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Anyone else watching this? I watched the first two seasons over the past couple of months and am now ready to watch the third season as it airs. There's been a huge wave of inside Hollywood comedies, from Curb Your Enthusiasm to Unscripted to The Comeback to Fat Actress, but this one stands out above the others in the way that it portrays the business in a generally positive light. I feel like so many Hollywood stories seem to be about saying that these peoples' live are actually worse than yours, which seems a bit self indulgent. This series is able to acknowledge some of the difficulties of being an actor in the Hollywood system, but is also aware of the ridiculous luck that these guys have.
One of the remarkable things about the series is that it's largely about these guys enjoying their undeserved riches, witness HBO's third season tagline: "A lifestyle is a terrible thing to waste," and it could be alienating to watch these guys indulge in luxury week after week. Yet, because the characters are so strong, it's like you're enveloped into their world and experience things as they do. The series is a total fantasy, and yet it pulls it off and never feels fake or contrived.
The other major thing that stands out is the series' depiction of male friendship, which is a lot more realistic than most stuff I've seen. So many movies start with the basic premise of 'boys being boys' and then proceeds to end this bachelor existence and move them into married middle class families. So, the pleasure of the film and the ultimate resolution are opposed. You're going to see a movie like Wedding Crashers to watch Vince and Owen seeking action, and yet the film insists on making them grow up and mature away from the very thing that made them interesting in the first place.
So, this show doesn't do that, it revels in this single male atmosphere, clearly a fantasy vision of a world where you can spend all day hanging out with your boys and then have sex with beautiful women at the end of it. How does this play into Vince's claim that his mother is the most beautiful woman in the world in the third season premiere? A bit of a virgin/whore dynamic going on perhaps?
Of course, it's thoroughly enjoyable as just a really funny series. I'm looking forward to seeing it more, and when this is paired with The Sopranos in January, it's going to be quite a combo. |
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