The broadcast networks wanted to know where everyone was last night. Well, they were watching “Breaking Bad” on AMC on cable. The series finale was up 300% from the last “Breaking Bad” season finale in the key demo. The total viewing number was 10.3 million. At the same time– 9pm– 1.9 million people were watching the return of “Homeland” on Showtime.

This means that aside from football games, “Breaking Bad” had the most number of actual viewers than the totals for the night on CBS, ABC, and Fox. NBC won the night with 15.9 million people watching the NFL.

Of course, it was a one time thing. AMC could only wish “Breaking Bad” had more episodes. Now they will return to shows like “The Walking Dead” and wait for seven episodes of  “Mad Men” each in 2014 and 2015. But this was a phenomenon that built week after week.

Who could have imagined that Dr. Tim Watley–actor Bryan Cranston– would go from being a a dentist who becomes Jewish for the jokes to Malcolm’s nutty father to an insane meth dealer dying of cancer? Only in America.

Exclusive: Garrett Hedlund, star of “On the Road,” tells me he may appear in the next Kings of Leon video. He says that he and Caleb Followill are old friends and they’ve discussed it. “Kings of Leon usually don’t have actors or other people in their videos, but Caleb and I talked about it. It may happen,” Hedlund told me last night at the Coen Brothers concert. Hedlund is shooting a film now with “Inside Llewyn Davis” star Oscar Isaac. He’s still bemoaning the poor release of “On the Road,” a movie that was so anticipated but then seemed to vanish. I think in time Walter Salles’s take on Jack Kerouac will become a cult classic on video… Kings of Leon’s new album, “Mechanical Bull,” hits the album charts tomorrow in the top 5…

Oscar Isaac has suffered a lot of indignities in his short career. He was one of the few bright spots in Madonna’s “W.E.” A great movie in which he starred, called “Bilabo,” was never actually released and had to be put on YouTube in pieces. “Agora,” in which he also acquitted himself well, also fell by the wayside. He was one of many talented actors no one could see because of the poor lighting in “Che.” But intrepid manager Jason Spire knew Isaac’s secret weapon: he was a damn good musician. Now Oscar is the star of the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” And he’s going to get an Oscar nomination.

All of that was pretty clear from this weekend. The movie screened Saturday night at the New York Film Festival to raves. And then on Sunday night came the live concert at Town Hall in New York. Amidst a sea of professional musicians, Oscar Isaac emerged as the night’s big star. He was almost its most gracious. As he strapped on a guitar last night, Isaac was the only singer of the evening to marvel at all the talent around him. Then he knocked the audience out with four performances. If he does just a little of this for Academy voters, he’s in. The public will get to see him on Showtime’s special about the concert on December 13th.

Just a note that Oscar could easily have a hit single with Bob Dylan’s very early traditional “Dink’s Song” also known as “Fare Thee Well.” He sings it in the movie as Llewyn Davis and sang it last night. He’s going to be doing it a lot this winter, by request.

Meantime, last night’s audience was filled with stars, from Julianne Moore and Bart Freundlich (with their kids) to Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Nina Arianda, Chris Rock (who came just to the after party at the Bowery Hotel), Jesse Eisenberg, “Moneyball” director Bennett Miller and even a very low key Liam Hemsworth. CBS’s Les Moonves and Julie Chen entertained David Geffen. Joel Coen’s Oscar winning wife Frances McDormand showed up with some pals. Neither Joel nor Ethan Coen nor McDormand participated in the show.

And the breakout music stars– they included Lake Street Dive and the Punch Brothers, the Avett Brothers, Gillian Welch, and Rhiannon Giddens. Rhiannon needs to wear her red dress and no more pigtails. She is one step away from being a star. At the after party at the Bowery Hotel, Rhiannon got into an impromptu jam session with Joan Baez and members of the other groups. They were just spectacular. What a relief last night to hear real musicians. No Auto Tune, sampling, or lip synching. No artifice. Just the real deal. Four stars!

UPDATE Monday afternoon: Spotify says worldwide streaming of “Baby Blue” is up 9000 percent. Pete Ham and Mal Evans (and George Harrison) are smiling in heaven!

“Guess I got what I deserved.” That’s the first line of Badfinger’s 1972 hit “Baby Blue” produced by George Harrison and Todd Rundgren. It was the perfect song to end to “Breaking Bad,” summing up everything that happened to Walter White. The show went out with several bangs, and the inevitable end of Walter was accomplished by returning to an old plot line and characters from early in the series. “Baby Blue” is already number 27 on iTunes and 58 on amazon.com

Will it take off like “Don’t Stop Believing” after “The Sopranos” finale? That would be nice. “Baby Blue” comes Badfinger’s classic album “Straight Up” which also featured their hit “Day After Day.” Badfinger was the Apple Records house band. They were wonderful, but plagued by drugs and depression and ultimately suicide.

But “Baby Blue” was the perfect send off for Walt and friends. The “blue” refers to the blue meth, just another perk. The ending seemed pretty satisfying. Aaron Paul and Bob Odenkirk must be happy.

Joan Baez- a living, dancing, singing legend– and Elvis Costello– bard of New Wave rock– were the unlikely but perfectly matched headliners last night at Town Hall. The occasion was a concert to celebrate the folk music themes of Joel and Ethan Coen’s soon to be released movie “Inside Llewyn Davis.” T Bone Burnett– who’s just produced Elton John’s wonderful new “Diving Board” album– organized the evening with some of the movie’s stars taking part.

Oscar Isaac, a much buzzed about possible Oscar nominee, I think stunned the crowd by more than ably performing songs from the film and traditional songs with many of the professional musicians. Carey Mulligan sang and introduced acts, including husband Marcus Mumford. John Goodman, wearing a cowboy hat, was the unofficial emcee of the night. The whole thing was taped for a broadcast on Showtime on December 13th.

It was the rare time a promotional event transcended its purpose and rose to magical heights. The show was more bluegrass and country than actual folk of the Coens “Llewyn Davis” era, a kind of sequel to the Coen’s D.A. Pennebaker-Chris Hegedus directed documentary “Down from the Mountain.” Each act was perfectly curated by Burnett so that one after another it seemed everyone had stolen the show.

There were some standouts among the lesser known performers. In particular, the crowd went gaga for Rhiannon Giddens from a group called Carolina Chocolate Drops. This gorgeous young woman can sing and belt like a Broadway performer, plays an amazing fiddle, and is hot hot hot in a red dress. Trust me when I tell you she is about to explode. The CC Drops already have a Grammy from last year in folk music, but Rhiannon could take them much farther. They are signed to Nonesuch Records.

The other big revelation was a little known group that started in Boston and now straddles that city and New York. They’re called Lake Street Dive, and they’re fronted by singer Rachael Pearce.

More later today but kudos to the Punch Brothers, Avett Brothers, Secret Sister, Keb Mo, and the immortal Patti Smith.

EXCLUSIVE: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous unfinished novel, “The Last Tycoon,” may be coming to television soon. So says Billy Ray, the now hot as a pistol in demand screenwriter of “Captain Phillips.” Ray told our PAULA SCHWARTZ on Friday night that he’s working on adapting the novel for long form– either a mini series or more. Ray didn’t say who this would be for, but if the saga of Hollywood’s early big studio days doesn’t sound like an HBO project, I don’t know what does. Ray has an incredible list of would be projects thanks to his writing “The Hunger Games” first installment. Prior to that, his credits were scarce. He did write the much admired “Shattered Glass,” but not much else. Now among his coming projects is the Scorsese Sinatra movie, and about a half dozen high profile deals. Not bad.

Here is Paula’s report:

On the red carpet before the 6 p.m. New York Film Festival world premiere of “Captain Phillips,” Tom Hanks, who rushed to get into Alice Tully Hall on time, stopped in his tracks to chat with veteran New York Post celebrity reporter Cindy Adam. He told her a story – in which every journalist with a tape recorder and camera moved in to eavesdrop – about a phone conversation he had with President Obama, for whom he had narrated an election film.

“Check this out,” Hanks told Cindy Adams – who will kill me for repeating this story – he told Adams he spoke to the President, who asked him what he was up to. “And I said, Well Boss.” Here Hanks paused and turned to Cindy, “Not bad, uh?” he joked. “I’m doing a thing that you figured into,” and then went on to tell the President about the film and the real-life story about the kidnapping by Somali pirates. The punch line involved the President complaining to Hanks, “Let me get this straight? Pirates? With everything else that’s going on, the economy, war, I got to deal with pirates now?”

On the red carpet I got a chance to chat with screenwriter Billy Ray, who was with his daughter Mia. “I didn’t have to invent anything,” he said in discussing one of the big draws in doing the film. He also had access to Captain Phillips whenever he needed him, either by e-mail or phone.

I mentioned to Ray that I was surprised how moved I was by the film because it had a political dimension I didn’t expect. He portrays the Somali pirates as desperate men with few options: vicious warlords demand they kidnap ships for ransom, and they can no longer fish since international conglomerates have stripped their oceans bare of fish.

“From the beginning we were very determined that we didn’t want cardboard bad guys,” Ray told me. He said he and director Paula Greengrass wanted fully dimensional characters. “Not so much that audiences can sympathize but so that audiences can understand and maybe recognize a piece of human behavior in those characters and that was very important to me and very important to Paul.”

Another thing screenwriter and director agreed on was their star. “From the time I started writing he was the only actor I had in my head. He was the only guy I could imagine playing the part. He was the dream actor for the part. And then we got him!”

As for what’s next, Ray, who is sure to be nominated for a best screenplay Oscar, told me “he’s jumping into television. I’m going to be adapting the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, ‘The Last Tycoon’ as a series.” The 1970’s movie that starred Robert De Niro was miscast and dry. How will he breath life into it I asked?  

“But this will be television,” he told me. “The book is spectacular and we’re going to have years to tell the story. We’re going to be able to tell it like it’s a novel and we get to write that novel. You know Fitzgerald died when he was writing it. We get to finish it for him. It’s a great opportunity.”

No star or actors are attached to the project yet he told me.

As for “Captain Phillips,” Ray told me the biggest challenge in bringing it to the screen was doing “honor to the behavior to these men, these merchant mariners who had survived this thing that I think would have killed me. I wanted to make sure that we shone a light on them that was appropriate in terms of the dignity in which they carried themselves and I’m confident that I did.”

Sony Pictures has had a bad summer, let’s face it. But Paul Greengrass’s “Captain Phillips” starring Tom Hanks is just what the doctor ordered. The truth story of how Captain Richard Phillips survived his boat’s 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates is going to be a box office hit and an Oscar nominee in several categories.

Hanks gives one of his best performances ever as Phillips, a very unshowy hero who kept his cool when Somali pirates boarded the Maersk Alabama cargo ship in the Somali channel. The movie is uniformly well cast and very exciting even though we know the outcome. Last night Phillips and many of his crew were on hand for the opening of the New York Film Festival.

I met and talked to one of them who lamented that five days had to be squeezed into two hours. But Shane Murphy concurred that “Captain Phillips” is pretty much spot on. It certainly conveys the terror of what happened to Phillips and his crew. But Greengrass’s direction and camera work — as in “United 93”– add elements of suspense that make the film entertaining.

Greengrass also managed to make the Somali pirates– all played by Somali actors who live in Minneapolis–less villains than victims themselves. They’re bad guys but you sort of like them. Barkhad Abdi is a stand out. So is Michael Chernus as Murphy.

Some in the jaded NYFF audience thought the film was a little rah-rah America. Usually I’m the cynic. But I really really liked “Captain Phillips.”

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