Obama's Favorite TV Series Returns This Weekend
President Obama obviously doesn't have enough time to watch TV regularly. Well, episodic TV, anyway. But when he does, he's said in several recent interviews, he tries to catch HBO's Entourage.
A smart, hip choice, as you'd expect from a sophisticated guy like Obama. I suspect the main reason Obama watches is to catch the latest Hollywood adventures of Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ari, as played brilliantly (and only possibly fictitiously) by Jeremy Piven.
Rahm's TV sibling is Hollywood superagent Ari Gold. One wonders if the real-life Ari Emanuel is half as funny or as entertaining as Piven's caustic, Type-A Ari, who' s prone to such outrageous outbursts as yelling, "I'll bet you don't drive like that in Tiananmen Square, bitch!" from his Porsche on Sunset Boulevard. (Piven's Ari is an acquired taste, but one Tinseltown apparently relishes.)
Sunday's much-awaited sixth-season premiere of Entourage (HBO, 10:30 p.m.) has no great shockers. Glamourpuss rising star Vince (Adrian Grenier) has had his career revived by being offered a role in a Scorcese film, Gatsby, and his New York posse is in high spirits.
Kevin Connelly's "E" is thinking of getting a place of his own, Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) is still hanging out with Meadow Soprano (or rather, Jamie-Lynn Siegler), and Drama (Kevin Dillon), Vince's half-brother, is still a braggart and halfwit.
As usual, Entourage bristles with Hollywood-insider stuff and good comedy writing (something no doubt appreciated by POTUS); starlets wanting a piece of Vince; and, of course, the volcanic Ari. If Piven's agent character isn't the most entertaining character on any TV series, I don't know who is.
Without giving anything away, one major new development this season (I've seen the first two epis) is Ari's gay assistant/punching bag Lloyd's determination to get a promotion at the Hollywood talent agency after years of taking Ari's homophobic/racist-like abuse. Rex Lee's Lloyd has never been assertive, but Lloyd's had a pep talk with his Dad and he's putting his foot down.
You go, Lloyd!
By the way, Vince does a guest shot Sunday on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They have to shoot these things a few months ahead of time, of course, and this is your last chance to see Ol' Lantern Jaw behind his old desk.
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The show does glamourize the excess, and I do like it, but sometimes it's hard to take because almost all the women are only body props. No parody there. I do like Vince's hard-hitting PR rep, Shawna (sp?). She's actually the only woman who's got a good role on the show, and she's a good, tough-talking parody. The rest are just interchangeable bodies.
Entourage is one of those shows that is very clever, but ruined by being on HBO. Hollywood
scriptwriter seems to think it's masculine to swear constantly.The trouble with this show is they
overswear and they all do it in the same tone of voice, which doesn't happen in life. The fact
that it's on HBO means stlll more swearing is demanded because, after all, they can. I wish
elite Hollywood writers who want to pretend to be "butch" would keep in mind that some of the
most dangerous men don't swear. Many of America's leading gangsters would think nothing
of killing an enemy, but frowned on foul language.
So, I'm reading on this board that the show isn't "politically correct"? Get over yourselves, folks. This is one of the best shows on TV. It's on a pay subscription service, so you folks don't have to watch it.
It is a fantasy...Vince lives the life most men in America would love to live.
Hollywood history tells me that during The Great Depression movie audiences turned out big for musicals and other light fantasies, cinematic escapes from their gritty daily lives. And I know that some of this is true with the popularity of "Entourage" in 2009. Yet, there is a difference between "looking at the sunny side of life" and watching boys who reach in their pockets and pull out a never-ending supply of cash to spend on superfluous indulgences and various gluttonies. I can always enjoy a good musical. But I have no more patience for Vince and his "boys." I won't be watching any more episodes.
I've enjoyed watching "Entourage," it's a slick fantasy with undisputed entertainment value. But as the seasons of the show have rolled along, the show has soured for me. Primarily because after the economy experienced a free-fall and after unemployment rates and despair have spiked, I find the show's style, themes and basic premise to be tasteless. And I have found it puzzling, or maybe enlightening, when Pres. Obama has cited "Entourage" as his favorite show. When people are desperate for work and food and a place to live, do we really want to celebrate a show in which the main characters bet each $1,000 whether or not they can get laid by noon? The flashy cars, obscenely opulent homes, overpriced clothes used to make for fun audience day dreams when the show first appeared, but now, I just find it gross. If I met Vince and the other show characters in person, I would have to resist an urge to slap them all in the face and say "grow up!" And whatever romantic problems these spoiled brats encounter this season, I'll cry them a Hollywood Hills pool's ration of crocodile tears.
Lighten up you two. It's a freakin' TV series...not a training film or documentary!
You're right, Saidas. The show not only doesn't glamourize all this excess, it parodies it.
The one thing that I don't like about Entourage is it's male orientation. I'm not that picky, and, lord knows, I don't watch Lifetime or anything, but I find the characters in Entourage a bit boorish and presumptuous. Of course, I like the quick wit and humor. Jeremy Piven's "mercury poisoning" doesn't seem to have affected his brain yet.
Understood, but women don't really behave like these boys thankfully. Women have their version of it, but that is another show.
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