Boogie Nights

P.T. Anderson
1997
Multiple Viewings

It's been close to ten years since I last saw this one. I used to claim that it was the only good P.T. Anderson picture out there (this was before the excellent "There Will Be Blood" (2007)), but a reviewing proves that it's just as overwrought and puffed-up as all his other efforts. This tribute to the glory days of 70's pornography, saturated with period clothing and slang, fails through it's sheer dishonesty. Anderson's account is not the story as it happened, but a manufactured milieu that a Scorcese-obsessed young director would want it to be. Without the crocodile platforms and massive lapels the broadly painted characters are soulless as a Barbie, as inanimate and lifeless as a sex doll's plastic asshole. That said, the casting and performances are remarkable, and lend some weight to the film. Anderson has always been able to get a lot from his performers, and the numerous supporting characters (Don Cheadle, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, the list goes on...) are allowed to run wild with their tics to amusing, ironic, and occasionally witty ends. The film is seductively enjoyable, and pretty much blew my mind when I saw it in high school, but the corny nostalgia and squeaky-clean take on the skinflick industry comes off as junk-food cinema nowadays.