BOOGIE NIGHTS **** of ****
Paul Thomas Anderson can be compared to Dirk Digler of BOOGIE NIGHTS. Dirk and Paul rose to the top of their fields quickly at young ages and find themselves the hottest things around. Anderson first directed a short film called CIGARETTES AND COFFEE (***) then made a feature with Gwenith Paltrow called HARD EIGHT (***1/2) -- I took notice.
BOOGIE NIGHTS had a buzz around it as it rode through the film feastivals with a vengeance. It kept the buzz untill it arived at a theater near me and then I carried on the buzz. What an exciting film this is?! Every scene is handled with the pure joy of making films. Paul Thomas Anderson was unjustly robed of an Academy Award Nomination for directing, yet there was not a better job of it. PTA looks to be the real thing. In any other year this would be the best film on my list but it was narrowly beat by LA. CONFIDENTIAL (****).
Set in the seventies (with a knocking soundtrack) a young man (Mark Wallberg) is discovered by a porno film director (Burt Reynolds) and quickly becomes a star with the name DIRK DIGGLER, first seen on an exploding neon board. We follow Dirk (I love that name) and his family of porno film-makers through the ups of the seventies and the drug-laced downs of the eighties.
All great films have one wonderful scene at least. This one has many; the pool party, the awards, film shoots and my favorite - let me set it up. Dirk and his friends are on their downward spiral and go to a drug dealers house with the asspirations of ripping him off. They sit and wait while the drug dealer (high as a kite) sings and dances in a robe, his bodyguard has a gun and a chinese associate walks around the room throwing firecrackers. Must be seen to be believed.
This movie carried comparisons to PULP FICTION (****) and GOODFELLAS (****) and it is deserving of it. All the films play with drugs, fun and anticipation of violence. ONE HELL OF A RIDE this BOOGIE NIGHTS is.
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