Okay, here's the deal. You ever go into a movie with a hard and fast notion that it's going to suck rocks? I mean, the premise seems thickhead stupid. The casting sounds like a gag. Even the trailer looks like it was cut with kidsafe scissors. How in the world did this thing ever get past pre-production? Nobody felt the need to hoot this thing out of the office and go on to bigger and better things, like Home Alone Part Nine or Joel Schumacher's latest attempt to ruin a good film series?
I'm as guilty as the next Joe of pre-judging movies. I've confessed to my hearty support of Tank Girl, 'til I saw it. I also thought Four Rooms and Father's Day were promising little piggy banks, and you see how they turned out. On the other side of the coin, I thought the entire idea of Kevin Costner doing a three-hour Western about Indians was ridiculous, and I just knew Disney was going to fall on their face when they announced they were doing an animated movie about a runaway lion cub. Yeah, well, I'm off to the corner.
Granted, pre-judging a movie often turns out to be correct. Your gut feeling on seeing a "coming attraction" often plays you well. Was there any doubt that Men In Black was going to be big? Or Jurassic Park? Didn't you pretty much guess that In and Out was going to be dang funny? Now, flip the coin. Was there any doubt in your mind that Rocketman was going to be as goofy as a glue sniffer? Didn't the mere presence of Charlie Sheen seal the fate of Money Talks? Shall we not even question the fact that Cutthroat Island had "stank" written all over it?
All this in brain, I headed to the theater to watch a movie about the late '70's porn industry. It starred a caucasian rapper and an hairpieced actor who was reportedly so over the hill he couldn't even hear the echoes anymore. Disco music. Rayon clothes. I dreaded Boogie Nights more than I dread post-Thanksgiving leftovers at my parents' house.
And I got caught again, folks, 'cause Boogie Nights is quite possibly one of the best movies I've seen all year. From start to finish. You might not approve of the subject, but you'll discard the repellence quickly and realize that you're witnessing a minor masterpiece.
Boogie Nights unveils the porn business through the story of Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a dishwasher, who is discovered by director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds). Horner renames Eddie "Dirk Diggler" and introduces him to the Wonderful World of Skin.
Jack also plays Father Goose and brings him into the "extended family" he has built with his fellow moviemakers, people behind the camera and in front of it as well. He never "does it" on camera; rather, he plays the jaded voyeur, satisfied to sit back and watch what goes on, paying more attention to details of light and sound than to the act of sex. If Jack is the father, his live-in lover, Amber Waves, is the surrogate mother of the brood. Amber, played by Julianne Moore, is a runaway wife and mother whose new career choice of porn queen leaves her crying into the phone at nights with her ex-husband, pleading to speak with the child she left behind.
There are other members of this strange band. There's Little Bill (William Macy), Horner's assistant director, whose constantly moping around because his wife (real-life porn star Nina Hartley) gets off on public sex displays. There's Rollergirl (Heather Graham), an actress who never takes off her "Roller Boogie" skates. There's Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), part-time actor and part-time stereo salesman. The list goes on.
The absolutely amazing thing about all this is that writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson lets nothing go stagnant. Each character in this huge cast gets a moment in the sun, allowing his or her character to have depth and worth. It would've been easy to let this thing ride out as an exposé of the adult film industry, showing a lot of skin, using a lot of dirty words, and basically living off the naughty factor, a la Showgirls. But Anderson is ten times smarter than the brain trust behind that funk of a farce. He uses the industry as the backdrop rather than the front page. Yes, this movie is about the world of pornography, but it's more about the people that lived that life in the late '70s. He keeps the shock-value nudity to an absolute minimum, relying more on his characters than their body parts to tell the story. The script is incredibly smart and character driven, the way you'd expect from a renegade like Tarantino or Rodriguez, but it tells a direct story about a time and a place and a group of people that were there when it happened.
I was immediately reminded of movies like The Player and Swimming With Sharks, films about the film world that dared show it as it really is. It's a business, like any other. There is often glamour and fame and fortune, but, more often than not, most of the people in the business never see that end of it. They're more concerned with film stock, deadlines, and delivery dates than designer sunglasses, Humvees, and Hollywood hobknobbery.
These people, Horner, Little Bill, Amber, all of them were filmmakers. They knew what they were doing and knew what the world thought of them. Yet, they continued to do their jobs. They were artists in the medium of flesh, and they were putting their works on display for all eyes. This film shows that life as an adult filmmaker is every bit as boring and day-to-day as any other job could be. In one scene, Jack's cameraman, Kurt Longjohn, played by stage magician Ricky Jay, complains to Jack that he likes to make a statement with every shot of his films, and that shadows are ruining the look he wants for this shot. Jack looks at him for a second, and replies, "There are shadows in life, baby." This could be the central theme for this movie. For all the spotlights in the movie world, there are ten times as many shadows.
Anderson's still a young director, so I'll forgive him the scene swipes from various movies, like Goodfellas and Raging Bull. He earns more credit by keeping it authentic and lively, while maintaining its streamlined style. Anderson may go down in history as the director that got Burt Reynolds an Oscar® nomination, which he surely deserves for his performance as Horner. He may also go into the books as being the only person besides John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) to garner an Oscar nomination for directing a movie so focused on the world of sex.
By no means do I recommend Boogie Nights for everybody. If you have no desire to see filmmaking artistry, stay at home. If you're a film fan, though, clear your docket and go right out for Boogie Nights. You'll see the epic future of Hollywood in Anderson's work, scaled down to fit the eyes and ears of the '90's. It blends humor, drama, and complex characters to tell a story everyone has wondered about at one time or another, but was too afraid to ask.
Copyrighted image courtesy of New Line Cinema.
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