Boogie Nights
While this represents a minor resurgence of Burt, it's really all about our introduction to PTA. Actually his second movie, PTA caught my attention with this incredible ensemble piece. I saw it in the theater at the tender age of 17, well versed in most movies, but really not prepared for how good this would be. I was really just there because it was about the porn industry and promised nudity. I was a teenager, after all.
Boogie Nights is full of great actors who were unknown at the time. Don Cheadle, Philip Seymor Hoffman, John C Reilly, all of whom have since been nominated, or won, Oscars. Burt Reynolds, and Julianne Moore to a lesser extent, were established actors who finally got recognition from the Academy. Marky Mark was a nobody at the time, still trying to escape the boy band stigma. He broke out with this role, only to fade back into unrespectable popcorn fair.
Enough about the actors, Boogie Nights is the compelling story of a young kid with no prospects using his "gift" to better his situation. A group of misfits and social outcasts come together to form a foster family. There's also themes about the perils of stardom, drug use, and the how being involved in the adult industry makes you more of an outcast. At least it did in the 70s. PTA loosely based Dirk Diggler on John Holmes, who had a similar and far more deadly drug deal incident.
As with all of PTA's movies, Boogie Nights is about characters. Reilly plays the standard PTA-Reilly character, lovable sidekick-doofus. The first scene between Reed Rothschild and Dirk Diggler is priceless. I swear they are set up for a gay romance. Turns out it's just the 70s. Most of the cast is pathetic and pitiable in some way. Hoffman as Scotty is a revelation, perfectly pathetic and helpless, like a puppy begging for attention, but if you give it to him you know you won't be able to get rid of him.
There's a lot to love in this movie. You've got Buck's outfits, Amber's incredible documentary, Jessie's terrible paintings, Rollergirl stripping naked, except the skates, in a second. And who could hate the prosthetic phallus Dirk eventually pulls out. Marky Mark's butchering of "The Touch" traumatizes me. It's perfect.
Some great dialogue too, including the immortal "my wife has an ass in her cock" line from Little Bill, which is genius. "I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass" (Gondolli). "Jack says you have a great big cock" (The Colonel), which is great for its abruptness. Everything Buck says at his stereo sales job. When he pops in that country 8 track, I about died.
I have one problem with the movie and it probably stems from a lack of perspective. The sequence where Dirk, penniless and masturbating for money, does it for the wrong guy and gets beat to a pulp. Why would the guy pay Dirk to beat off, sit and watch him do it for a number of minutes, then let his friends show up, at which point they all start hitting Dirk. Isn't the guy watching gay for watching? The whole sequence confuses me, but I'm not homophobic, nor do I wish to harm those with lifestyles different from my own. Maybe this is a common response and I'm oblivious.
Review: 2+3+3+3+3 = 14
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