Boogie Nights: Classic or Dud

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I'm still not quite sure what i think of Magnolia.

― latebloomer, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:57 (seventeen years ago) link

i think anderson may be a bit too protective of his characters. he always takes their side!

― ryan, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Put me in the defending Magnolia camp. I mean, I watch it and can see all the faults that other people point out and it makes total sense as to why people would hate it, but I still fucking love it each and every time.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Saturday, 24 March 2007 04:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Magnolia has some fantastic acting. But I hate Aimee Mann. The frogs. Mostly everything else about it, actually. I have a hard time hating anything with Seymour Hoffman in it, though...

― the table is the table, Saturday, 24 March 2007 04:46 (seventeen years ago) link

re: Magnolia

Jon Brion's score >>>>>>>>>> Aimee Mann's songs

(has this thread been hijacked?)

― peepee, Saturday, 24 March 2007 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Magnolia is underrated. Boogie Nights is overrated.

― Eric H., Saturday, 24 March 2007 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Punch Drunk Love was R-rated. (Or was it?)

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 March 2007 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Metacritic says aye. It was also one of the most irritating, artificial films I've ever seen.

― unfished business, Saturday, 24 March 2007 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Magnolia is underrated

Not by drinkers of the PT Kool-Aid.

― Dr Morbius, Saturday, 24 March 2007 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link

(postscript: Maybe I'll 'get' it if I see it again. I actually enjoyed it whilst it lasted, but it left the sourest of aftertastes. I felt duped, by the faux-eccentric touches (such as the capsizing lorry in the opening shot), which I felt had been used to spruce up a manipulative and wholly insightless 'fall guy gets the girl'-type love story whose characters I felt virtually no sympathy with.)

― unfished business, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Not by drinkers of the PT Kool-Aid.

Yeah, I was sort of exempting them.

― Eric H., Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I felt like it took too negative a view of the porn world.

Is such a thing possible? Some nasty shit has gone on there...

Maybe I should re-watch it, but I remember it as a slice of porn world. I didn't find any real message in the film. It was just a depiction of what it was like back then. I always like to think of the porn world as extremely hard, *unless* you can shrug off all the nasty bits (literally and figuratively speaking).

― nathalie, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:17 (seventeen years ago) link

It's Punch Drunk Love's achievement of sorts to indulge the most irritating actors in contemporary cinema.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I really enjoyed PDL. Eh, that and Hard Eight. Sheesh, should I call myself an Anderson fan? Ek, no. Magnolia just spoiled it for me.

― nathalie, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link

i think anderson may be a bit too protective of his characters. he always takes their side!

ryan on Friday, March 23, 2007 11:05 PM (Yesterday)

You're kidding, right? PT Anderson isn't quite the sadist that, say, Lars von Trier is, but the guy punishes his characters to an uncalled-for degree. Actually I think Anderson is worse because he acts like he cares about them so much--like a wife beater. "No one could ever love you the way I do." Smack, smack, smack!

I'm going to assume you're being sarcastic because that's a crazy thing to say.

― lindseykai, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

uh... i'm going to assume you're joking about comparing a director to a wife beater.

― kenan, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I wasn't speaking literally. I don't think Fiona Apple or Maya Rudolph would put up with such behavior.

― lindseykai, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link

possibly my favourite american film of the 90's. just fantastic.
where's the best, cheapest place to get the (still ludicrously unavailabele in the UK) Region 1 comic-book cover edition?

― pisces, Saturday, 24 March 2007 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I wish all of Magnolia was just like the first 5 minutes, with footage of bizarro anomalies. They could still cut in the bits of Tom Cruise's seminar, which was fucking hilarious. They could also include the scene of Wllm. H. Macy in the bar while "the Logical Song" plays. Those are the only parts of the movie I remember clearly...the rest just felt like PSH sitting and pouting at Julianne Moore.

― Abbott, Saturday, 24 March 2007 21:19 (seventeen years ago) link

RESPECT THE COCK

― latebloomer, Saturday, 24 March 2007 21:29 (seventeen years ago) link

i think some rapper sampled that and Cruise sued the pants off of 'em

― latebloomer, Saturday, 24 March 2007 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

It's not even his movie!

I think he should incorporate taming the cunt into his scino screels.

― Abbott, Saturday, 24 March 2007 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link

― Eric H., Saturday, 24 March 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

where's the best, cheapest place to get the (still ludicrously unavailabele in the UK) Region 1 comic-book cover edition?

it was going for $10 in virgin in new york when i was there in january, and i really regret not picking it up when i was there thanks to this thread (i dithered, fatally). check amazon.co.uk's used sales, it should be pretty cheap there.

― stevie, Sunday, 25 March 2007 09:28 (seventeen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

this movie's about as deep as 'pulp fiction' which isn't to say it's bad (it's extremely entertaining) but its overtures at depth are just window dressing.

I just watched this again and this is OTM - its a very empty movie. real heavy reliance on the soundtrack to carry a lot of the weight, lots of imitative gestures that are nicely done but don't add up to much. Is there a single line of dialogue in this movie that doesn't paint the speaker in unflattering light? PTA seems to really despise all the characters.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 9 April 2007 01:56 (seventeen years ago) link

seven months pass...

this film is golden.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:03 (sixteen years ago) link

I hope you're talking about There Will Be Blood.

― Eric H., Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link

giving it some ten-years-on love.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:10 (sixteen years ago) link

it is very good

― Just got offed, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:28 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm going to re-screen 'magnolia'.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:30 (sixteen years ago) link

not yet seen that one, may have a look to see if it's lying around

― Just got offed, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:34 (sixteen years ago) link

Heather Graham is some kind of genius.

― wanko ergo sum, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:40 (sixteen years ago) link

real heavy reliance on the soundtrack to carry a lot of the weight

i had this problem with 'singin in the rain'.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:50 (sixteen years ago) link

Mark Wahlberg and Julianne Moore have gone on to give better performances.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:55 (sixteen years ago) link

Julianne Moore gave better performances before Nights imo, her big scene in Short Cuts for one.

― Eric H., Wednesday, 5 December 2007 17:56 (sixteen years ago) link

i don't think either of those assertions change the fact that they're both rocking the shit in 'boogie nights'.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 18:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Indeed. Moore should've won every award in existence for that movie.

― Eric H., Wednesday, 5 December 2007 18:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Julianne Moore gave better performances before Nights imo

You didn't even mention Safe!

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 18:05 (sixteen years ago) link

four years pass...

OK, so I saw Boogie Nights last night after someone told me that it's better than There Will Be Blood.

Wowing at the choice of camera shots. What can I say, I love a long tracking shot, Scorcese-ripped or not.
Loved the disco dance sequence, like the whole world is dancing to Mark Wahlberg's tune.
Also loved MW's ever-changing accent. Actually, all the principles were great. Apart from Heather Graham who I feel was found out, although the scene with her in the car near the end making the cheap porn film was really well done in how emaciated and drug-addled she looked.
JM does a really good job of acting like she's on coke.

I need to watch this again, too much awesomeness to get in one viewing. I can see why people upthread said that it was shallow and doesn't bear repeat viewings, but I need to test this out for myself. It might actually be better than TTBB, tho I guess that's the canon view anyway, right?

― get ready for the banter (NotEnough), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 08:43 (twelve years ago) link

two years pass...

oral history
http://grantland.com/features/boogie-nights/

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 10 December 2014 05:33 (nine years ago) link

William H. Macy
Little Bill
Paul and I were having lunch, shooting the breeze, this young girl who weighed about 90 pounds soaking wet sat beside us, and she was from the porn industry. And she says to Paul, “Can I ask you a professional question?” He says, sure. She says, “You’ve seen me in these scenes; you’ve seen what I can do. In your professional opinion, should I go legit or should I go anal?”

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 10 December 2014 06:00 (nine years ago) link

i like this movie a lot but last time i watched it i kept wished it had just committed to being a comedy and cut out all of the 80s stuff besides singing the transformers song and the firecracker scene.

― slam dunk, Wednesday, 10 December 2014 06:25 (nine years ago) link

and the last scene of course.

― slam dunk, Wednesday, 10 December 2014 06:27 (nine years ago) link

thanks for the link

― Nhex, Wednesday, 10 December 2014 08:28 (nine years ago) link

I really love this movie but I once fell asleep while watching it and had some really fucked up nightmares about it

― Abstinence Hawk (frogbs), Wednesday, 10 December 2014 13:04 (nine years ago) link

that oral history was a delight.

thanks for posting

― gr8080, Thursday, 11 December 2014 15:37 (nine years ago) link

i read the oral history the other day, and then i stayed up into the wee hours of last night reading this annotated history of mike sager's rolling stone piece on the wonderland murders.

http://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/annotation-tuesday-the-porn-star-and-mike-sager/

― Bill Nighy the Science Gighy (get bent), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:34 (nine years ago) link

how could such a massively pretentious film "commit to being a comedy"?

― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:36 (nine years ago) link

you answered your own question

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:37 (nine years ago) link

Also: Sydney Pollack was PTA's first choice for Jack Horner. Warren Beatty too (he wanted to play Diggler though).

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:44 (nine years ago) link

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