Review written while listening to Sony CD - "Polyester Dreams"

First track: "Don't Fear the Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult

"Boogie Nights" is an awesome film, a panorama of pornography in the 70's and 80's that takes us through cocaine highs and valium lows with enough marijuana paranoia and schizophrenia to make it the psychedelic rollercoaster ride of a lifetime. It's fresh, exciting, invigorating, sexy, bold, chilling, evil and scary. It's a teenage boy's sophomoric fantasy come true only to evolve into the most fucked-up and depraved nightmare the kid has ever experienced. It's a good fuck followed by a shot of heroin right in the dick. It's like flying through midair and crashing into a multi-colored pile of vomit.

"Playground in my Mind" - Clint Holmes

From the opening shot which flies us into Boogie Nights, the night club, the film is exhilarating. We meet the man, Jack (Burt Reynolds). We know right away that he is someone who is SOMEONE. When he spots Marky Mark Wahlberg working in the club, he, like the camera, is fixed to his facade. We have to look. The view is breathtaking. Jack has discovered something and we feel it too. Marky is shy, coy, sweet, respectful, a nice kid. It's obvious that there is something there. Wahlberg wows us with his nice guy politeness throughout the beginning of the film. Never phony, he comes across as a true innocent. It's a wonderful performance.

"I Can See Clearly Now" - Johnny Nash

Wahlberg exudes such a magical sublime sexuality that it is intoxicating. Here is a guy we never thought we would get this type of a character from. But his capacity to surprise us on screen grows with each appearance. His performance here is nothing less that Oscar worthy. He graduates from coy ingenue to troubled teen to exhilarating man-child to junkie to loser to angel to nothing but cock. His on screen metamorphosis is nothing short of remarkable. This is a kid to watch. He shines like a star. He wants to be a star. He becomes a star. It's mythic. His ability to play here off male and female, whether friend or lover is uncanny. He is bisexuality personified even if he doesn't get off on guys. He is sex. All sex. He is sex from 1977-1983. After that, of course, sex died.

"Wildfire" - Michael Murphy

Julianne Moore is the earth mother goddess renamed Amber Waves for her red yet golden, flaxen hair and her fiery love. She is sweet and misguided. We grow to love her and when Wahlberg eventually rejects her, he does so with a diatribe that cuts like a killer's knife. It's a suckerpunch to the soul. But Moore reclaims her rightful throne by taking a true child, a sweet angel named Rollergirl (Heather Graham) under her wing. She helps to sooth the youngsters wounds and fix her sight. It's done so sweetly that it might be saccharine if it wasn't underlined with such troubling drug use, vivid paranoia and realistic angst.

"Baby Boy" - Mary Kay Place

Don Cheadle, who became one of my cinematic heroes after his wonderful turn in TV's "Picket Fences" has a enjoyable role here as Buck. He exemplifies the true spirit of the film and the more realistic side of the plot. Even though a dramatic and cinematic turn helps his character evolve into the film's epilogue, it still works. Buck, more so than Jack, becomes the glue that holds the whole works together. Cheadle, like Wahlberg, exudes both innocence and street smart. He is naive and childish wonderment trapped in a world for adults.

"Hold Your Head Up" - Argent

There are so many players here and each of them can be proud of their work even if the film's script sometimes treats their characters roughly. Reynolds is superb as the director. He personifies the adult film world. He is a father and yet a molester of all those around him. He gives a performance that is eerie in it's implications yet presented on the screen with a slickness that belies it's troublesome implications. He's like the father-figure who teaches you about the world and the evil in it and then teaches you how to survive within it by fucking you in the ass while constantly reminding you it could be worse. William H. Macy has a turn as a rather pathetic assistant to Jack that is turned loose by the script mid film. He disappears scarred. He is the first victim. Joanna Gleason has a small role as Wahlberg's mother which is hurried by the script. We want a little more than we get here. Yet Gleason gives it such an underlying edge of sickening incestuous allusion with the small amount of a chance she is given that we can't help but understand what her scenes really means.

"I Can Help" - Billy Swan

A variety of seeming unknowns help out too. John C Reilly plays Reed, who becomes Wahlberg's closest male friend. He seems to share the exact same sensibilities as the lead yet, appropriately, he has none of Wahlberg's oomph. It's not easy to play milquetoast and Reilly achieves it gloriously. He's the typical second banana with out the flavor. He's one of those guys that is okay to be around only because his main asset is that he makes you (Wahlberg) look good by comparison. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays Scotty, another guy abused by the script yet one of the few characters who walks away seemingly unscathed. Played as a sort of likeable idiot by Hoffman, we enjoy that the friendship he shares with Wahlberg. He is eventually rebuked by Wahlberg though not through his ego but his ignorance. He doesn't even realize how much he has hurt the guy. Of course, it is Hoffman's Scotty who chastises himself as the fool. His sweet portrayal of an innocent caught in a world in which he does not belong in is heartbreaking at times.

"Please Come to Boston" - Dave Loggins

Director Paul Thomas Anderson evokes a simpler time with complex sets, costumes and colors. Like Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused," the 70's are recreated in "Boogie Nights" with attention to detail that borders on obsession. The 80's are here as well and just as ridiculous and as tense and as intense as we remember them. Anderson uses the turn of the decades to signal the decline of the high life. The 70's die by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The drug drenched and grudging brains of the decade splatter against the wall in the house of the Emperor Caligula, against the wall of decadence. It's absolutely mind boggling how we are drawn into the era of the 70's, the feelings and the emotions of the time, by the film. And then just as swiftly knocked over the edge into the glittery nothingness of the 80's by the same hand.

"Arizona" - Mark Lindsey

"Boogie Nights" has the ability to cinematically mix hues effortlessly because it takes us so many places. There is typical 90's film stock for the story which allows us to see the past clearly and vibrantly. But there is also the grainy stock film of 70's porn to accentuate not only the degradation of the time but the more simple and more free feeling as well. Remember when you could make a film for $25,000? It's a snapshot of society against a fake plywood panelled backdrop. It's a Polaroid of society in it's cocaine high. It's as happy and as pure as Marky Mark's smile. It's as free-form as his karate kicks.

"Instant Replay" - Dan Hartman

There is a scene in the 70's setting of the nightclub that might be a rip-off of "Saturday Night Fever" if it wasn't actually an homage to the film. Well, really it's an homage to the change in America that that film not only signaled but also helped to originate. It's fun to see these dance numbers choreographed against the lighted dancefloor sets. It's a blast to see the polyester suits and platform shoes and orange corvettes and waterbeds and feathered haircuts. The whole of our collective pop culture history is here for us. It's a wondrous sight to behold and all those involved who helped to create it should be proud of the accomplishment. But unlike "Dazed and Confused," the only other real film of this genre to date, this film wants to take us past all this hype. It wants to take us over that 50 foot drop into the hell that our lives became after the mirrored disco balls were turned off. Eventually, the disco remix had to end. Last dance, last chance...

"The Cover of the Rolling Stone" - Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

Marky Mark's Eddie wants to be a star and he becomes a star. Then the film makes us finally believe that he has lost all that made him a star. He becomes a star and then fame kills him. It may not be a new story but it sure seems fresh here. After Marky Mark drops to the ground like a falling meteor, he recovers only because he is still just alive enough to ask for help. Unfortunately, he has only the wrong person to ask. He recovers, to a degree, but in the end, he is not a star any longer. He has seen too much shit go down. He has experienced too much pain. Once someone shits in your mouth, you can never get the taste out, no matter how much Scope and Crest you use. Marky has been bashed beyond recognition. He is no longer a boy, no longer a man, no longer a soul, no longer a star. He is nothing more than a cock.

The film reminds us that even though we fall and hit rock bottom, even if we think we learn, we are forever changed. We can never recapture our youth and that sweet, innocent, naive person that we once were. "Boogie Nights" manages to effectively find sadness in growth.

"Where Do I Begin (Love Story)" - Andy Williams

"Boogie Nights" may not end exactly like we thought it would, but it ends nonetheless. The fact that there are survivors says little. They have no more than the dead. They are now even more lost souls. They are back at home for daddy to fuck once more. No matter how much we'd like a happy ending and a simple moral and a hopefulness, it is not to be. There are no answers and no relief. There is only the continuation of the time line. We have to play the hand that we are dealt. And while we were once people, we are now little more than that "one thing." It's the one thing that used to make us special. Now it is all we have. Once we hit a certain age, our cocks and our tits and our bodies stop growing. It's a wonder we ever learn anything.

CD - "Have a Nice Day Volume 22"

"Every 1's a Winner" - Hot Chocolate

There is a scene in "Boogie Nights" that is the single most outstanding scene I have seen in a film since the "torture" ear cutting scene in Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." It is the climax of "Boogie Nights." It takes place in the living room of a home inhabited by Alfred Molina, a young oriental man and a large black man with a gun. Marky is there with Reilly and Thomas Jane, who plays seedy male dancer Todd Parker. They are attempting to pull of a con of sorts.

"Hot Child in the City" - Nick Gilder

The scene is full of tension but this is not only due to the desperate nature of the characters or the situation. No, Anderson makes an intense situation even more nerve-wracking by having the oriental youth consistently set-off firecrackers throughout the segment. The unsettling aspect of the scene unimaginable. The moment is awash with anxiety.

"Driver's Seat" - Sniff 'N' the Tears

This is an effective and monumental sequence. It must be witness to be comprehended fully. Finally, the scene builds to a feverpitch and Anderson pulls in on a tight shot of Wahlberg's face. All sound fades and we are left with a piece of music by Michael Penn, who scores the film, which simply throbs and throbs incessantly. Wahlberg seems emotionless. We don't know what is going to happen next. His face remains in tight shot. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And the shot remains. And we wonder what will happen next. And then it explodes.

"Boogie Nights"

And the parties in the film. They are underscored by never ending pop songs, including "Driver's Seat." It's like being invited to the best Hollywood parties, which of course take place in some porno director's house. And we meet such interesting characters. And it is filmed so perfectly and the camera moves so fluidly. It's just like we are there ourselves and mingling and we know that we always wanted to go to parties like this. Especially when we were teenage boys. Parties where we fuck pretty girls while others watch. Parties where we do lines of cocaine and then fuck and fuck and fuck. Ah those dreams of youth.... We never once thought for a moment about the morning after.

"Boogie Nights" is a film about self delusion. Eddie thinks he is a star. He's a cock, a "donkey dick," nothing more; Jack thinks he's a filmmaker. He's a pornographer; Buck thinks he is an actor. He's is surprised to be called what he is: a pornographer. Rollergirl thinks she has respect. She's guttertrash, a whore and a slut. Amber thinks she is a mother. She a porno actress cokehead. The Colonel thinks he is suave. He's a child molester. Some of these people get their comeuppance before the film ends. Most die. Others seem to be on a road to self-realization. They seem to be the lucky ones. In the end, however, most who survive continue on in this path of delusion and we wonder what will become of them.

Notes: Also with Luis Guzman, Robert Ridgley (as the Colonel), and Robert Downey Sr., a director in his own right, in a small role.

Costumes by Mark Bridges. Choreography by Adam Shankman.

The film came out October 1997 held back from a May release. There were scenes which had to be edited to get an "R" rating. Anderson also had to trim the film down from it's original three hour plus run time.

Reilly and Hoffman are also featured in Anderson's debut, a little seen film finally released in 1997 called "Hard 8" and also starring Samuel L. Jackson and Gwenyth Paltrow.

Soundtrack Songs include: Best of My Love - Emotions Brand New Key - Melanie Spill the Wine - Eric Burden and War Magnant and Steel - Walter Egan Sister Christian - Nightranger Livin' Thing - ELO God Only Knows - Beach Boys

(Review written in 1997)

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