A Bunch Of Super Important Rules Of Hollywood I Learned From The 'Entourage' Movie

By Lord Castleton | Miscellaneous | October 15, 2015 |

By Lord Castleton | Miscellaneous | October 15, 2015 |

I had the inestimable pleasure of finally getting around to watching the Entourage movie last night and while a case can certainly be made that it’s offensive, shallow, bigoted and thinly hateful, a case can also be made that it’s just kind of a mediocre pile of flatulent Hollywood runoff. Unlike the fair and unbiased review from SLW, who did not watch the original series on HBO, I did watch it. I watched every episode, and now I’m not sure why. I guess that in the beginning it captured much of the feeling I had when friends of mine started to actually make it in Hollywood, and I can tell you that being in that jet wash is amazing.

But like the dudebros in Entourage, eventually, when people officially ‘make it’ they’re faced with an entirely new set of issues and problems, and perhaps that’s where the TV show started to fail. In the entertainment industry, which is a smaller and more tightly knit group of the same faces than anyone realizes, getting inside is infinitely more delicious than actually being inside, because you spend so much of your emotional capital staying inside, knowing that every fucking asshat barista and waiter and makeup artist and carpenter and disco instructor has a script tucked under their arm — some of which might actually be better than yours.

So, the Entourage show, while preposterous, felt like good, clean quasi-douchey fun for about two or three seasons and then it just turned inside out and went full douche. Characters that I liked in the beginning, like E, just felt shitty and awful and gross. By the end I couldn’t stand the constant lilt of Turtle’s whining. Vince was horrible and unwatchable from the first second of the first episode and only the supporting cast kept this turd alive for so long. At the very end, I couldn’t even look forward to Sloane. All I had was the golden interplay between Ari and Lloyd, and even though that was offensive to some people, it really felt more honest than the other elements of the show. But god that’s an awful realization to think that you’re only tuning into a show to watch Jeremy Piven. Guh.

When Entourage was finally buried in the sand in a stupid and poorly conceived finale, I had gladly moved on. I had absolutely outgrown these idiots. While they were on their eighth season of doing drugs and chasing empty women and wasting money and being immature and acting like entitled shits, I was building an actual career and raising a family and noticing that decisions I made had actual consequences and that there was zero, I mean zero that I had in common with anyone on the show except for Ari’s wife maybe. And when I had bizarrely hatewatched like five full seasons and these assholes blissfully went away, I felt content to never see any of them again.

So, it took me a while to see the Entourage Movie, and I can honestly say I should have waited longer. Or never seen it. I have this sense that creator Doug Ellin is a probably a decent guy in real life but I hate the choices he made in the series and I ‘m suspicious of anyone who calls Russell Wilson “DangeRuss” unironically.

Amazing play by @DangeRussWilson

— Doug Ellin (@mrdougellin) October 11, 2015

I guess if you looked at anyone’s body of work it would be tough to love everything. But even though I ended up being super-disappointed by the show and it took me a while to see the movie, I was able to garner some pretty great life lessons from it. Things that we should all hurry to convey to our children and grandchildren so they have at least an outside chance of becoming a real life Vincent Chase.

If you last one minute in the ring with a professional fighter, you get to fuck them.

If you don’t, they get to break your arm. Hope you own a pair of assless chaps, Hulk Hogan. I heard nothing but wild praise for Ronda Rousey before this movie but she’s not really in my sphere of understanding. I’m guessing that the people who adore her will continue to do so after this movie and people like me will scratch our heads and shrug.

If a girl tells you she’s pregnant six hours after you have a one night stand with her, it’s because you also fucked her roommate.

This one is fairly self explanatory. You hook up, then she’s like “I need to see you at breakfast because I’m preggers.” Just run. Because that’s a trap about roommates, somehow.

The only thing it takes to make an amazing film is a hip length sweater and a dude in mascara.

Vincent Chase can sport those brunette curls and fake eyelashes better than anyone. That’s how you know he’s a great director. Because even though the clip of his movie looked like it was shat out of a pretentious first year AFI student, he’s Vinnie Chase and so obviously, directing.

Pregnant ladies will offer to take you back if you’re honest about all the girls you bang

Oh Sloane. Sweet butterfly-voiced Sloane. There’s a certain segment of the population that kind of pines away for the old days before the rise of ubiquitous video, when hearing was a more prominent sense than it is now and girls with voices like Joey Lauren-Adams could trade on that a bit more. You were our hope on this show, Sloane. You, floating in stasis above a pissriver of Scott Caans, had a chance to be the voice of reason. To bring order to the galaxy. You were the chosen one. It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them.

It doesn’t matter how long you’re skinny. If you were ever fat, that’s how people remember you.

Didn’t you used to be fat, Jerry Ferrara? Yeah, motherfucker. I used to scale to the portly, but I worked my fucking ass off and now I’m healthy as shit. But thanks for asking.

If you have enough money, Billy Bob Thornton will pretend to act in your movie.

This is the dude that made our head explode with how amazing he was on Fargo last season. You could actually taste the resentment in every line delivery.

If you hit it just right in the tequila game, you get to live like Howard Hughes.

Why am I even writing on the goddamn internet when I could just be selling tequila and snorting coke off someone’s ass with Mark Cuban? It’s like A) Make a tequila B) Be obscenely rich C) See Mark Cuban nekkid. That’s basically the American dream.

If you have enough money, Haley Joel Osment will age himself to pretend like he’s older than the Sixth Sense character.

Because, in our hearts, he’s always like seven years old, right? An innocent, with that cute little speech impediment. He’s not some lamb-chopped Meatloaf impersonator. Hell no. Obviously not. But if you pay him enough, he can pretend to be. Or whatever.

If you were born with a penis, nature dictates that you must attempt to copulate with Emily Ratajkowski

No one on Pajiba will disagree with this, but I may take some flak for limiting it to people with penises.

There are no such things as “dailies” on motion pictures that cost more than a hundred million dollars

I mean, come on. It’s not like a studio wouldn’t completely trust a first time no-experience helmer with that kind of scratch. You think they’re gonna try to like “keep tabs” on their investment on a DAILY basis. Next you’ll tell me that even with experienced directors, the studio is constantly interfering with a slew of unhelpful and time-wasting notes and that modern directors spend way way too much of their creative capital dodging/explaining/appeasing monkeys from the studio whose only role in this world is to be an interfering gnat buzzing in the ear of an infinitely more talented person. I mean, seriously, that wouldn’t happen.

Big decisions are made by white men in suits sitting around a long table in the dark. Also, the law requires that they include one blonde, one brunette and a token black dude, but they don’t get to talk.

Because it’s tradition. Also, this might actually be true.

If you go over your budget, you just have to say ‘trust me’ and the studio will get you more

If there’s one truism in Hollywood, it’s that there’s always plenty of money to be spent on the actual production. Just try not to run out of it, because then they’ll have to get you more, and they’re always happy to do that, but you may have to get a noogie or an eye roll with a wink.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, every party has a pool, and every pool is full of only single girls in bikinis who don’t have hulking bouncer boyfriends who ride motorcycles and tear people’s arms off for fun, who will make eye contact with you as soon as they’ll let you try to make a baby in them

This is the rule that keeps on giving and is the sustaining principle of the Entourage series. I can’t even show the picture of the yacht party in the opening scene because half the girls are topless.

And I can vouch for this. One thing that you can’t avoid while living in Los Angeles is a perfect ten desperately trying to show you her boobs. You find that out on day one. You basically pull into town, smelling of B.O. and your broken down Ford Focus and you step out of the nearest Wendy’s, three bites into a bacon double something and WHAM, there’s like half a dozen of the most gorgeous women you’ve ever seen with their tops off, hoping that you’ll grace them with a little afternoon lovemaking. That happens like, every day.

In the end, I think there are some real teaching moments to come out of this insightful, slice-of-life portrayal of four yoots in America. Typically, movies cast people who can actually act, but in this case, having a roadmap to guide future generations is gift enough. Make sure to suggest Entourage to everyone you know so they, too, can experience what life in Hollywood is really like.