What If They Didn’t Get That Big Break?

Many of us aspire to live the lives of our favourite celebrities. We see actors in films and wish we lived the high life. We sometimes forget that these superstars were just average joes like the rest of us before they made it big in their careers. Before the money, before the personal trainers, before the plastic surgery, they were normal people and in another universe you could be having your fridge delivered by Brad Pitt.

Here’s a list of jobs famous actors had before they got their big break:

Brad Pitt:

Delivered refrigerators, drove strippers around in a limo and wore a chicken suit for El Pollo Loco (The Crazy Chicken).

Johnny Depp:

Worked in a call centre selling pens.

Gerard Butler:

A qualified lawyer, Butler worked as an assistant at a law firm.

George Clooney:

Was a shoe salesman and spent some time working on a tobacco farm.

Sandra Bullock:

Bartender and waitress.

Jim Carrey:

Just like Stephen King, he worked as a janitor before his career took off.

Hugh Grant:

Used his degree in English Literature to get him jobs doing book reviews and radio ad scripts.

Rachel McAdams:

Worked at McDonalds for 3 years.

Patrick Dempsey:

Professional Juggler

Hugh Jackman:

High school PE teacher.

Steve Buscemi:

In his early 20’s, he was a fireman for the New York Fire Department. He was called to active duty to help after the 9/11 attacks.

Quentin Tarantino:

We all know this one. The motor-mouthed writer/director worked in a video store before he became the filmmaker all aspiring filmmakers try to be like before they find their own style.

That is all.

Ramz

Did Entourage Predict The Future Of Hollywood?

Entourage, the tv show loosely based on the life of Mark Wahlberg, featuring a group of bros doing things that bros would do if one of those bros was rich and famous. It had some great cameos from A-list actors and other actors who weren’t famous enough to play themselves. If, like me, you loved this show, then you spent a good few conversations trying to defend the openly misogynistic male bravado of every storyline by saying it’s really about friendship. Love it or hate it, everyone agrees that it gave Jeremy Piven the opportunity to play one of TV’s best characters, Ari Gold.

That’s about all there is to this fun show…or is it?  (cue the dramatic music)

Could there be more to Entourage than meets the eye? Is there something deeper to all the sex, drugs and Ari-Gold-isms?

Allow me to break it down for you:

Season 1 starts with Vinnie Chase enjoying the success of his last film Queens Boulevard. This leads him to get the lead role in a new blockbuster film based on a comic book. The joke at the time was that no one would ever make a comic book film unless it was based on either Batman, Superman or Spiderman. Batman Begins was dominating the screens at this time but who did Vinnie Chase play in his comic book film? None other than AQUAMAN.

That was in 2005. Aquaman will be in his own film on our screens in 2018.

Then Vinnie Chase takes on a little pet project, the Pablo Escobar film, Medellin. Sure it fails in the end but again, Entourage took Pablo Escobar mainstream when nobody else was touching the source material in real life. 

That was in 2007. Narcos became a mainstream Netflix series 10 years later.

In season 5, Vinnie takes on a role in Smoke Jumpers, a film about firefighters battling a wildfire in a forest in Arizona.

In 2017, we will see Granite Mountain on our screens. IMDB says the film is, “A drama based on the elite crew of men who battled a wildfire in Prescott Arizona.”

In Entourage, Smoke Jumpers was cancelled during production because Vinnie had creative differences with his director. This led him to take the role of Nick Carraway in a re-envisioned version of The Great Gatsby. This season aired in 2008.  

In 2013, Tobey Maguire played Nick Carraway in a re-envisioned version of The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo Dicaprio.

In the Entourage movie (2015), Vinnie makes his directorial debut in Hyde, a film about EDM culture. This year Netflix released a film about EDM culture called XOXO. Sure, lots of films have been made about EDM culture but Entourage has been getting it right every time so far.

A little more? Ok. 

In season 6, Vinnie Chase gets to play Enzo Ferrari in a film about his life. Check IMDB and see for yourself. Enzo Ferrari film in production for release 2018.

Is Hollywood copying Entourage? Is life imitating art? Who knows?

Maybe Mark Wahlberg has all the answers.

That is all.

Ramz

OH! IT'S THE PIZZA GUY!

WE ORDERED AN EXTRA LARGE

I wrote a post a while back about how creativity in the film industry is, for the most part, gone. Remakes, sequels, reboots and poor adaptations of novels that were, at best, average. Film fans lowering their standards so they can get excited about the art they so dearly love, but in the end celebrating the mediocrity Hollywood has forced us to swallow.

Thank God (or whatever name you shout out during your orgasm) for the little gems that have kept us from drowning slowly in our tears of disappointment and boredom. Too dramatic? Ok, this post is not about those little gems (I’ll talk about that in another piece), this is about the loss of creativity in the film industry and it can be seen in all aspects of it, even in the PORN INDUSTRY. Yes, that little bit about the orgasm was foreshadowing.

For a minute, just forget about the purpose of porn and why it makes money. Think about it from a creative standpoint. Porn stars used to have creative names that could be likened to the names of WWE wrestlers. Some porn stars even had their own finishing maneuvers, or so I’m told. The plot lines were terrible and the acting even worse. People made money off the sex, but still somehow used to find a way of bringing some kind of creativity into it. The porn movie title puns have made their mark on pop culture to the point where people still try to come up with creative names for pornos even though it hasn’t really been done in the actual porn industry since the 90’s.

Let’s celebrate creativity in all its forms. See below for the top 5 funniest porn titles I could find:

I thought I'd take a shot at creating porn pun titles for some films that were released in the past 3 years. Here goes:

BOYHOOD - BOY WOOD

BIG HERO 6 - BIG HERO SEX

HAIL, CAESAR! - NAIL, CAESAR!

JASON BOURNE - JASON'S PORN

WARCRAFT - WHORE CRAFT

BEN-HUR - BEND HER

THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR - THE URGE: ERECTION YEAR

Let me know in the comments if you thought of a few more funny titles or if there were any that you came across.

 (get it? "came" across! hahaha. Fuck you, that was funny.) 

That is all.