TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

With my Breaking Bad  poster, Walter White bobble head and crafted Heisenberg drinking mug, you could say I have a whole lot of Bryan Cranston splattered around my college dorm room. I've enjoyed the man ever since seventh grade, watching Malcolm in the Middle reruns on FX before the middle school bus picked me up. I would've been only 12 when Breaking Bad had its series premiere on television, but after catching up after I graduated high school, it was astonishing, (for hundreds of reasons). But one of the biggest achievements critics and fans point out so often was Cranston's ability to play the silly, childlike Hal, and then to troubled meth kingpin Walter White. Cranston shows us why he's won a Golden Globe, 6 Emmys and 4 SAG Awards in the past several years, as he transforms (a lot of it is that gravely, smokey voice: I wonder did he actual smoke the cigarettes that he's inevitable seen with in nearly every scene of the film?) into blacklisted screenwriter D...

The Golden Globe, SAG Awards and Critics Choice Awards have all gone nuts over a little David O. Russell picture called "American Hustle." Exceppt for Jeremy Renner, there isn't a cast member among those Big 3 that hasn't been up for something, probably taking into account that Renner's character, Carmine Polito, is the most upright/righteous among this stellar cast of rather deceptive con folk. So here's my job, to deliver to you good people: is "American Hustle" worth the hype, and the rivalry status it has against "12 Years a Slave" for the Best Picture race this January? In a word, no. "American Hustle" is the more entertaining of the two, obviously, but it's nowhere near as accessible as director David O. Russell's proceeding, realistically charming romantic dramedy "Silver Linings Playbook." Its setting is the polyester, toupee, plunging neckline world of the 1970s. If "Hustle" and Russell did o...