It’s been a week since the season finale of Entourage – the worst series in history that I’ve ever kept watching – but there are a few questions that just won’t die but dig their way ever deeper into my psyche, haunting my sleep and innocence.
Here are the things that trouble after the season finale:
So the last episode featured both Sloane and Terrance in separate plotlines. Their stories were unrelated and I’m not saying they should have been given a whole scene together, but when you have two third-tier characters appear in an episode and they happen to be father and daughter, don’t you have to service that fact somehow, just maybe have Ari yell on the phone to E, “Say hi to Sloane. I’m about to [insert anal rape metaphor] her father.” I’m no Emmy winning 30 Rock writer, but don’t you have to do something just to acknowledge that you the show runner know that Sloane is Terrance’s daughter? Which raises the real question, do the Entourage writers remember that? Are they capable or remembering a plot line of their show from two seasons back?
Next question, how the hell is it possible that Vince still hasn’t bought Drama a car? He’s bought Turtle like ten. E gets given a couple cars by Vince every season. But his own brother, Johnny Drama, doesn’t have a single Lamborgini to show for 16 seasons of Entourage? Can this possibly be an oversight? Or have they already figured out the finale to the whole series, a hundred years from now when it finally gets taken off the air, they will go out with Vince buying Drama the entire Formula One Fleet, if that is a thing.
A lot of cause for reflection while flying over Arizona with Virgin’s updated crummy selection of channels.
And if you needed a reason to love Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, she lists “Hot Lunch” as her favorite movie scene of all time in an interview with Movieline. A woman of enormous taste and discernment.
I can’t even count the number of hours I spent sitting on that concrete ledge in my five years; generally with the same bummed out expression the people in this picture have.
All part of the thrilling countdown to the release of my book, Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost: A Memoir of Hampshire College at the Twilight of the 80’s. To buy it today, click here.
These are far less fun to write when I’m actually looking forward to the movies. And weirdly I was looking forward to all of the releases this weekend. How is that possible? Is that proof that the last vestiges of my edge are all gone? Probably…
Since writing it I’ve gone to see Zombieland and A Serious Man. Enjoyed both very much. Both made me remember my youth dealing with cranky old Jewish people across formica table tops and battling the undead.
Have seen two films this weekend about youths in the grips of obsession: the remake of Fame and The Baader Meinhof Complex. On the surface, they are very much the same movie, although one is better made, the story of young people so driven by a passion that on the surface makes sense but when you get into it is really nuts that that are willing to destory anything that stands between them and their precious abstract ideal.
In BMC, the young people go on a killing spree to bring down the fascist state.
In Fame, we see them force their family and friends at graduation watch the most Godawful spectacle of a message song about making your dreams come true, complete with students dressed up as Polynesian tribal dancers for a brief Stomp segue.
Yes, you will say, unlike the crimes of the Baader Meinhof, nobody died from having to watch that Performing Arts High graduation, but tell that to the people who sat through it who will be haunted by those memories forever. Even the extras who were there to shoot the scene.
I am not saying young dreamers should be jailed; certainly not, anyone familiar with my Idol work knows I am extremely pro-young dreamers. All I’m suggesting is we need to keep an eye on them. And know their passions can be used for evil as well as good. When they are planning a graduation scene like the “Body Electric” finale of the original film, they deserve our praise and support. But when they plan to blow up Swedish Embassies or graduations like the one in the Fame remake, then its time to step in with the full power of the state and crush them.
On a more tragic note, I lay away all night quaking from having been witness to the violence done to Alan Parker’s original masterpiece. There is no more important issue for cinema to deal with than what its like to go to a performing arts high school, and it pains me to say this film marched straight away from that responsibility.
Not only did the filmmaker strip the original text of all its pathos, angst, joy and wonder, but they added insult to injury by actually re-staging several scenes from the original, but stripping out three or four layers of meaning, as though the filmmakers were unable to understand the complexities at work in the subway scene or Coco’s “Out Here On My Own” scene.
Bruno Martelli, Leroy, Coco, Mr. Shorofsky, Ralph and most of all you Doris, my heart goes out to you on this tragic day.
But all that said, they pulled off a very creditable re-staging of the “Hot Lunch” theme that for a moment, made you feel that PA was still PA…Very effective dancing on tables and group singalong indeed.
Now let’s visit one more time to that magical moment in history, when young people’s dreams were used for good rather than twisted in hate, and we all sung the body electric.
We’re in a bit of a cranky mood looking over this weekend’s releases. A lot of heat but not much light, is the vibe we’re getting. Actually maybe not that much heat either. But hey, Sorority Row is still playing.
I’ll be on the Judith Regan show with my first interview about the book. She asked a lot of questions about how many drugs I did at Hampshire. I was evasive. If you have Sirius you can hear it throughout the day on channel 102. I felt my voice was more annoying than usual, but you be the judge.
Jon Shere, charismatic leader of the Supreme Dicks, in our heyday.
All part of the thrilling countdown to the release of my book, Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost: A Memoir of Hampshire College at the Twilight of the 80’s. To buy it today, click here.
Somehow this one captures the tone of the time for me perfectly.
All part of the thrilling countdown to the release of my book, Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost: A Memoir of Hampshire College at the Twilight of the 80’s. To buy it today, click here.
Richard Rushfield is a Contributing Editor of Vanity Fair and formerly the Entertainment Editor of latimes.com and West Coast Editor of Gawker, His book "Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost: A Memoir of Hampshire College in the Twilight of the 80's" was published in 2009. He is currently at work on a history of American Idol, due out January 2011 from Hyperion Books.
