Season after season, we've seen at MTV Cribs what happens when you give educationally disabled rappers and basketball players a million dollars in pocket money every month. Custom snakeskin dining room chairs with the resident's initials in the backrest. Bathrooms of marble flown in from Tuscany with a freestanding bubble bath for at least six groupies with the initials of the man of the house on the bottom in mosaic. An in-house barbershop, so that you can take a seat in the barber's chair at any time of the day to update the back number of the back of your head. A corps of grass clippers and hedge trimmers working 24/7 to trim all the hedges on the estate, so that from a distance they resemble, indeed, the initials of His Royal Highness. All this, of course, under the watchful eye of his supermodel girlfriend. His under-tattooed supermodel girlfriend. His under-tattooed supermodel girlfriend with his initials. It may of course happen that you consider yourself a real gentleman, but that MTV thinks otherwise. In that case, there is always a camera on your phone that you can make yourself completely ridiculous with. The most recent example comes from home soil with Quinsy Promes, who mainly deals with smoking money outside the home. Smoking nice money as soon as you get your osso out. Who doesn't love it? Glen Helder was a star in his Arsenal time, but he is now giving drum courses to sniffed Vitesse fans at minimum wage. It can be wrong. Perhaps it would have turned out very differently if he had hired someone who had said to him every now and then: "Hey Glen, your nephew is 13. What the hell is he doing with a matte black Lamborghini Aventador?" Someone like Spencer Strasmore in the new HBO series Ballers, for example. People who say exercise is healthy have probably never seen footballer Spencer Strasmore in his Miami Dolphins outfit get knocked over around the 20 yard line by four 120kg guys. Spencer got more men on him in his career than Tori Black (That's a porn actress. I Googled. Really.) And now comes in at the age of 43 as an elderly person. Broken back, broken knees, broken ankles. Spencer has the entire bingo card full. Because of some wrong decisions, Spencer is far from financially dependent and so work will have to be done. He finds shelter with a company that provides financial advice to high earners and Spencer is hired to add some more football millionaires to the clientele. Well, good luck with that, Spenzz. Ballers has a bit of that Entourage vibe. You'd say that's a good thing, but Entourage was of course 80% Ari Gold and 20% Sloan and don't leave that in Ballers. Instead, you get Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and even though he does a pretty good job, I was still waiting for him to rip off the door of a Nissan Primera with bare hands to use it as a shield against a wildly shooting death squad. For me, The Rock keeps marching through the image as much as possible with an oiled up upper body while things explode and I find that difficult to get out of my head. Furthermore, it is mainly a lot of light entertainment that we should not be all too serious about. So entourage, but with guys running after an egg-shaped ball. Great for when you've already done all the thinking at work and just want to look at your screen at home.
Seen the first episode, (30min) I like it, Big bundles of muscles, cool cars, Bling, bling, cool music, humor but also: How ..? to get back to life after football. is a keeper for me.
Then you probably haven't let The Brink pass your retina yet. Mein Himmel. The Brink is HBO's Betamax. The Nike Dunk with hidden wedge heel from HBO. The BMW engine with such a strange roof from HBO. A complete goof from a brand that is normally super nice on top.
Well, if you've read our Gumstarr's reaction, you've probably come to the conclusion that Ballers isn't really 'Ballin'. And he is quite right about that, because it is not really Ballers. It's not bad, but it's not necessarily good either. It's not bad, but it doesn't warm you at all. It's not bad, but if I could recommend a series to you it wouldn't be this one. Ballers just isn't it. It looks nice, that's for sure. Beautiful women, beautiful men (can't I say that as a man?). But nothing that really gets you excited. You won't call your friends and say, 'I'm staying home tonight because Ballers is on HBO'. Or tell your partner that you are hopping her tomorrow because you can't multitask. See, I'll be honest; series like Ballers, Entourage, How to Make it in America and now also Survivor's Remorse, I love to see them. Call it a man thing. Series that take me back to the time when I was chasing women with my boys. Had big dreams and became horny about material things that later turned out to be completely unimportant. This is the least of the four series mentioned. And not just a little bit. A lot is happening, but it all says little. The depth is lacking. Interest in the characters is lacking. Denzel Washington's son is doing well. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the only reason to watch this series, and even he's not terribly engaging here. When the season is over, you wonder what you've been watching. At least I did. It's mediocre television, there's nothing more to it. And that becomes painfully clear when HBO reminds you that “It's not TV. It's HBO ”. Ballers is much better performed at the moment. And on Starz! Survivor's Remorse, people. Thank me later!