Evan reviews "Boogie Nights"
The film that announced the arrival of a huge talent. No, not Mark Wahlberg's (fake) penis. Paul Thomas Anderson obviously.
Visually exciting with some terrific camera work including several long tracking shots, an eye for period detail, but Anderson's biggest strength lies in his ability to work with an ensemble cast (a fact confirmed by his next film Magnolia).
There is the usual great work by people like Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly and William H. Macy, but also unexpectedly draws strong performances from Wahlberg (starting out on his Entourage days) and Burt Reynolds. Also funny to see Thomas Jane in a small role considering he is currently starring in Hung, another show where the main feature is a giant cock. It is surprisingly non-gratuitous for a movie about the porn industry and in a similar way to Trainspotting, it doesn't glamorize the subject matter. The guys doing the filming are about as interested in the sex as much as if they were watching a guy paint a wall.
It brought up interesting parallels with the Hollywood system. At one point filmmaker Jack Horner refuses to shoot on video, "If it looks like shit and sounds like shit, then it must be shit", saying that film is the only way to shoot movies. Yet we are seeing a similar scenario today with many filmmakers who were apparently committed to celluloid, but are now shooting on digital cameras and even moving towards 3D filmmaking. Is it only a matter of time 'till we see a 3D porno movie with the money shot coming out of the screen.
Believe it or not but porn has a huge influence of the technical advances of the industry. Porn adopted video over betamax, Blu Ray over HD-DVD, etc.
-Evan Chance
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