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October 7, 2008
"You got Mom's calves; I got Dad's."
I've seen every episode of ENTOURAGE, the shallow, wish-fulfillment fantasy that everyone seems pissed off about but still watches. Self-loathing, thy name is ENTOURAGE - by watching it, you implicate yourself in a cult that you, more than likely, deride. I enjoy the show primarily because of Kevin Dillon's hilarious caricature Johnny Drama, who stands in for all the mediocrity of 90s television and film - writing about his small role in "License to Drive," Roger Ebert called it "the end of a golden age of cinema." He also once played "Uncle Jesse's tough guy nephew" on FULL HOUSE. Drama, hunting down calf-implants, romantically-fuddled, always caught in between his obvious weaknesses and his high self-image, is one of the best characters television has ever come up with. The Emmys praise Jeremy Piven to death for his role as the golden fire-breathing Jew Ari, but Dillon brings a mix of pathos and brilliant comic timing to create a secondary character secondary only to such supporting sitcom luminaries as Kramer, Bill McNeal, Gob Bluth, and about five characters from the glory days of THE SIMPSONS.
ENTOURAGE's glaring and obvious weakness are its two pretty boy stars: movie star Vincent Chase and his boring manager Eric. Its not the characters are improperly conceived; they're just boring. No one cares about Eric's career as a manager or his love life, and equally dull is his tumultuous friendship with Vince. And to top it off, the actors who portray them are irritatingly inexpressive, and alternate between brooding, shouting, and staring wistfully at the camera.
(Spoilers start here, BTW; so avoid them if you want)
But I'm sure I just described the best part of the show to a certain demographic. What I enjoy most, besides Drama, is the inside baseball Hollywood stuff. It seems real, for the most part, the way studios and stars and agent jockey for position and use each other as pawns in their game. In the best plot of the series, Vince decides to do a low-budget indie, which is successful enough to get him noticed by James Cameron, who casts him in AQUAMAN, which becomes (I think) the second highest grossing film ever. This makes Vince a huge star, and he decides not to do AQUAMAN 2, but instead an edgy biopic about Pablo Escobar, MEDELLIN. In between this, there's a bunch of dopey, emotional crap about friendships, allegiances, honesty, and relationships, but the momentum of the industry carries it forward.
Here's the latest turn: MEDELLIN was a tremendous failure, and Vince has gone from being in the top-grossing movie to a high-profile direct-to-video dud. This is fascinating stuff, but I don't like where they've taken it; it's unrealistic. Vince is now, apparently, uncastable, and in a hilarious but, again, unrealistic moment, his only substantial offer is to make a movie with Benji in Alaska.
I don't buy it. Vince has often been compared to Mark Wahlberg, one of the executive producers and occasional cameo, but this is more nose-dive is more akin to Ben Affleck. After a string of supporting roles made him a movie star, Affleck chose several indulgent lead roles that failed to capitalize on his normal-guy image. His best role ever, Chucky from GOOD WILL HUNTING, showed him as a goofy but loyal fella; four years later, he's completely miscast playing CIA Analysts, big star Ad men, fighter pilots, and lawyers. And then he got involved in a high profile celebrity romance that led to two historic bombs (GIGLI, JERSEY GIRL).
Here's the point: Vince does one bad movie, and now he's on the bottom of the feedbag? At one point in the new season, he loses a role to Emile Hirsch, but Hirsch was just in SPEED RACER - a much higher profile failure than Vince's fictional one. One movie is not enough to sink a star's ship; Hirsch is still a player in both the indie scene and the summer movie scene, as Vince would be too.
Still, it does feel like the season has found new life by focusing more on the inner workings of a system we're all fascinated with but know little about. Here's hoping it continues.
Johnny Drama's hilarious wikipedia page
| By Andytown | 9:54 AM
Comments
`test
Posted by: test at October 7, 2008 12:31 PM
update! update!
Posted by: bethan at October 20, 2008 10:04 PM