Entourage (2015)

Jack and I had a lot of fun with this continuation of the HBO series, in which our boys are involved in a new movie and manager Ari comes out of retirement. We loved the series and we think the movie is great. Anyone who complains it's just like the show is stupid for expecting anything else.

The entire original cast is here: Kevin Connolly (blogged in He's Just Not That Into You) once again top-billed as Eric, Adrian Grenier as Vince, Kevin Dillon as Johnny Drama, slimmed-down Jerry Ferrara as Turtle, Jeremy Piven as Ari, and so on. New cast members Billy Bob Thornton (won an Oscar for writing Sling Blade (1996), nominated for starring in it and for A Simple Plan 1998); was also great in Primary Colors (1998), Pushing Tin (1999), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), Bandits (2001), Bad Santa (2003), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), The Ice Harvest (2005), and last year's mini-series Fargo) and Haley Joel Osment (Oscar-nominated at age 11 for supporting actor in The Sixth Sense (1999), he also played Forrest Junior in Forrest Gump (1994), the main kid in Pay It Forward (2000) and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and a lot of TV, then a recurring role on the outstanding and current Amazon series Alpha House) are joined by cameos almost too numerous to count. Okay, I'm going to count them: 41 people played themselves (read the entire cast here), including Mark Wahlberg (producer of the series and this movie). And then there's Greg Louganis as Lloyd's fiancé. Doug Ellin, creator/director/writer of the series, is at the helm here as well.

The opening credits, of Los Angeles landmarks with cast and crew names substituted, are fabulous. I looked for them on youtube but you'll have to watch at least the first part of the movie to see them. Practically worth the price of admission. Shots of foreign resorts and the best of LA and Beverly Hills are also outstanding, although on imdb every location listed is USA. Imdb is sorely lacking soundtrack information, because only one song is on the site and many were on screen after the word sountrack [sic]. These folks compiled a list for me.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you to leave the kids at home. This is raunchy, and not just the language. Apparently one scene was so over-the-top that it had to be re-edited to avoid a dreaded NC-17 rating. Rotten Tomatoes' critics don't want anyone to see this, averaging 30%, while their audiences come in at a more realistic 74%. No need to rush out to see it on the big screen, but it's good entertainment for adult fans of the show.