How Jeremy Piven cast off his Entourage

Does Entourage make careers or kill them? Adrian Grenier plays a movie star on the show, but you can't imagine him opening on 3,000 screens nationwide over July Fourth Weekend in the real world. When Kevin Dillon steps offscreen, he simply goes back to being his big brother's little brother. Kevin Connolly is big-cast fodder, crowd-filler, too ginger to play in the big leagues (you doubt me? I give you … David Caruso), and Jerry Ferrara is just Turtle (not that there's a thing wrong with that).

Jeremy Piven? Whole different story. The actor who plays Ari Gold, Grenier's ethically-challenged agent, is stepping out this week in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which gives him his first starring role after a good two decades in Hollywood and some 80 movies and TV shows. It showcases the nasty, driven, wormy side of his work and has a little too much in common with Bob Zemeckis's Used Cars for my money. Somehow Ari, venomous, vengeful, venal and vile, has become one of the secret heroes of this our Second Gilded Age. It's the role of a lifetime for any actor willing to play loathsome at full tilt.

Piven knows exactly how to do that, having built up a fine catalogue of creeps, losers, minor villains and bent cops over the years. Usually you see him in the lower reaches of big-budget studio projects: he's the crooked doctor in Heat who patches up Val Kilmer, and a cop in Kiss The Girls, he's in the mix in The Runaway Jury (who wasn't?), and in the dust-choked crowd somewhere in Black Hawk Down. (It's interesting to track the progress of his hairline backwards and forwards up his forehead in his old movies; presumably his hair is now on full, Sean Connery-level rug-drill.) And he makes a lot of movies with his childhood friend from back in Chicago, John Cusack who, along with his two sisters learned to act under the tutelage of Piven's acting-teacher parents.

The Cusack connection tends to be problematic for Piven. He certainly has played a lot of small roles in movies starring his friend. I've been moved in the past to suggest that Piven's relationship with Cusack reminds me of gangster Dutch Schultz and the midget he kept on the payroll to tell him jokes when he was getting a shave. I think this may have been unfair. After all, Piven was in the cast of The Larry Sanders Show and in the Seinfeld pilot episode, either of which makes him some kind of royalty in my Pantheon of Telly Greatness. And if Robert Altman liked him enough to cast him in The Player, who can argue with his talent, even if he does drop out of a David Mamet play now and again for reasons that stink of "dog-ate-my-homework"?

I'm glad for Piven. Two years before Entourage came calling he was playing people with names like "Interviewer" and "Versace Salesman." These days, even the president knows his name.

Entourage 6/12: Writer props

Nothing subtle about Writer props in the "Entourage" Season 6 finale. Everything Matt Damon did in this episode was absolutely hilarious.

From his berating of Vince to his questioning of who Drama was, Damon instantly became the best guest star of Season 6, and is in the conversation for best one-episode guest spot of all time.

Plus, he allowed Drama to deliver this gem, a runner-up for the BPL: "He Jason Bourned me."

Damon's work in this episode more than made up for the disappointing "The Informant" movie that came out last month.

Entourage 6/11: 'Entourage' returns to being 'Entourage'

Just when we considered putting "Entourage" on our "Watch on DVR" list instead of watching it "live" at 10:30 p.m., Doug Ellin and the crew gave us reason to hope.

Reason to believe that next week's season finale wouldn't be just a 30-minute chore designed to give us closure on a season gone awry. Reason to consider that maybe Season 7 isn't that bad of an idea.

"Entourage" can still be "Entourage."

After two exceptionally sub-par episodes and a third "decent only because it followed two woeful shows" episode, Episode 11 of "Entourage" proved to be a legitimately good episode. And rewatchable, which is the key to any good episode.

(It's OK to admit that you deleted the last three episodes of "Entourage" from your DVRs and TiVos because you don't care about wanting to watch those again before the Season 6 DVD comes out next summer.)

This episode had all the elements that make "Entourage," well, "Entourage." We had a super-neurotic, ultra-nervous E thinking he might have contracted an STD from some girl. An amusing plot seeing how this entire season has been about E playing the field and struggling with his desire for a real relationship. Mix in the plot twist of Johnny Drama having slept with that girl Tara first and we've got ourselves old-school comedy.

Thankfully, we finally saw E having girl troubles without it involving a girl in the scenes beyond that one establishing shot. Eric Murphy is at his best when he's freaking out over things, be it an STD or Vince's career, not when he's struggling to make emotional decisions.

Another massive Johnny Drama meltdown always keeps us entertained, and when they involve his auditions, that's pure comedy. Even better, though, is the classic 10-second celebrity cameo and how they always manage to know Drama. We never know why or how they're connected, nor do we want to, but when Dean Cain entered the "Melrose Place" audition with a "Oh, hey Drama," I laughed.

Ari Gold is always scheming, but when he has a real adversary, he shines. Bringing Terrence McEwick back was a nice touch, but the better move was showing Ari doing his investigative due diligence, even if that meant going to talk to Terrence's wife. And his negotiation meeting with Terrence was fantastic. (Does anyone really think the deal will go smoothly next week?)

For the relatable guy lesson, and there always is one -- think of it as "Entourage's Fables" -- we had the long-distance relationship issue between Turtle and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Here's the tip: In today's technological world, when you're in a committed relationship, DO NOT save your email and Facebook passwords on your computer if you're both going to use it.

And, of course, we had a random sex scene with Vince and some girl with an insane body.

Entourage Season 6×12 Review: Give A Little Bit

To be honest i hated this season. Thought it was weak and not very daring. Missed the stuff i like, the LA, the Hollywood, the movie biz. And i thought they had a chance to end the show daringly last season with Eric quitting but they wussed out and got them back together. They wussed out this time at the end when they could have had lloyd as a great foil to Ari. Adam Davis was a good foil he did nothing this season. And what i like about this is Vince and the guys getting into adventures. i mean this season was basically about drama and turtle and Vince was secondary. And they are the two least interesting characters. Drama’s funny but like Kramer in Seinfeld he’s a sidekick not a main focus of the story. I like the Ari and Lloyd stuff and honestly i’d rather see a show about the MIller Gold Agency right now because they’ve missed most of what i like which is vince and the movie Biz, the LA lifestyle, and Vince screwing girls and living the life with his boys. I mean they went a whole season and i have no clue what project vince is doing right now. That’s how distant it is from the movie biz. There are other shows that are more innovative and these days that i look forward to more. Glad Californication is back and can wait for True Blood and a few others. But Entourage, though not on my bad side, in the last two seasons has bored me to death and i think it’s close to it’s end.

'Entourage's' Doug Ellin Explains: For the Kids

How great was the "Entourage" finale last night? That Matt Damon -- we always thought he was a nice guy. Turns out he's really mean. And aggressive. In the name of raising money for his kids charity, onexone. As if that's any excuse.
I mean, the guy scowled his way through the entire episode. (Even meaner than he was as Tom Ripley, and that guy's a serial killer.) And he badgered that nice Adrian Grenier into giving lots of money 'for the kids.'

Come to think of it, Bono was pretty mean, too.

So I called Doug Ellin, the executive producer on "Entourage," to ask him how he got old sourpuss to do his show. After all, we know that agents beat a line to Ellin's door begging for cameo appearances.

Matt -- yeah, sure, he is a movie star technically. But obviously he needed some exposure.

Here's what Ellin said: Matt was a fan. And he said he'd do a cameo if he could talk about his charity.

"I said, 'I don't want to do it soft. I want to do it as if it's real,'" said Ellin.
In Hollywood, there's nothing warm and fuzzy about charities. When you get "honored," it not only means that you are expected to give money, but you are expected to raise money. On the show, Matt tells Adrian that $10K was not a sufficient sum “for the kids.” He needed to pay up $1.50. (That’s $150K for those not in the $20 mill category.)

"When you see these celebrities in these charities, they get very aggressive. You feel uncomfortable if you don’t give all your money away," said Ellin.

The bit ended up including LeBron James, with the refrain that everyone's doing it "for the kids."

"'For the kids' was in the script once or twice -- and then on the set we said, 'Let's keep saying it ,'" said Ellin. We'll see if that makes it into the cultural bloodstream.

This was the part I really didn't know: Matt's charity is an actual, real thing. So check it out.

For the kids.

Matt Damon hams it up on Entourage

Entourage is known for its celebrity cameos and over the years some have completely stolen the show - think James Woods, Bob Saget and Seth Green. But this week's season finale saw a rather flat performance from one of Hollywood's biggest stars right now.

Matt Damon is up there with the top names at the moment - the Bourne films and the Ocean's trilogy helped him cement his status as both a great ensemble player and a dependable leading man.

He's followed these movies up with a mixture of cameos and top-of-the-bill roles and will be hitting UK cinema screens soon in dark political comedy The Informant!

But his turn on Entourage was a tad over the top, playing up to the media caricature he has built up over the past year or so by appearing in spoof videos, lampooning the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman on popular American TV shows.

Entourage has helped some fading stars grab a bit of the limelight while offering the chance for big names (Snoop Dogg, Martin Scorsese, Zac Efron) to step down a level and poke fun at themselves or show how "normal they are.

But Damon's turn was just a bit too much - ranting and raving, bullying Vince and even breaking down in tears at the end. Sure, we all love to see screen icons playing the fool and sending themselves up, but Ari, Vince, Turtle and Drama (and Lloyd) are the stars of this show and let's keep it that way.

Entourage: The Show I Know and Love

Now THIS is the show I know and love. Sunday's episode felt effortless and exactly like a day in the life of a superstar and his buddies. One thing I appreciate about Entourage is that it's the little things that make it seem authentic. Yes, Vince is a movie star, but everything he does doesn't have to be larger-than-life to be cool. The episode resolved two conflicts, added a new wrinkle to a present conflict, and introduced a new dilemma in classic Entourage style: end the episode with a small bomb and then boom: perfect song over the closing credits. Yes, the closing song matters; it cues you in on how to interpret what you just saw and puts a figurative bow on top of the episode. Since the show ended with Jamie-Lynn telling Turtle that she would be shooting a new TV show in New Zealand (probably signaling the end of their relationship), it was fitting that Michael Jackson's "I Wanna Be Where You Are" rang out loud and clear after we saw Turtle's stunned face.

I was quite pleased with the episode because the writers have ended Eric's farcical relationship with Single White Female, Ashley a,fter she asks E to check his email. That is beyond crazy but the crazier thing is that Eric actually considered going along with it! After remembering his initial impression and getting sound advice from Vince to call it quits, Eric gives her the old heave-ho. Vince is a great friend; he's always loyal and supportive and never pushy. Although the decision to dump Ashley should have been a no-brainer, he let E make the choice on his own. While Eric tries to disengage himself from a personal mess, Drama tries to free himself from a professional one. He has a shot at the new Melrose Place, but only if Dan Coakley lets him out of his Five Towns contract. Coakley has been making Drama's life a living hell and his character isn't faring much better. The chances of Coakley releasing him from his contract are slim to none. Lloyd represents Drama and is now working for Adam Davies. He tries in vain to get him released, but Lloyd is a guppy in a big pond. Enter Ari to save the day, not because he gives a shit about Drama, but to spite Lloyd, who he has vengefully blackballed. When Drama sees that Lloyd can’t pull the strings that Ari can, he accepts Ari's offer for representation. You know as well as I do that the only reason Ari even tolerates Drama is because he is Vince's brother. He only wants to rep Drama in order to punish Lloyd. Despite this thoroughly mean act, Ari later mercifully releases Drama back to Lloyd after Johnny asks him to admit whether or not he thinks he has any real talent. Lloyd believes in Drama; Ari could care less.

I'm like a spurned girlfriend and Entourage is my lost love that returned home. I won't ask any questions, and I don't care where you've been – I'm just glad you're back.