Friday, June 9, 2006
Entourage
We've been watching season 2 of the HBO show Entourage. Entourage is a twenty-something-male princess fantasy. Everybody loves and wants to give something, or themselves, to the main character Vince. Vince is a stand-in for the producer, Mark Wahlberg, whose story this is. It's an entertaining, fiercely shallow show. When Vince isn't beating off girls who take one look and just can't resist, he is resolving the issues of his traveling family of ne'er-do-well pals, like a benevolent daddy. Nothing ruffles his feathers, because he is a proxy for the producer, and he is supposed to look good.
This might be unfair to Wahlberg, who in interviews seems to be a pretty pleasant, centered guy — maybe he does have his feet on the ground. I remember years ago Howard Stern had lunch with Wahlberg, which was then recounted on Stern's show. Stern's account unwittingly made the dynamic of the meeting plain: Stern was his usual competitive, narcissistic self — at the lunch he was sucking the head of his girlfriend as high-display for Wahlberg. Stern wanted to show he gets some too. That's why we love the Howtch — his insecurity born on his sleeve like a commemorative ribbon. But Wahlberg seemed, from reports, to take it in his stride, saying, “I wish I had what you have” to salve Howard's transparent neediness. It seemed a clever, appropriate and mellow response to what could have been offensive — an in-your-face display when you were supposed to be having lunch with someone you just met.
There are a few actors on the show whom I don't care for, but Piven, Kevin Connolly as the manager Eric, and one of the guys in the group around Vince, Jerry Ferrara as Turtle, are good actors and bring something to their roles. The titillation of a stream of pretty women, semi-clad and usually so available you barely have to say hello, in combination with a putative look inside the mechanism of the Hollywood machine (rumor has it that the show is popular amongst Hollywood insiders), keeps you semi-amused, as you do other things and let the show wash over you.