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How To Make It In America

Discussion in 'TV Shows' started by Senna Vs. Prost, Feb 17, 2010.

  1. Senna Vs. Prost

    Senna Vs. Prost
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    I watched the pilot for this show, and the first couple minutes were ok. I thought the dudes were kind of tool-ish, they weren't outrageous enough to be Entourage characters, but they were the typical cliche "losers" who still live in pricey NYC apartments, have expensive clothes, good looking girlfriends etc.

    A sort of "inverse Entourage" has so much potential, to see guys hustling and come up with some absurd schemes, but come on, leather, jackets, Japanese denim and the fashion business? It's like it was written for the GQ readership.
     
  2. Kratos

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    That's what I was thinking as well (the inverse Entourage). It will be interesting to see where they go with this. I thought the pilot was ok, but you can see that there is a ton of potential if the develop the characters well enough. Will the denim line be a focus for a while or just a couple of episodes? I think if they take off with the denim line and it explodes right away, the show will lose what could make it good, the constant struggle, and it will turn into Entourage v2.

    That being said, I'm fairly interested to watch what is in store for the next couple of episodes. I could see it becoming a great show and one of my favorites, or getting removed from my DVR in two episodes.
     
  3. Ganimedes

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    I had the two first episodes of this show lined up but I could barely make it through the first one.The general idea of the show has already been covered, good looking people...well that's about it. This would work if my eyes were penises because there's some good looking vagina on the screen but if that premise was true, then the characters could best be described as particularly boring cases of AIDS. They have no personality whatsoever and that goes double for the lead.

    The faux hip factor of the environment really rubbed me the wrong way. Hey, black and white photography, that means it's art! Look at us struggling and fucking people in lofts as we sip champagne in this hotbed of creativity! From what I understood, the main character used to do prints on t-shirts or jeans or something before life trod him down? Edgy.

    The backstories lean towards the usual retarded teeny bopper drama. You have the ex-girlfriend/love of your life that has moved on (but she's just having a phase or something and the shirt printing abilities of our protagonist will win her over in time for the season finale), the ethnic with the troubled background (hello drug addiction and destructive behaviour when we become successful) and the girl that comes from money but is determined to make it on her own, stereotypically enough by running a fucking gallery.

    Put Melrose Place, One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl in a blender and run at full speed for five minutes and this is what you get. Entourage was successful because of the T&A and the snappy dialogue, but also because it didn't take itself very seriously. More than anything it was a satirical take on stardom. This show is the girl with Led Zeppelin posters on the wall but a playlist full of Fallout Boy.
     
  4. Mike Ness

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    I'm not sure about this show. I was very impressed with the grainy, hard view of NYC they give. Every show uses Manhattan so it's nice to see the Bronx and Brooklyn get a share of the scenes.

    HOWEVER, the "Cam" character is not only a poor actor but pretty much sucks. The show has a decent idea for a story, it's not a "reverse entourage" as previously mentioned it's just about guys working a hustle. One place you can always find guys trying to hustle is New York City. For this to work they need a really cool character and they need one to emerge quick, otherwise this show will not make six episodes.

    Seriously how many show's can we watch about guys trying to launch designer jeans? Did I mention Cam sucked??

    It's on HBO though so I'll watch it.
     
  5. Pap

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    I'm really starting to like this show. I enjoy watching the struggle of being able to do something that you love. Plus the intro song is fucking sweet:

     
    #5 Pap, Mar 22, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  6. Supertramp

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    I think this show is going to explode as soon as the word of mouth spreads post-DVD release. It's totally enjoyable in my opinion. Then again I'm pretty much becoming an inner-city hipster, except replace fashion with writing and drinking.
     
  7. Mike Ness

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    Really?? I find this show awful. Kratos has urged me to watch it and I trust his judgment. The last episode I watched was this awful flop about Ben's girlfriends birthday, nothing happened!!! I really just had to throw in the towel after that, is it really worth giving another shot? If so why?
     
  8. Supertramp

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    The new style of TV focuses on character-driven development, as in the characters push the plot forward and not outside forces. Ben decided to make his first sample, so he took out loans and did oddjobs - as opposed to some outside character telling him "bro make me a sample by 6pm today!" (It's a mediocre example but the only one that comes to mind).

    Other than that, I think the show has style and makes up for it's lack of pace by it's cool cinematography and it's realism. Sure the business stuff is totally improbable but the party scenes, the ex-girlfriend stuff, the lack of drive that was plaguing Ben - all of that is real with most innercity 20-30 people I know. I'm a 20year old innercity drink-and-party kind of guy, I see this shit around me all the time.

    That being said I can totally understand the "nothing happens" criticism, I was just enthralled by a really well done pilot* episode so I stuck with it.

    *Since I'm writing my own pilot, I've watched SO many pilot episodes for inspiration. I can tell you literally at which beats a protagonist, the antagonist and the sidekick will exhibit their traits, inner-problems, social status and everything else. It's formulaic, everything is.
     
  9. mastert

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    Honestly, you watched what was in my opinion the single worst episode to date. It concentrated pretty much totally on the incredibly boring relationship between Ben and his ex rather than Ben and Cam hustling to try and get their business started. The episodes that focus on that are actually reasonably enjoyable, but I seriously doubt this show is good enough to 'explode'. I don't think this can be compared to Entourage...at the beginning I was watching Entourage for the lifestyle/tits, and at the end I was watching it because Jeremy Piven was awesome as Ari. This has neither one of those, but like I said, it can be decently enjoyable when they're showing the two desperately scrambling to fix their latest fuckup.
     
  10. LukesBoxHero

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    Read about the show a couple of times and one of my room-mates is all indie like they are so he wanted us to watch it. We watched episode 1 and we had to watch ep. 2 right after. I think its a good show, and I really want Ben to succeed.

    I think we have ep. 3 downloaded right now so I might go watch it. I'll watch anything with Wahlberg's name on it, I think. Hoping it comes back for another season.