Hacker Cinema
Entourage
2004 · TV series · 8 seasons
Created by Doug Ellin
Film star Vince Chase navigates the vapid terrain of Los Angeles with a close circle of friends and his trusty agent.
4 positive4 negative1 mixed17 neutralfrom 26 commenters
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28 comments on Hacker News
I'd like to honor Rob Reiner and This is Spinal Tap by mentioning my work and other peoples' successful projects:
Jimmy Fallon, manager, and band Stillwater in the film "Almost Famous".
Ari Gold in Entourage
And Wayne's World, I would have to say.
I would loooooove if a Cadillac Ciel convertible from Pebble Beach 2011 came out, with the suicide doors, no touchscreens, etc. Who’s with me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ciel
The brands don’t often listen to their customers, all of whom clamored for this car ever since it was shown. It only appeared in the “Entourage” movie and it’s a beaut. Nary a single bad review on the entire Internet, but tons of people begging Chrysler to release it and sites devoted to pretending it came out.
Car guys — what is the closest car one can get to this today, in all of human history? Go to Cuba and get some gas-guzzling illegal convertible with tailfins?
And please — no recordings of our conversations and sex in the car so they can send it off to others!
S1M0̸NE (2002) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_(2002_film) Frankenstein.
Her (2013) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film) She's too smart for you anyway.
Upload (2020, 2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upload_(TV_series) She buys in game credits for his existence.
Faust / The Little Mermaid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust#Cinematic_adaptations
"Final cut, Suit!" - Billy Walsh, Entourage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_Entourage_characters#Billy_Walsh
Final cut privilege: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_cut_privilege :
> typically reluctant
Mark Cuban is the basis of the Russ Hanneman VC character in the TV show Silicon Valley. Russ makes it a point to put his name on anything, including bespoke tequila.
That itself may be a reference to Mark Cuban appearing in an episode of Entourage as himself, promoting an investment in a tequila brand.
Softbank and WeWork reminds me painfully of the episode of Entourage I watched last night, where the boys are pitching their as-yet unseen prestige film at Cannes. Hyped to the extreme, on the verge of pulling a deal to make a boatload of money, but on closer inspection it's a huge stinker that falls apart disastrously.
Of all the shows you mentioned the only ones I have watched is, OITB (left it at after watching S04 I think), Master of None (both the seasons), I realise that its a drama that leans toward being a rom-com but I do not watch rom-coms at all. Kudos to Mindhunter, indeed that was entertaining and right in my ballpark. Liked House of cards till the time Spacey was there, S06 disappointed me. Season 1 of Making a Murderer was outstanding, season 2 didn't catch my interest. Also the last comedy I watched end-to-end I think was Entourage (which was produced by HBO), The Office (US) and Parks And Recreation, not surprisingly Netflix doesn't stream any of these in my region, Prime Video does the last two and Hotstar streams Entourage.
These are good shows not great ones like The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, BB, Six Feet Under you know about the stuff that critics rave about etc. I don't care if Birdbox was watched by all of Netflix's subscribers, thats precisely the sort of thing that I don't watch the majority of the time, you watch that thing once and you forget that you ever watched it again. I'm now on probably my sixth or seventh rewatch of The Wire, that should tell you something about my viewing habits and why Netflix's content just doesn't work for me. I don't expect a network to consistenly churn out shows like that but at least some of the shows should be somewhere close to that level which HBO continues to do with The Deuce, Succession, True Detective(I know they fucked the dog on S02) etc.
Also you have the time to watch ALL of that, I don't. I work in tech too, I have an hour on weekdays and maybe 2-3 on weekends for leisure, so its only natural that I would be picky about what I watch, the absolute best, currently that would mean shows like The Americans, Escape from Dannemora and shows from the past like Halt and Catch Fire(from AMC), Six feet under, Deadwood which not surpisingly were also made by HBO. Netflix doesn't stream any of that.
I also don't understand how you think AMC won't exist, are they going to be insolvent ? Doesn't look like it, they have a cash-cow in The Walking Dead(I only watched till S06 then got bored) They got two of the best TV shows I liked BB and BCS, BCS is gonna kill it in the next season. They also produced The Terror, a brilliant mini-series which Netflix didn't stream as well and again Prime Video did. As a viewer I don't care about Netflix's subscriber numbers or HBO's lack thereof, I want to watch content I like which sadly Netflix doesn't produce on a consistent basis, this is entirely subjective and I realise that I might be one of the edge-cases in all the millenials when I say Netflix don't tickly my fancy.
I'm not biased towards HBO, hell HBO doesn't even stream in my country, I'm incredibly picky about what I watch since I'm short on time, Netflix churns out a LOT of shows, its only natural that some of them turn out to be brilliant and some of them indeed are, but the rest, like 90% of the shows are just average, they don't work for me, I simply do not have the time to watch them.
In that sense, Netflix is like the Y-Combinator of producing original content. You produce(invest in) hundreds of TV shows(startups) and hope one of them makes it big (becomes a unicorn) and the rest of them, well they would be probably cease to exist after some time.
I haven't watched the show much, as I've lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 20+ years and I don't see much besides a superficial resemblance. I saw a bit of an episode where a few 'brogrammers' were making fun of the main character like it was a 'mean girls' high school, and I thought it was ridiculous. Then I saw another bit where one of the characters was threatening a kid for his Adderall prescription and, again, thought it was moronic. I haven't watched much else.
I compare the show to Entourage: Amusing to those outside Hollywood, but completely ridiculous to anyone who actually works in the industry.
The last election cycle gave me the idea:
A reality TV show about making a reality TV show.
With The Garry Shandling Show, Entourage, political campaigns (and their documentaries), social influencers, paid placement, Spinal Tap...
Everything's so meta now, I can barely discern fact from fiction.
"All the world's a stage." -- Shakespeare
The show is obviously exaggerated for dramatic and/or comedic effect at times.
But it's shockingly accurate in its depiction of the film industry: movie studios, agencies, the politics of it all, the day to day details, the personalities, and so forth. Hell, even Ari is closely based on a real-life superagent who happens to be named Ari.
I've never been a mover and shaker in Hollywood, and I fled that business long ago. But trust me, I certainly lived and worked in that scene for the better part of a decade. Entourage comes closer to capturing the details and feel of Hollywood than any other depiction I have seen in recent memory. Every so often I actually had a hard time watching the show because it dredged up all sorts of awkward memories and nostalgia.
It's important to note that the CEO can throw a tantrum, while the mailboy cannot. Throwing tantrums isn't a way to build status; it's a sort of 'luxury' one can get away with if one is already in a clear position of power in a social setting.
Ever see the show Entourage? Ari Gold can throw tantrums, and he does. (Constantly.) His underlings don't have that privilege. If one of them ever tried to throw an Ari-style tantrum, he'd be out on the street in five minutes flat. [Full disclosure: I worked at a talent agency a long time ago, and what was depicted on Entourage was accurate enough to have passed as a documentary.]
> The best route up is hitching your wagon to your bosses wagon. So yes doing some of his work will make him look like a hero, which will get him promoted, and he'll think who is his most valuable / productive underling, which will get you promoted. Hopefully you doing some of his work free's up his time to be more productive in other areas. If your boss is a lazy PHB (Dilbert), get another job.
This is called loyalty, and it only really works in certain kinds of endeavors, and then only certain organizations doing them. TV shows depict loyalty a lot, the thing I notice about these shows is that the stories are always set in "meat-grinder" sorts of fields, and then at the tops of those fields. Suits, set in a high-powered corporate law firm. Entourage, set in Hollywood. Loyalty as a major theme to a show isn't interesting to watch otherwise.
Everywhere else, an interested ladder-climber will always find that it's way easier and cheaper to change jobs than it is to move up in one. Hence the perennial advice to move to a city, where landing jobs is like shooting fish in a barrel for the ambitious. When you run out of steam at one company, get a fresh start somewhere else. Rinse and repeat until you're tired of moving around, then you can start the loyalty path.
It's important to note that the skills you need to convince someone else that you can do a job are way different than the skills you need to convince a power broker to bequeath you with additional responsibilities and the commensurate titles and prestige. It so happens that years of experience working in organizations gives you those skills largely through osmosis.
I like where I am now, so I investigated the possibility of sticking around and trying to move up rather than jump to another company. Even talked to my boss about it. But unless you're at a rapidly growing company, the opportunities for advancement just aren't going to be there and you might be waiting years for your turn. My boss specifically used the words, "you're comfortable" to describe my head space when he said he'd go around and ask if anyone else needed anything to do.
You and everyone else can have the best of intentions, but opportunity is limited and it's hard to make more of it. There's only ever a limited amount of money and perks to go around, and its often politically unfeasible to start rocking a boat by democratizing something that was previously held feudally.
Making the decision to stay at a company is giving up easy access to opportunity in exchange for security and stability. You can always unmake that decision by leaving, often times you can even unmake it the other way, companies will take people that leave back if they like them enough, but you and only you can decide what you want more out of your time on Earth.
Everytime I visit California, as a Chicagoan, I'm a little put out by the really ugly displays of materialism and general ostentatious attitudes. To each his own I guess, but if someone grew up with that, I could see them not even noticing it.
For example, I find all the characters on HBO's Entourage to be insufferable and self-obsessed douchebags, but to some of the people I've talk to in the film business, they seem to love those characters and deeply relate with them.
They don't need to get it right. Its probably as realistic as Entourage is/was to Hollywood. Hollywood actors thought Entourage was far-fetched during season one but they still tuned-in for each episode and it ultimately turned into its own reality, as it should. After all, it's entertainment!
It shouldn't be compared to Big Bang Theory. That show is a typical paint-by-numbers sitcom, the kind that CBS has been cashing big checks on for the past decade. They aren't particularly funny. I think Chuck Klosterman wrote something that these shows are "in the form of funny", which means that they follow a common comedic timing and use the laugh track as a cue. Once you start looking for it, you always see it.
The three camera and laugh track are usually indicators that the show probably isn't "smart funny", but it's not always true. I can watch Seinfeld reruns and pick out the camera cuts, laugh tracks and joke timings, but the show is still pretty clever.
But most people capable of making shows of Seinfeld-quality aren't going to go do a CBS sitcom. Seinfeld's set up was mostly a relic of its era. Today, you can get a single-camera comedy greenlit thanks to the cable channels. Even networks took some chances. I don't watch too many network shows anymore, but I know Scrubs and Arrested Development were single camera shows without laugh tracks and they were on NBC/ABC and Fox, respectively.
As for Silicon Valley, I was expecting more from it. It's a Mike Judge show and the reviews were very positive. I've only seen the first two episodes, but they were at least good enough to make me want to watch more. It sometimes takes these shows a while to build the characters and build enough background for more jokes to connect, but at this point, I'm more worried about the story lines being thin than the comedy. That's what ultimately lost my interest in Entourage. That show started out as being a fun 30 minutes, but it was very superficial and once you realized that the plots were ridiculous and the characters didn't make that much sense, it became tedious to watch. Since both Entourage and Silicon Valley are both based on specific, unique cultures, I think they're fairly comparable.
I think they'll ultimately need to ease up on the wacky humor and make it more of a drama, similar to Entourage or other HBO rags-to-riches shows like How to Make It in America. I'd be concerned at such a pivot, but Mike Judge had episodes of King of the Hill full of real, warm, human drama, so I think he can pull it off. Office Space had heart at its core, too.
It's all about characters. If they're able to create an audience connection with characters, the show will be long lasting.
Entourage (this show's closest comparison) had some pretty stupid episodes (the last season in particular was awful), but I stuck through it all because I liked Ari and Drama.
oh come on, enough with that pc bullcrap already.
can man and woman be friends? sure, if at least one side sees the other as sexually unattractive, undesirable. that could be plain ugliness, sexual orientation or status/wealth.
but man and woman, or gay pairings that find each other desirable? why should there be friendship if nature tells you to fuck each other?
real friendship can only exist if there is no sexual desire.
then there is the second form of friendship, the less talked about one: the SM one. one quite attractive female and her fat "best friend". always together, especially on a night out. the good looking one using the fat one as a boost to her ego and ugly backdrop for any male choosing between them. the fat one leeching off her friend's attention and snapping up the male leftovers.
the male equivalent is pretty much the setup for the tv series Entourage.
About a year or two ago, I still had cable (I don't anymore), and I had the premium package with all the movie channels. At the time, a new season of Entourage was starting and I wanted to catch my wife up on the previous season. This previous season was not available via HBO On-Demand, they were not showing any re-runs on HBO that I could find, and the DVD of this season was not available in stores yet. There was literally no way I could legally let my wife watch this content (even though I had watched it, legally, the previous year on our HBO subscription, and via on-demand).
So, I downloaded it. And I got caught (via a warning letter from our ISP). Shortly thereafter we canceled our cable subscription.
I cannot fathom why, as a company, you would make it so hard for someone who is willing to pay you for content to get it. I wouldn't have been happy about having to buy it on DVD since I already have a subscription to HBO (and in my humble opinion, their previous original content should be available via on-demand all the time, although I realize that's a pipe dream), but I would have. Instead, they alienated a customer and lost all my money. That was around two years ago, so at $15/mo. (not sure how much of that goes directly to HBO) $360 has now been lost by them/my cable company for that part of my subscription alone.
If they ever allow you to buy into HBO Go (or whatever their online streaming option is called) by itself without a cable subscription I would consider it, but as long as they are stuck in their old-school ways they can forget having me (or most of my friends) as customers.
I know this article isn't about HBO, but I just thought I would point out another example of the way that content producers continue to alienate the people who should matter most: the consumer.
What I'm most curious about is what keeps the demand for drugs in the US so high? If the demand dropped off, so would the supply, prices, and number of criminals.
I recognize that I'm a deviant on the other side - I abstain from drugs, alcohol, and smoking. A bias for optimum brain, liver, and lung capacity/health seems like the rational choice. So why do so many forgo that? More pointedly, why do more Americans forgo that than citizens in other countries? My hunch is pop cultural influences (is there an episode of Entourage or How To Make It In America where someone doesn't use?), but a root cause analysis would be nice. Maybe it's related to per capita GDP? Education? Economic divide?
The HN response here is crazy.
Obviously 40 year olds are going to have less side projects, and obviously there are devs out there that treat development as a job, not a passion. I know a very good python dev that fits that description.
But seriously, no free time for side projects? Really? Absolutely no time?
It takes 30 mins to whip up something sorta kinda neat. That's an episode of Entourage. Give me a break with all this kids talk, eight year olds go to bed early, and teenagers don't need all that much attention every single day. Sure, help 'em with homework, etc. But lets face some facts, there are plenty of unpaid OSS developers that happen to be parents and they don't whine about not having enough time.
Right, TV Ratings are based on viewers during episode premiere dates. Not on how many streamed the show.
Besides, my point was that I was able to stream the new entourage and I think thats a great idea to get people to sign up for their new service.
It seems like the future of streaming content is really up in the air right now. As someone that has been downloading videos for over a decade, I was surprised by the lack of attention HBO got when they aired the upcoming episode of entourage a week early exclusively on HBO Go. It made me create my Go account and I do like the service.
Even with Hulu, onDemand, and Netflix I still find myself downloading files. I hope someday someone gets this right and I can purchase episodes(full seasons) early as well as watch any season from any show. Because I would pay double for that.
Yea, and I also learned how to become a doctor by watching House and ER, fish for Alaskan crab by watching Deadliest Catch, and learned all about how to have relationships by closely studying Friends and Entourage!
So no, that episode of Top Gear does not bring up any "good points" to draw legitimate conclusions about the American South. All it shows is that if you insult the average person enough, they'll get pissed off enough to deliver a few minutes of good footage. Meanwhile, back here in reality (not in TV land) -- if you visited down South you'd find that, given a broad sampling, Southerners are far kinder and warmer than us from New England. (p.s. I'm not from the South).
It gives me great concern that we as Americans assume so much truth from our 30 minute highlight reels.
Just watched the first free episode on itunes. I definitely liked it, as I love Entourage (it's from the same producers). Not sure if it's for everyone though. The way they mix in a more street style hustle/entrepreneurship is cool, and you'll also get more out of it if you're somewhat fashionable.
Thanks for the comment and sorry if my writing style's not to your liking. My post was not written to hurt anyone, quite the opposite. I have my own writing style, yes. It's not for everyone, yes. But you don't need to come here and try to organize a mob against, to try to force me to conform to your joy-sucking rules.
It's your choice and your right not to accept people who are different from yourself. God knows half of America is full of rabid, Jesus-loving attack dogs who try to force their beliefs on the rest of us. If you don't mind, however, could you please try to suffer in silence and keep your crying, bitching, and trolling to yourself. Thanks :)
BTW, if you don't like words like "ass" and "fuck" and all the rest of those naughty words that cause you cry out and try to rally a mob for a witch hunt, you might want to avoid blogs such as "500 Hats" by Dave McClure. Here's Dave's bio: http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/about-dave-mcclure.html here's one of his posts: http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2006/11/why_you_want_yo.html and here's every post he's written with the words "ass" or "fuck" in it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=ass+or+fuck+site%3A500hats.typepad.com&aq=f&aqi=&oq= Can you still see, or did all those naughty words blind you?
Better stay away from TechCrunch, too. That Arrington has a mouth on him! Of course, it's nothing like that Zed Shaw. Hehe, I love those guys. You know, what really burns me up, though, is little people who use words like "shit" and "fuck." Who do they think they are! We gotta teach them a lesson, don't we. We gotta stomp them back down where they belong. After all, only "important" people are allowed to use "bad" words.
Oh shit, better not read any William Shakespeare, either: http://socyberty.com/education/evolution-of-profanity-how-swear-words-came-to-be/
Damn, or watch award-winning movies, such as "Pulp Fiction," "Mystic River," "The Departed," etc. Or any of those award-winning HBO shows, such as "Sopranos," "Deadwood," "Entourage," "The Wire," etc.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, what's left for you?! Well, at least you've still got your Fox news, church, and tea party friends, right? Speaking of which, where you at the rally? I heard Palin's speech was great! She's so smart and wholesome and funny and right. I love her! She's got my vote in 2012, I've had about all the "hopey changey" stuff I can handle outta that Obama guy!
Do you now see how ridiculous your attack was, Brett? And do your employers and university (Amazon.com, Trilogy, LiquidPlanner, and Yale, if this is you: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brettbender) know you're harassing people on Hacker News when you should be working and making them look good? In both cases, probably not, but I'm not going to argue. Life's too short to waste time with miserable people. Good luck. Seriously.
Cheers!
PS: I took out the asterisks and did some polishing and now the post is making the rounds all over again. Thks.
I haven't seen the movie yet but I saw the trailer a while ago and I just rewatched it then and from a pure CGI point of view it looks pretty meh. Like comparable to the first Final Fantasy movie perhaps but not much better. The first time I saw the trailer (at least two months ago, maybe an early cut?) I actually commented on how bad the CGI was before realising it was Avatar. Added to this story just sounds like an old retold story as Arrington highlights. I'm sure the film is actually really clever and the little I know of Cameron has led me to think he is a passionate and down-to-Earth guy so I'm sure it's good but I'm really not getting that impression so far. In fact, this has to be the most marketed film ever (I see adverts everywhere even online and in the App-Store as well as tie-ins with multiple TV shows (Entourage, South Park come to mind)) and this kind of marketing always makes me instinctively wonder why it's so heavily marketed. I've avoided learning too much about TC/Arrington because it seems there's often controversy but is this the kind of site where sponsored reviews ever appear?
No, it never did anything for piracy, because it didn't have as much content. I'd venture a guess that most piracy is for brand new movies, not single episodes of shows(for most shoes, some exceptions like Entourage exist obviously)
Hang on, if you're unhappy, you're obviously not going to go out socializing cos nobody wants to talk to a miserable face and alcohol will only amplify the unhappiness.
When I'm unhappy I like to be on my own and ride it out, watch tv shows online to cheer me up. So TV shows make me happy not TV makes me unhappy.
Open Question: How many hours of TV do you watch per week? I'm on around 3hrs (Heroes, Prison Break, Entourage) but all my shows are watched online without the silly commercials.