Boogie Nights

Yup, I watched it. I don't know why I watched a movie about the porn industry and expected it not to have a lot of sex in it, but I did. If you're wondering why I watched this movie in the first place, I'll give you three reasons:

1) Mark Wahlberg.
2) It's actually somewhat critically acclaimed, and Marky Mark's breakout film.
3) I was snowed in.

Whether any or all of those reasons is good enough for you is matter for a different discussion. I have an inexplicable "thing" for Mark Wahlberg (clarification: a "thing" is different than a crush; I don't watch his movies because I think he's hot and I want to see more of him; I watch his movies because he confuses and amuses me).

Apart from seeing more sex than I wanted to (and in reality, there was probably no more sex than was in The Reader, it just didn't look as pretty or seem as romantically tragic), I have mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, it's about more than the porn industry; it's about a lost boy looking for a way to be something and thinking he finds the answer down his pants. It's also about what a significant number of other movies have been about, i.e., the downside of fame, fortune, and power, particularly when they're obtained through some illegal, unsavory, or atypical means deemed unacceptable by society (Ex: drug dealers, mobsters, prostitutes, rock stars). Maybe this is why the movie ultimately didn't do it for me - because the main story (or "message," if you will) seemed so familar. I've seen it before, recently (Blow, American Gangster ), and I've seen it before, done better (The Godfather and Godfather II).

Still, this movie deserves some credit for a) discovering that Marky Mark had more to offer than just his fit bod as an underwear model, and b) having the nerve to tackle the porn industry and essentially treating it as if it were just any other business. What's good about this movie, and at the same time what makes it sad, is that it shows us the most overt human vices - sex, drugs, money - and lets us see what happens when they're taken to their utmost extremes. Eventually, Dirk Diggler (Marky Mark's character) get's everything he ever wanted, loses it all, and, at the very end, slowly starts to regain it again. The thing is, even when he was on top, it didn't look all that appealing.

What makes this film still relevant, and at times - if you can call it that - touching - are the various moments of desperation and humiliation experienced by the ensemble of characters. There's Don Cheadle as the Western-clad, wannabe cowboy and pathetic stereo salesman Buck Swope, wondering to his buddy why he's not successful even as his friend tells him that fringed shirts are no look for a black man; Heather Graham and Julianne Moore as porn stars Rollergirl and Amber Waves, sobbing in each other's arms after deciding to be a surrogate mother/daughter pair while tweaking out on coke; John C. Reilly as Dirk's best friend Reed Rothchild, initially trying to one-up him like a little kid comparing card collections; William H. Macy as the director's assistant Little Bill who's forever stumbling upon his wife in bed (or on the lawn, or in the pool) with another man, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the porno groupie Scotty J, with his misplaced admiration for Dirk that leads to a supposedly drunken kiss and an ensuing love declaration. It's these moments and these characters - and their desperate attempt to find some sort of meaning in a world that has none - that provides the heart of the film. Ultimately, everyone in the movie has the same story as Dirk - not the fame and the fortune part, but the part that brought them to the industry in the first place - of a lost someone looking for a place to call home, or a somebody to think they're something.

The movie doesn't glamorize this world, nor does it make it look terrible. Instead, it tackles the whole thing with an "it is what it is" attitude - these are porn stars, yes, but they're people too. Boogie Nights doesn't pose a lot of questions, but it does present some situations that could lead to them. Nor does it make any attempts to provide the answers. It's just "Here are some people, they do what they do." Some have reasons for the choices they've made, and maybe some of these reasons are excuses for the way they turned out. They rise, they fall, and (if they're still alive), they find solace in the father figure that is director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and the camraderie of the others who have ended up, by chance or by choice, in the same sordid profession as they did.