Monday, December 3, 2012

Boogie Nights (1997)


In the late 70's, a young kid from Torrance (Mark Wahlberg) falls in with a family of pornographers and  becomes a key "part" in the end of an era.

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Pornography is an industry of early adopters. Whenever a new technology comes along, it is the smut peddlers who first put it through its filthy paces. Sometimes they even blaze new trails like figuring out how to charge money for nudie pics and clips online. I personally feel safe in saying that without porn there would be no Amazon or eBay. But without a doubt the technology most synonymous with skin, is video. Today as Hollywood and film fans are in a tizzy over the end of celluloid and theatrical distribution, the San Fernando Valley just laughs. They went through all that shit three decades ago. Been there, done that. I find it interesting that Boogie Nights was released a mere two years after the Dogme 95 gang made shooting on video a viable option for commercial filmmakers. Was this film Paul Thomas Anderson's reaction to that phenomenon? Looking at it from a contemporary perspective, I can't help but see PTA as the Cassandra of our digital age.

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