Boogie Nights (Anderson, 1997): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.15pm
This 35mm screening also screens on May 30th. Details here.
Time Out review:
Paul Thomas Anderson's second feature - a dazzling, highly confident,
atmospherically original and refreshingly non-prurient take on the LA
porn movie community - may not be a '90s Citizen Kane, as some
claim, but in terms of sweep, ambition and precocious cinematic
competence, it heralds the arrival of a new talent. Charting the rise
and fall of well-endowed teenage ingénu Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), from
dishwasher to subcultural skinflick superstar, and back to washed-out
junkie, the film is less a cautionary tale than a freewheeling,
talent-showcasing homage to the glitter, tack and kitsch excesses of the
drug-fuelled late '70s and the hangover '80s. The sense of
homage/pastiche goes further still: if the rambling ensemble
construction derives from Nashville, the swooping long takes
and whiplash pans come courtesy of Scorsese. But it's the music that
calls the tune with the energetic soul and disco records of the period
dictating the editing, pacing and the slightly sleazy, morally neutral
tone. This is style condescending magnificently to content, but what
stiffens this unashamedly exhibitionist movie's muscles are the 'family'
of beautifully judged performances, from Burt Reynolds' stand-out as
porn-king auteur/father figure, to Julianne Moore's superb cokehead survivor-star
and William H. Macy's humiliated cuckold, right down to Philip Seymour Hoffman's gut-wrenching
gay crew member.
Wally Hammond
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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