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Boogie Nights
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[A]t the same time, Boogie Nights is fun, is exuberant, is engaging. Part of that is watching very talented actors be given the space to riff and improvise (John C. Reilly and Don Cheadle, in particular) and part of it is the comedy inherent in contrast between the character's internal conception of what they do and the more blunt reality. Julianne Moore is an amazing actress, no question, but if you ever want to see the proof, check out the scenes in Boogie Nights where her character, Amber Waves, is 'acting' in porn, and saying dialogue like "As you may or may not know, this is an important film for me. If it's not a hit, I'm gonna get kicked out of my apartment. …" Anyone can make Shakespeare look good; you have to be an amazing actor to play bad acting that convincingly, that well. Moore, Mark Wahlberg and Heather Graham all pull that trick off in Boogie Nights, and the film's better for it.
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WHILE Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights is a lot of fun, it's hardly as epochal as some of its reviews may suggest. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman states that director Anderson has "arrived at his mastery overnight." Actually, Anderson has assimilated the styles of Scorsese and Tarantino more carefully than any other imitator. Anderson has studied the elaborate tracking shots and fully packed soundtracks of the former and the chatty dialogue, slapstick violence and ephemeral musical schlock of the latter.
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Director Paul Thomas Anderson, nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of Boogie Nights, has tremendous fun following Eddie's induction into Jack's family and in recreating the look and feel of the 70s. But he isn't interested in romanticising pornography. Having made the film he's relates more to the types of people who are in porn films, even though it can be sad.
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Did Boogie Nights have any weak points? Sure. Director Paul Thomas Anderson uses weird film school camera angles a little too often, and Burt Reynolds was a so-so choice for the role of Jack Horner (and an unnecessary one given the fact that the ensemble cast was terrific and they didn't really need Burt).
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The idea of Boogie Nights was developed after Paul Thomas Anderson made the short mockumentary The Dirk Diggler Story on home video in 1988. The project was inspired by Anderson's infatuation with the absurdities of pornography and behind-the-scenes stories of porn stars. In particular, The Dirk Diggler Story was influenced by a documentary called Exhausted that featured John Holmes as its subject. The documentary was directed by Julia St. Vincent and Anderson describes it as a "love letter" to Holmes, (the documentary itself goes as far as to label Holmes as a "love god"). Both the documentary and Holmes had large impacts on the Boogie Nights characters Dirk Diggler and Amber Waves.
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In Boogie Nights, Mark Wahlberg (The Basketball Diaries, The Big Hit, Three Kings) plays Eddie Adams. He's a teenager who knows he has a gift: his giant schlong. At his nightclub job, he meets Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds—Deliverance, Smokey And The Bandit, Striptease), a director of "adult films." Jack introduces Eddie to Amber (Julianne Moore—Nine Months, The Big Lebowski, Magnolia) and Rollergirl (Heather Graham—Swingers, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Bowfinger), who gives him a taste of porn-film coitus. Needless to say, Eddie likes what he sees (and experiences); it's a chance to use his "gift." Under the stage name Dirk Diggler, he is a star from the second his "torpedo zone" is shown on film.
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