The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard stars Jeremy Piven playing basically an Earth 2 version of Ari Gold named Don Ready who is a mercenary car salesman. Ready inhabits a world full of characters from a typical Will Ferrell movie in that they exist purely to try to make the audience laugh and in no way resemble real people. In fact, I thought The Goods felt like a movie written for Will Ferrell until he showed up in it. It turns out he produced the film which explains a lot.

The movie has many genuine laughs in it and is funnier than the commercials suggest. If you liked the lesser Will Ferrell flicks, this movie may be perfect for you. Personally as often as the movie made me laugh, it still felt hollow. It aspires to nothing beyond the quick laugh and that’s fine… But it’s just your typical low brow comedy. I found it amazing how many laughs they could milk from well placed F-bombs. The Goods is nowhere near as good as The Hangover or the first 90 minutes of Funny People.

Will Ferrell’s cameo would have stolen the movie had it been restricted to his first appearance, but he comes back later for a less funny scene or two.

The Goods comes in at just about 90 minutes long, but it feels like a long 90 minutes. I recommend you catch it on DVD if you think it might be your thing.

I think I like Entourage, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting invested this season.  Who cares about Vincent Chase?  So his friends are busy.  This is what his story amounts to.  Given the fact that I am completely unsympathetic to his situation, he doesn’t make for the best protagonist.

Angie thinks viewers could relate to Drama, since they’ve probably met people that repulsive.  I’d rather watch him save Kim Bauer from a mountain lion.  Pizza Boy and Joker Face are not interesting and difficult to watch.  They dangle the girl from the Zohan in front of the viewers and do nothing with her for weeks.  Turtle is really the only character semi-relatable of the core group, but he still has it pretty good.  Two new luxury cars for your birthday does not make you the everyman.

Ari Gold is still the best reason to watch.  His story is the only one that seems meaningful this season.  There’s been an interesting progression to his being a decent husband and father underneath his brash exterior.  I genuinely like Piven as an actor, but it seemed like the audience hated him by the end of his appearance on The Tonight Show Tuesday night.  I’ll keep watching for now, but I’m questioning how long I’ll be sticking with this show.