Hacker Cinema
Boogie Nights
1997 · Film · 156 min
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
In 1977, an idealistic porn producer and his promising protege try to catch up with the end of an era before their never-ending party collides with cold, hard reality.
3 positive4 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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7 comments on Hacker News
Paul Thomas Anderson's films oft set within extreme and/or marginal cultures. The porn industry in Boogie Nights. The Master was a thinly veiled alter ego of Scientology founder L.Ron Hubbard. One Battle after another looks at radical leftists. PTA likes to take characters that are hard to empathize with and humanize them. Also OBATA is a comedy, everybody but the daughter is a caricature.
1997 was an absolutely phenomenal year for movies. Life Is Beautiful, Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, Titanic, Donnie Brasco, The Fifth Element, Good Will Hunting, As Good as It Gets, Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, Gattaca, LA Confidential, Men in Black, Liar Liar, Amistad, The Game, Con Air, Contact.
There was a lot to do in 1997, just not as much to do without leaving home. We went to movies because they were affordable and great movies were being released.
Also, that was the era where new multiplex theaters were being built with great sound systems, so it was worth going to a theater for the high-quality experience. While quality consumer electronics are more readily available today than ever before, I feel like the vast majority today only watch media with headphones, TV speakers, or maybe a 2.1 stereo+sub setup.
I disagree there are fundamental differences. The reason Apple is blocking game streaming apps is because games could contain content that violates the standards of the app store.
An easy violation is nudity, there is an app for Playboy, but there is zero nudity in it. However, I can get the full, uncensored Playboy magazine in the Nook app. I can watch movies with nudity in Netflix or Amazon Video. I can even buy or rent movies FROM APPLE with nudity in the iTunes store, like Eyes Wide Shut, Walk Hard, Boogie Nights (which is about porn!), and Barbarella, all right from my iPad or iPhone.
So why can I see nudity if I buy it directly from Apple in a movie, but not an app?
I can download the Twitch app and watch streams of video games, but I can't download an app to let me PLAY the very same games?
There is no difference, it is simply Apple capriciousness.
Loved your comment.
And before Boogie Nights there's a history of it in Cinema:
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/the-10-longest-unbroken-shots-in-cinema-history/ the ones earlier than Boogie Nights:
Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983, 9m20s) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948, 1h20m)
and this came out about the same time, so I'm pretty sure they had overlapping production:
Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998, 12m57s)
Its likely that most people watch a movie with an aim towards tracking the plot, so that the movie makes sense. Still, you get a sense for the director or cinematographer's talent/style by watching a film even more broadly. It takes a few examples and then you are sensitized to the idea.
Consider the opening shot from Boogie Nights (1997) which is available here [0]. If you watched it and came back here, would you have noticed that it was done all in one take (without a single cut, until the one right before the end of the video) aka the 'long take' technique. Apart from the fact that it was a crane and a steadicam being used, think of the immense work required to coordinate all the actors and crew so that a minimum of takes were required to achieve this desired outcome. (And, that director Paul Thomas Anderson was about 27 when it was shot.) This is the stylism of the director shining through.
One blog's assessment of the best movies openings is in [1] and might offer some insight as well...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiXtFyZqvQQ [1] https://youtu.be/dEXX7w2la0Q
The script coverage of Boogie Nights is a great example of the problem with script readers in general.
https://screenplayreaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/boogie-nights-coverage.png
The fact is, a 24 year old that's paid 25 bucks, doesn't really have a good barometer for what makes a good movie.
It's all just so subjective.
This actually supports my theory that the 90s were the greatest decade in popular culture history. It jibes so well with the (arguable) Golden Age of Rap/Hip-Hop music as well as the Seattle Grunge and Hard Rock renaissance.
Rap in the 90s had Biggie, Tupac, Wu-Tang, NWA, Nas, Outkast, De La Soul, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z and a Tribe Called Quest.
Rock in the 90s had Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Radiohead, the Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis, Weezer, Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, and Rage Against the Machine.
It also had some of the greatest movies of all time in the 90s as well: Goodfellas, Terminator 2, Trainspotting, Fight Club, the Matrix, Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, the Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, Schindler's List, Rushmore, and Pulp Fiction.
Now, I may be looking through with rose-tinted glasses (and having my adolescence back then, how could I not?), but let's just make it official, and not only with just cartoons. It's almost empirical that the 90s were the greatest decade of American Popular Culture.