Boogie Nights

 I decided to move my Letterboxd comments and review here:

Top 5 scenes:

1) Rollergirl makes sure that guy from school remembered her, after Jack got some licks in

2) Little Bill is confronted by cameraman, Longjohn, about equipment needed; this after Bill just once again found his wife screwing some random guy in the middle of the yard near Jack's pool party. Little Bill kind of had more important matters on his mind than how the shoot would be photographed

3) Poor Buck just wants to be a cowboy, sits morose dressed as Rick James, and removes the wig, while actress, Melora, sees him alone and strikes up a talk about sunsets

4) Rollergirl wants Amber to be mommy...the two sort of bonding over snorts of nose candy

5) Rollergirl is just called on to be dramatic chapter breaks for PTA and I loved that director choice; she's the constant, rolling through every timeline. I think in terms of that chapter break I enjoy is when PTA has Rollergirl with her trusty camera taking a snap of New Year's Eve night.The visit to the prison and how the producer on the other side of the glass tells his director, Jack, why he’s behind bars, just wanting him to tell him they were still friends…at least Jack wouldn’t acknowledge him. 

Little Bill's expression was like, “Well, guess that’s a wrap.” A sort of brief acceptance that it’s over, looking at those he worked with and knew for years on porn shoots/production with a momentary smirk. But I thought Little Bill’s frustrations during the pool party at seeing his wife fucking just some random pickup, confronted by camera operator Kurt Longjohn (Ricky Jay, consistent collaborator with David Mamet) about equipment needed because director Jack Horner “wanted a certain look” while the retort was “he said he was going with a minimalist vibe” remained one of the more underrated scenes in the film. It was how Ricky Jay’s cameraman barely registers the pain Macy is going through. How his wife is at a distance just screwing some guy, not a care in the world, and he’s expected to push that aside and focus on what Jack Horner needs for the shoot the next day. That brazen adultery, and how Macy is expected to just leave the room while her dick for the day is like, “Dude, could you close the door behind you.” PTA builds to the murder/suicide. I dunno: I just think that scene between Macy and Jay hits hard because of how the cuckholding is handled with such shrugged shoulders.

Amber might be presented as “mommy” but she leads both Dirk and Rollergirl to drug habits. Julianne Moore has those moments of parental nature and then she takes to the nose candy. How she seems motherly to Dirk in his first sex scene, encouraging…I have no doubt that probably happened in the industry. The youth entering are “given a guiding hand”. Jack Horner sees Eddie for the first time with the dishes in Maurice’s club, feels the impulse to meet him, and not long after gets Rollergirl to “check him out”. Soon their car pulls up to offer Dirk a ride (he’s 17 years old), and a bad episode at home further pushes the kid to find his way into the industry.

The inability to masturbate in the truck reminded me of “Midnight Cowboy” except “the boys” give Eddie a beating (pun not intended). Wahlberg seems about as low as Voight was.

The visit to the prison and how the producer on the other side of the glass tells his director, Jack, why he’s behind bars, just wanting him to tell him they were still friends…at least Jack wouldn’t acknowledge him.

The discussion between Jack and Phillip Baker Hall's distributor over film and video was a fun scene if just for tickling that film nerd side enjoying the industry history involved. Clearly PTA loves to delve into that. Emphasizing scene set ups, showing the camera, the film magazine needing replaced, the ins and outs of scenes, etc.