Review #981: 'Boogie Nights' (1997)

I must have watched writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights over thirty times in my life. Around 1999, it represented cinematic perfection to me and I would view it repeatedly. Now almost 20 years old - although I no longer consider it as the pinnacle of cinema - I still consider it great and to be one of the best movies of the 90's. This is mainly down to how fresh is still feels, with its show-off yet breathtaking long-takes, moments of off-the-wall humour, and dead-on depictions of the decadent 70's through to the over-indulgent 80's, which all assist the film in sweeping you into its hidden world of glamour, sex and drugs.

That world is the world of pornography, though through Anderson's lens it doesn't feel too dissimilar to Hollywood itself, just on a smaller scale. The young, handsome and unnervingly well-endowed Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) is working in the kitchen of a Hollywood nightclub when he is talent spotted by porno auteur Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds). Jack knows that "there is something special behind those jeans just waiting to get out," and soon enough Eddie has renamed himself Dirk Diggler and is the hottest porn star in the country. With success comes the big house, the designer clothes and the fancy sports car, but also lots of cocaine.

Clearly inspired by the work of Robert Altman, Boogie Nights boasts a fantastic ensemble of interesting characters, all hugely endearing despite their obvious flaws. Jack lives with porn star Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), who doesn't get to see her son due to her lavish lifestyle, and Rollergirl (Heather Graham), another actress fresh out of school who never takes her skates off. Dirk buddies up with Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), an aspiring magician who idolises his enigmatic co-star. Behind the camera are Little Bill (William H. Macy), the timid scriptwriter whose wife (played by real-life porn star Nina Hartley) openly sleeps with other men, and Scottie (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who becomes smitten with Dirk. There's also Buck (Don Cheadle), a stereo-system obsessive going through an image crisis.

Anderson was only 26 when the film was released, hot off the disappointingly pedestrian Hard Eight (1996), and yet despite his youth he pulled of something remarkably complex with Boogie Nights. Not only is it a peek behind the curtain of a business normally portrayed as sleazy and distasteful, seen through the eyes of those who operate it, but also a summary of the shift in social attitudes and values at the time, from feelings of optimism and sexual expression of the 70's, to the greed and paranoia of the 80's. As Dirk's drug consumption spirals out of control, he struggles to perform and falls out with Jack. One standout scene near the final act sees Dirk, Reid and moustachioed sleazeball Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) attempt to pull off a drug deal with a friendly but unhinged Alfred Molina.

It's during this scene that Anderson lingers on Dirk's face for a considerable amount of time. Although it probably only lasts about 25 seconds, it manages to pin-point his moment of realisation while allowing the audience time to some up their feelings towards him. And most probably, despite his horrible and selfish actions, you'll still hope it turns out well for him. The camera plays like a character sometimes, whether it be swooping in and out of a pool in one of the many homages to Martin Scorsese, or lingering on producer Colonel James's (Robert Ridgely) startled face as he sees Dirk's prize asset for the first time. Anderson would go on to prove himself one of the finest of his generation with Magnolia (1999), There Will Be Blood (2007) and The Master (2012), but Boogie Nights is still one of his best - dazzling, funny, and uniquely absorbing.


Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #908: 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me' (1999)

It's surprising to think that the first Austin Powers movie underwhelmed at the box office back in 1997, only picking up a cult following after its VHS release, and soon enough you couldn't escape the sound of someone yelling "yeah, baby!" every 5 minutes. By the time it's sequel hit the cinema screens, the character, along with the super-spy's arch-nemesis Dr. Evil, had garnered a huge mainstream following, and the movie was a big hit. Yet the film, subtitled The Spy Who Shagged Me, suffers from the same problems as most comedy sequels, which is basically to re-tread the same successful jokes from the first movie, and forgetting what made the original so fresh and charming.

Powers (Mike Myers) is a randy, free-love type-of-guy from the 60's. When he was re-awoken from his cryogenic state in the 90's, his out-of-date attitudes put him at odds with a society that had grown more stiff-upper-lipped. Crowds of screaming girls would no longer chase him down the street a la A Hard Day's Night (1964) and sexy girls wouldn't be willing to bed him at the drop of a hat. When Dr. Evil (also Myers) arrives back to Earth with a plan to steal Powers' mojo, the characters find themselves time-travelling again back to the 60's, where gorgeous super-agent Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) is ready and willing, but Powers lack the mojo to do anything about it. Most of what made the first movie so successful was that Powers was a man out of time, so by placing him back into his natural surroundings, the opportunity to create funny set-piece's are few and far between.

The dentally-challenged Brit is instead lumped with a dull romance with Shagwell, which is a carbon-copy of the relationship between Powers and Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), only with the roles reversed. In fact, Powers seems to play second-fiddle to Dr. Evil, whose ridiculously outlandish plots and newly-created sidekick Mini-Me (Verne Troyer) annoy his estranged son Scott Evil (Seth Green) and provide the majority of the film's laughs. An early scene where Evil appears on Jerry Springer with his son is hilarious, and the film is at its most inspired when the focus is on the bad guys. The Spy Who Shagged Me is also more gross-out than it's predecessor, continuing a trend set by There's Something About Mary (1998) and re-establishment of the teen sex comedy set by American Pie (1999), so Myers introduces a vile character called Fat Bastard who speaks with a Scottish accent and is permanently covered with chicken bits, whose scenes tend to induce more cringes than laughs. It's funny enough to justify its third instalment, but it lacks the satire, sweetness and freshness of the original.


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Rob Lowe, Seth Green
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #618: 'The Hangover' (2009)

Three close friends and the groom's strange brother-in-law travel to Vegas for a bachelor party they will never forget. Teacher Phil (Bradley Cooper) is a womaniser with a wife and kids, Stu (Ed Helms) is in an unhappy marriage with an overbearing, abusive wife, Doug (Justin Bartha) is the groom hoping for a send-off to end all send-off's, and Alan (Zach Galifianakis), is a naive man-child hoping to make friends. When they wake up in the morning, they find their suite demolished, a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, and most worryingly of all, Doug is missing. They clean themselves up and set out to find Doug, and using the various clues lying around, they begin to piece together the night.

Of course, bachelor party movies are hardly hard to come by, and they have been a staple of the gross-out comedy circuit since the 1980's. The Hangover finds its originality in the fact that it focuses on the morning after, rather than the actual night itself, which we see none of. It also has a sense of believability, as if three of the characters have genuinely been friends for years, and are gradually accepting the increasingly strange Alan into their wolf-pack. After all, Alan is often unnervingly strange, but the group find him funny too, and why wouldn't they? Cult stand-up comedian Galifianakis has been around for years, starring in various failed pilots and never quite getting the attention he deserved, but he is by far the best thing in The Hangover, with the mixture of his quite sweet innocence and his random one-liners fitting in with the film's heartfelt moments.

It also keeps the gross humour thankfully down to a minimum. Sure it's often bad taste, but there's a noticeable lack of bare-breasted women and any jokes involving bodily fluids. This is still R-rated, but the humour is in the script and the performances, and doesn't resort to someone shitting themselves for desperate laughs. It's similar in many ways to 2007's Superbad, where the language was filthy, but the laughs were genuine, and the situations, however absurd, still felt somewhat real. And when the credits rolled, I was left with that unfamiliar desire to spend more time with these characters. Special mention must also go to Chinese gangster Mr. Chow (played by Ken Jeong, who simply needs to be in more films), who has one of the best comedy burn lines in history, "so long, gay boys!".


Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie