it safe to call the show Broken Bad now? I have held out hope, despite all the signs pointing otherwise, that Walt is still a decent human being. Guess I was wrong. The season finale of Breaking Bad was a mixed bag, as far as I am concerned. Let me be clear, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but with so many story lines swirling around (Skylar? Hank? The cartel vs. Gus?) I was left wanting a little.

Who didn’t want to see Hank open a can of whup-ass on someone this season? Looks like Hank’s reckoning day will have to wait for another season. So be it.

(Spoilers for the season finale of Breaking Bad.) The writers chose to end season three with a Walt/Jesse centric episode. This is the episode that has absolutely confirmed the fact that Walt has gone to the dark side. He has sold his soul to the devil, and then some. We’ve seen the characters of Walt and Jesse transpose throughout the series.

Jesse was a strung out loser with questionable morals and penchant for the rock and roll lifestyle. Really, nothing he would have done would have surprised us. Now, he serves as the moral compass of the dysfunctional duo.

Walt was initially drawn to a life of crime out of necessity. He was dying, and cooking meth was a quick way for him to make cash to leave his family. Now he has become a comon thug, routinely participating in atrocities he never could have imagined before.

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Now, that’s how it is done. The best show on television gave us one of the best hours of television I can remember. It took me a full ten minutes after the conclusion to pick my jaw up off the floor and compose myself. It was that good. I LOVE THIS SHOW!

I also cannot really talk about this episode without revealing huge spoilers, so please don’t read unless you’ve seen the episode. This is one you don’t want spoiled.

This week’s trademark opening sequence shows the day in the life of a prostitute, Wendy, who is working out of the Crossroad Hotel. She looks rode hard and put away wet, and wears white go-go boots while she orally services dozens of men who pick her up in the parking lot. Her tawdry acts are juxtaposed against the jaunty song “Windy” by The Association. Perfect.

She takes a bag of fast food burgers to the street corner (where Combo died) and gives them to the two drug dealers we saw in the last episode. She hands over some money, and at first I thought they were her pimps, but she was actually buying product, and Jesse is watching the whole transaction camped out in his car.

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This recap contains spoilers for the Breaking Bad episode, “Abiquiu.”

“Abiquiu” opens with a flashback of Jesse and Jane pontificating about the artwork of Georgia O’Keefe. The two are examining a more chaste collection of O’Keefe paintings featuring a series of doors, which Jesse finds boring and pointless, while Jane admires artistic liberties that O’Keefe took with each individual painting.

Jesse can’t understand why O’Keefe basically repeated the same painting with slight variations. “Isn’t that insane?” he asks Jane.

Jane counters that she believes you should go wherever the universe takes you, and by using Jesse’s logic, there is no point to repeating anything, even acts that are enjoyable. She takes a last drag and crushes her cigarette out in his car ashtray, leaving the tell-tale lipstick trace that caused Jesse to fish it out of the ashtray earlier this season, as it is the the last tangible remnant of her physical being.

The scene brilliantly cuts to a pair of feet dangling several feet above the ground. Uh oh, who is that hanging? Once the camera pans back, you see that it is Hank, in the Hospital, in some sort of harness device that is lowering him to the ground. A physical therapists encourages him to take a step while Marie, Walt Jr., and Skylar look on.

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Note: this episode was directed by Rian Johnson, who also directed Brick and The Brothers Bloom. This recap assumes that you have seen the episode, heavy spoilers.

Well, this evening we had a two man show, in every sense of the word. This episode was 100% dialogue and character driven, which was a little surprising to me considering that we only have 3 episodes left this season.

As usual, we get treated to a visually pleasing opening sequence. This week, we see a housefly, going about its business in extreme close-ups while we hear “hush little baby” in the background.

I immediately thought of the expression “fly in the ointment”, and found myself thinking about it throughout the show. This was a very distinctive episode in that it only featured Jesse and Walt, and was self-contained within the meth lab.

Walt discovers that there is a fly in the lab, and he completely over-reacts and obsesses over the insect. He tries various methods of swatting the irritating bug, to no avail. He then takes it upon himself to go onto the mezzanine level of the lab and promptly takes a nasty spill while trying to depose of the fly.

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Kafkaesque: The adjective refers to anything suggestive of Kafka, especially his nightmarish style of narration, in which characters lack a clear course of action, the ability to see beyond immediate events, and the possibility of escape. The term’s meaning has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.

In this 9th episode of the current season, we get a blessed reprieve from all the frenetic madness.  This episode was contemplative and character driven.  Ironically, despite its title, I found it to be one of the least bizarre shows of the season.

“Kafkaesque” delivers another great title sequence.  We get to see an awesome commercial for Pollos chicken, where we see images of  mouthwatering fried chicken set against the story of the “chicken robbers.”, the original founders of Pollos.  This advertisement is juxtaposed against scenes of Jesse and Walt churning out boxes of Meth.  Their Meth bags go into vats of “fry batter” that is distributed to Gus’s stores.

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Once in awhile a film comes along that, for various reasons, you just can’t help but be interested in. Love Ranch is one of those films. Directed by Taylor Hackford and featuring an eclectic and awesome cast which includes Helen Mirren, Joe Pesci, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, Scout Taylor-Compton, Bai Ling, MC Gainey and Bryan Cranston, the film looks to be one I won’t want to miss.

In case you’re not familiar with Love Ranch it tells the intriguing story of Grace Bontempo (Mirren) and Charlie Bontempo (Pesci), the husband and wife team who own and run Nevada’s first legalized brothel. Yes, that’s right, Mirren and Pesci play a husband and wife who are the founders of the first brothel in Nevada. But wait, it gets better.

Their lives are suddenly altered when a world famous heavy weight boxer is brought to the Ranch to train as part of Charlie’s entrepreneurial empire. Of course, as they often do, plans go awry when Bruza comes between Grace and Charlie and creates a love triangle that erupts into uncontrollable passion and murder. Uncontrollable passion and murder? Yes indeed, sign me up.

To help you get more of an idea what the film is about with the help of a visual aid, we’ve got the first poster for it to share with you today. Check out the larger version of the poster after the jump. Love Ranch hits theaters on June 30.

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This recap contains major spoilers for “I See You” the 8th episode in season three of Breaking Bad.

If there is one thing I have come to expect from Breaking Bad, it is a stellar opening sequence, and tonight was no exception. The show opens with Jesse putting on his street clothes (with considerable effort) to go home from the hospital after the brutal beating he took at the hand of Hank last week.

An orderly wheels him out to the front of the building, and leaves him to wait for his ride. Jesse sits there on the curb in his wheelchair when an ambulance pulls past him and wheels out a man on a gurney.

Jesse is shocked to recognize Hank, the very man who just beat him up. He follows the gurney into the hospital to confirm his suspicions, and yep, it’s Hank all right. Jesse can’t move much on his face, but his right eye lights up with glee at this Karmic event.

Back at the meth lab, Walt is trying to break up with his lab assistant, Gale, who is not taking it very well. Gale knows that he has done a great job, and doesn’t understand why Walt would let him go, it just doesn’t make sense.

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Wow! That’s the first thing I would like to say at the conclusion of this episode. The last ten minutes were were easily some of the most riveting moments that I have ever seen on television. As always, there are heavy spoilers ahead. These recaps are meant to be read by fans of Breaking Bad who have already seen the episode, and trust me, you don’t want this one spoiled.

I absolutely love some of the opening sequences that Breaking Bad has featured since the inception of the show. My favorite is still the teddy bear in the pool, but the opening scene of “One Minute” will stay with me for a long time. We finally get to see a bit of back story on the cousins (who are referred to as brothers in the opening.) It is obvious that the two men basically have ice water running through their veins, and in a chilling (in more ways than one) flashback, we find out how their steely detachment runs in the family.

The two young boys are playing in a yard with some sort of doll, and one of the boys tears a limb from the toy. The other boy approaches his Uncle (who is talking on a satellite phone) and tells him that he hates his brother, and wishes he were dead. The Uncle calmly tells the second boy to fetch him a beer from an iced down bucket. When the boy leans down, he holds his head under the ice water while the first boy frantically struggles to make him let go.

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Warning: spoilers ahead. Tonight was a welcome change from all the domestic drama of late. We got an episode that focused on the down and  dirty drug manufacturing, and ratcheted up the tension to unbearable levels.  Did everyone exhale a sigh of relief when Hank was summoned away from the junkyard?  I did, even though I know the showdown between Hank and Walt is inevitable.

‘Sunset’ begins with a New Mexico police patrol summoned to the residence of a woman who has not been seen for a few days.  When he arrives at her isolated adobe, things are rather quiet. We see the sketch of Walt from ’No Mas’, along with tell-tale candles and cult paraphernalia.

After the officer  sees two suit coats hanging out to dry, he knows something is amiss, and starts checking the perimeter of the house.  Buzzing flies (never a good sign) are swarming on one side of an outbuilding (which appears to be the same one that all the people were slithering toward on their bellies in ‘No Mas’), and the officer discovers a body.

He calls for back-up, and is confronted by one of the cousins, who refuses to stand down or obey orders, and nonchalantly munches an apple while his counterpart stealthily sneaks up behind the officer and bludgeons him to death, with what I believe was a scythe.

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Warning: heavy spoilers for this episode ahead. In the world of Breaking Bad, this was a relatively quiet episode.  A lot happened, but it was mostly character driven, not action.

Once again, we begin with a flashback, this time we get to see how that ubiquitous RV was actually acquired.  Shortly after Walt met with Jesse to discuss going into business together, Walt (still sporting a full head of hair) hands over $8500 dollars (which is basically all his money) to get them an RV to cook in.  Jesse takes the money and immediately tries to find the best deal for them.  Nah, I’m just kidding.

Intoxicated by the cash burning a hole in his pocket, Jesse heads to a strip bar, and promptly proceeds to order $400 bottles of “Don-Perri-Don” as he calls it.  He’s cavorting with the now deceased Combo, and the two party their balls off until the sun rises.  When Jesse walks out of the bar, he is dismayed to find that he only has $1400 of the original $8500 left.  Where is he going to find an RV for that measly sum?  Fortunately, Combo knows just the RV, and the deal is done.

Flash forward to real time, and it looks like Hank has found his white whale RV.  He is casing the RV with partner Steven, and since all the windows are covered, he decides to climb up on top of the RV to look through the rooftop window.  When he peers down into the RV, he is greeted with screams by a half naked man and woman who are playing cards in the vehicle.  Doh!  Wrong RV.

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Fair warning:  heavy spoilers ahead.  This weeks’ episode was a little lighter on the action, but heavy on the character development.  Front and center were Walt and Hank, who are both starting to crack mentally, in different ways and for different reasons.  I really liked jumping between the two, knowing how tightly their fates are bound together, and watching it all slowly unravel.

The episode began with Jesse fueling up his enormous RV at an isolated gas station.  When he goes in to pay, he reveals to the young female clerk that he has no money, and after copping a few lame pleas he pulls out a bag of the blue meth, trying to entice her into a trade (the gas came to $79.)  He bats his baby blues and she explains that she would, but her father owns the station and is a major hard-ass who served in Fallujah, and he checks all the books.

Did anyone else think that fact might be foreshadowing?  Why make such a point to say he served in Fallujah?  I just wonder if that is going to come back into play.  Anyway, right when she appears to be taking the bait, a law officer walks into the store.  Amazingly, Jesse stands there cool as a cucumber, and passes off the baggie right under the officer’s nose.  A ballsy move on Jesse’s part.

Walt goes to confront Ted about Skylar at the Beneke building.  Of course the receptionist tells him Ted is not available, but Walt becomes enraged when he sees Ted peeking out of his office like  a coward.  Walt (hilariously) attempts to pick up a super-heavy potted plant and tries to hoist it through Ted’s window, but it bounces right off.

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Note: This recap is comprised almost entirely of spoilers. Proceed at your own risk, preferably after viewing the episode.

Sunday night’s episode began with Walt traversing a barren desert in his Buick Rendezvous (how perfect is that car for him?) singing along to America’s “Horse With No Name.” There are no cars in sight, until a police car heading the opposite direction flips a u-turn after passing by him, and pulls him over. Walt is bewildered as to why he got pulled over, because he knows that he was not speeding.

The officer explains that he pulled him over because of a cracked windshield. Walt shrugs as if to say “Oh, is that all,” then explains to the officer that his car was in the very neighborhood of the plane crash, and debris fell on it, hence the cracked windshield. The officer says he will still have to cite Walt.

Walt sits in the car for a moment, then unwisely gets out to give the officer a piece of his mind. Walt exploded into a fit of histrionics, ironically expecting the officer to give him a pass because of the plane crash; the officer is even wearing the blue ribbon that everyone is wearing to remember the victims of the crash.

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Breaking Bad is one of television’s finest offerings. The show airs on Sundays on AMC, and revolves around a high school chemistry teacher who finds out he is dying of cancer, and begins to cook some highly coveted meth to acquire some quick cash to leave his family. Of course, unseen complications keep popping up, as you can imagine.

I’ll be your guide through the twisted universe of Breaking Bad this season. These weekly recaps will be chock full ‘o spoilers, so proceed at your own risk. You definitely will want to watch the episode before reading these. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts or insights in the comments section.

Last season the premiere had some truly astonishing visuals, namely that teddy bear slowly floating down to a watery grave in the White family pool. Remember the unidentified eyeball lolling in the waves? I didn’t think those visuals could be topped, but No Mas (literally no more) began with some surreal and haunting imagery as well.

This time, the show opens in Mexico, and an elderly man is slowly making his way across the desert by using an army crawl-belly to the ground, dragging himself with his elbows. Curiously, when he encounters other people they simply ignore him and go about their business.

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