Delayed Reaction: Boogie Nights

The Pitch: Mark Wahlberg has a huge penis*.

*It's a prosthetic, but it's a start.

The rise and fall of the 70s porn industry gets documented in an ensemble film about individuals at the center of it.

"Where did the porn go?!"

Those are the words I most associate with Boogie Nights and they're never uttered in the movie. I first saw this in college with friends in 2005 or 2006. I had no idea who Paul Thomas Anderson was. I'd maybe heard of his other movies, but I had no sense that he was a director to keep an eye on. All I really knew about Boogie Nights was that Heather Graham got naked in it briefly. I want to say my friends had the same understanding.

Early on, the movie was about what we expected. It has a stupendous cast. It turns out the Mark Wahlberg could act (Keep in mind, this was pre-The Departed). Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are good in small roles. Burt Reynolds really earned that Oscar nomination he got. Julianne Moore is never bad (or bashful). This journey through the golden age of porn was pretty good. It's pretty funny even. Then, 1980 hits like a ton of bricks (It's not until I rewatched it that I realized how well that lines up to midway through the movie). Everyone gets addicted to cocaine or finally sees the dark side of it. Heather Graham is making sleazy porn in a limo. Julianne Moore loses custody to her son again because of her work. Don Cheadle's getting covered in blood after a botched robbery happens as he's buying donuts. I think it was a little after the 2 hour mark, around the time Mark Wahlberg gets beat up for being a "fag", that one of my friends finally whined "Where did the porn go?"

And that kind of sums up the movie. For anyone unaware of how PTA does things or who didn't realize how much the structure borrows from Goodfellas, this movie makes a hard and dark and jarring turn. I appreciated it more the second time around. That's often the case with PTA's movies. Boogie Nights isn't my favorite of his films. It's well made but lacks the ambition of most of his later movies. It also lacks the focus of later films. It's a lot more raw, which makes sense. If Hard Eight the year before is his tryout for the team, the Boogie Nights is what proves that he's a starter for the team. (You see, the "team" is Hollywood filmmaking and the coach is the studios. Clever, I know)

There is one truly exceptional thing about Boogie Nights. That's the Alfred Molina scene, which is a masterclass in nervous tension. The last hour of the movie leading up to that has proven that all sorts of bad things can happen to the characters. No one feels safe. The music is loud and uncomfortably easygoing. There's the kid lighting of firecrackers randomly. Molina is obviously unhinged. We know Wahlberg and company are trying to screw Molina over. Molina is showing off his gun even. I am all nerves just thinking about it. As a side note, I hope I'm not the only one who confuses this scene with Paul Ruebens in Blow.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend