June 17, 2007: Percolating
Happy Father's Day to all you
Entourage-loving dads out there. I hope you spent your day kicking it Chase-style with your own broods.
The fourth season started off with a bang literally. The "boys from Queens" made their way to the jungles of Colombia to film the life story of Pablo Escobar, and despite the enormous odds against them it appears that they pulled off the impossible. But the task was not without its challenges and, from the previews, it does not appear that they are completely out of the woods just yet.
Since this was the first time we've actually seen Vince filming a movie, it's hard to say how this Billy Walsh experience compared to
Queens Boulevard. If Billy was this explosive, mercurial and insecure doing their first collaboration, I find it hard to believe that Vince and Eric would have been so eager to work with him again. But then, as Billy admitted to Eric in a moment of weakness,
Queens Boulevard was a much smaller movie to shoot.
As far as the buzzed-about documentary-style episode, I found it a little jarring to frame the story that way and I didn't necessarily think it added much to the episode. It was humorous to see Ari offering his long-distance wisdom, and Johnny had some funny moments, as always. I loved his cameo at the end of the movie; I laughed out loud when he suddenly popped on camera in military fatigues.
Despite the fact that I found the episode entertaining overall, there were a few things I found just downright unbelievable:
- Would an actor really rely only on makeup to achieve the weight gain needed for this role? Every time they showed Vince in snippets from the film, I kept thinking how distracting it would be to try to look past all the makeup. Wouldn't someone so dedicated to the movie be willing to gain the pounds like all the great actors before him?
- Is producing really as easy as it looks? Granted, everyone knew that Eric was a novice, but in the end, he sure did make it look simple by following two simple steps: coddling the talent and managing the budget.
- Do directors like Billy Walsh really exist? Do entire films get scrapped and rewritten during the course of production? Do they scream and curse and rant around movie sets like lunatics? Do they dress like escapees from a kindergarten fashion show?
There were also a few administrative items of note. For one, didn't
Debi Mazar's name previously appear in the opening credits? I was happy to see that
Perrey Reeves has been promoted to full-time cast member, but what about belligerent, foulmouthed publicist extraordinaire Shauna? I certainly hope we haven't seen the last of her.
So now that "Medellin" is finally history, what's next for Vince and the boys? Will Johnny's star continue to rise? Is Vince really broke? Will Turtle ever see any action from his hot new gal pal? We have all summer to let these stories... percolate.
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