Entourage: Season Three – Part 1

Review By: Damaris Olivo
DamarisOlivo@TheCinemaSource.com

‘The cinema is dead!’ is a cry that has been heard for a few years now. In light of the dropping attendance in movie theaters, studios and production companies tirelessly point to pirating as the culprit. Having moved to New York City a few years back, I can see why, as there’s not a day that passes when I’m not offered to buy the newest film that’s out in theaters for five bucks on DVD, whether it be in a subway tunnel or on a random side street.

Yet as much as we’d like to blame piracy for our box office woes, I believe there’s a different, sneakier offender, and we don’t have to pay a train fare in order to find it. We don’t even have to leave our best friend’s couch. I like to call it, HBO. As much as we hate to admit it, the quality of the programming on television has greatly improved, and although there was a time when TV and film were two different beasts, the distinction has become positively blurred during the last few years, with television rapidly gaining an edge. Personally I love it. No, I’m not a traitor. It’s just easy to see why this revolution is taking place.

Where a film has two hours to develop a character and a plot, we got all of six seasons of Sex and the City to get to know and love Carrie Bradshaw as if she were part of our own circle of friends. Where commercials once cut in during the most exciting part of the show, we now have the joy of watching The Sopranos uninterrupted, even after a main character gets whacked. No suspenseful 30 second commercial break, and we’re rarely left unsatisfied at the conclusion of each episode. So now that the folks at HBO have a show for every possible audience, out comes Entourage, which is impossible to hate, and just as fun as going on a date to a movie theater.

After Season One was a break-out hit, and Season Two knocked it out of the park, Entourage: Season Three, Part 1 satiates our appetite for our four favorite boys and a Jeremy Piven we love to love. Notice I said Season Three, Part 1. Sadly, the season is broken up into two different DVD sets (those tricky distributors). As angry as it made me at first (‘how dare you know I’m going to end up buying both parts anyway?’), I was reminded when watching Season Three that money’s what runs Hollywood. So in the end, it just seemed oddly appropriate.

At the start of Season Three, Vincent Chase’s (Adrian Grenier) career is at its peak after just having starred in the James Cameron film ‘Aquaman.’ He’s at the top of his game and his childhood buddies, Eric (Kevin Connolly) and Turtle ...