Midweek Mention... Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights

Reegs: Sid, you chose this week's midweek mumble.

Sidey: I did. It's a film.

We've mentioned a few times in top five. So that inspired the choice. It's boogie nights. Yeah. All the way back.

Dan: that, that, that data is not even in that movie.

Is it

Sidey: No, this is, this is dating way back to 1997.

Dan: Right. Okay.

Reegs: Paul Thomas Anderson?

No. A hard date

Dan: holiday, yeah. With John C Y yeah.

Reegs: I've not actually seen it. I think Magnolia was,

Sidey: no that was after

Reegs: this. Okay.

Sidey: this was filmed. I saw at the time and maybe a couple of times shortly thereafter, but hadn't seen it for a really, really, really long time.

So I was keen to revisit it because I remember it being really good, but cards on the table, watching it again. It's a fucking masterpiece. I fucking loved it.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: it is. It's a fantastic film. I enjoyed it. First time I went to see, to see it at the cinema. I haven't then seen it. Maybe I've seen it once more soon after that, but I hadn't seen it in since probably, you know, the nineties anyway.

So this was a treat to watch it back.

Sidey: I remember it being really good, but I'd forgotten just how fucking bro or maybe at the time. I didn't appreciate just how fucking good it

was

Dan: I think that's for me, I it's, I appreciate the, the shots and how it's been done. The characters there, the casting, I mean, it's fantastic all across this

Sidey: a lot of these people in it, we've talked about the cast. It was kind of the first time that I had come across most of these, I don't think I'd seen Julia Moore

Howie: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I hadn't, I hadn't,

Sidey: Heather Graham. I was just sort of aware of, because I've seen her in swingers and then there's and John C.

Riley, I hadn't seen before. Mark Walberg you were aware of

Reegs: well, but they, they were, he collected this bunch of character actors together.

Didn't he? William H Macy. Cause he was the guy that you always went. I know who he is, but I don't know what

Sidey: little bell, obviously by Reynolds, we knew about. But they all came together for this ensemble and fucking worked brilliantly.

I don't know if we mentioned the opening shot when we did about long single shot takes, but the opening shot of the film

is

a good couple of minutes. It starts off in the air outside. It's sharing the. The sign of boogie nights straight and

Dan: crate and it comes

Sidey: And it comes all the way down and you've got what's his name?

Is it Louis? Goosmann? Yeah, he's fucking brilliant. He's the sort of club owner and it's taken the crowd and you meet the whole cast. At least the main players in the, in the film are all introduced in this opening.

Reegs: shot. It's this really sort of Scorsese escalate.

Sidey: my one takeaway from this. I was gonna say it feels like it could be a Scorsese film.

Reegs: It does.

Sidey: It

really does. I don't know if that's his he's inspired by him or it's just a straight rip off or whatever,

Dan: hundred percent. And I think like any good filmmaker, he takes influence from other great filmmakers, you know, he's, he's.

Above that, you know, trying to do everything originally his own shots, he said, I really liked that shot and that would work well here.

And he's not been too proud about taking it on because some of the scenes are actually, when you look back there's army, we'll jump right to the end. And the there's another one that's like Scorsese as well. You know? So there's, there's a few scenes, but

why not? You know what I mean? It's nobody owns these kind of production.

Sidey: no, no. no It's just, you know, you,

Dan: well with him. Brilliant

spot

Sidey: by

what you see, I guess. The film usually is set in 1977. I think certainly the tail end of the seventies. These are the kind of a film of two harbors in that respect, in that the seventies of the good times, then it goes into the ads and everything kind of goes to shit a little bit.

So we're introducing. In this opening scene to Eddie. I think his name is at the time played by mark Walberg.

Reegs: And he was still called Marky mark back in these

Sidey: days. Yeah. Okay.

Howie: Now

Reegs: I don't know. I've just made that up, but

Sidey: but

I was gonna say, I didn't think it was true

Howie: phase.

Sidey: he's playing a sort of teenage guy, a dishwasher in this nightclub, but he's known for.

Because back when I was going to see him and he says, do you want a 10 or a five? So he's obviously known people, go guys, go back to the Sears deck. Or maybe they won't come off would just say

Howie: Taylor's oldest time.

Dan: Depends what you pay.

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: And it's just not, I don't, I don't want to attend to a five, but. Do you know who I am, I'm a filmmaker or they still, you know, he thinks he's a

Dan: where's he Jack Jack corner

Sidey: he

Reegs: is no, Jack is

Dan: house filming

Sidey: exotic, exotic movies.

Reegs: I mean, it's one of the interesting things that's in the movie because there's nothing sexual about any of it for Jack he's this, which is Burt Reynolds character.

He's a kind of low rent Hugh Hefner, really, but everybody he's well, he's a grandfather to everybody, isn't it? Loads of stuff about

Sidey: I was going to say like Dom thereto could be in this. Cause he would just say, you know, it's all about family. This whole thing really is about family dysfunctional families

Reegs: and coming together. Yeah.

Sidey: but he, he says to him, I got a feeling there's something wonderful in those jeans, just trying to get out.

Reegs: Yeah. I've actually got that.

Dan: There's, there's so

Sidey: ever said that to you

Reegs: Then

Dan: there's

Reegs: I've got a feeling. You've got something disappointing.

Dan: there's so many great lines like that though in this is so quotable.

Reegs: Yeah,

it's a great script.

Dan: Great dancing as well. Some of them, some of that dancing in the uh you know, seventies

Sidey: machine gun is the chamber. They all do the dance, this fucking great

Dan: How's the soundtrack on this side,

Sidey: I, I bought the soundtrack to this at the time when I first was filmed, but it's that good? It's fucking brilliant. It's really, really good.

Howie: I was just going to say it's The film avoids doing an Austin Powers with the 17. Do you know what I mean? It's style You're going to just go back to the shots and the technique. It's very easy for it to go Everyone's

groovy Everyone's wearing this shit. It's it shows are whipping grimy is Of an industry that was in this weird halfway house of but You said, art house productions then basically becomes hardcore porn. graphic

Sidey: shows the transition from being on film to then just video and it being

Howie: VHS was kind of the death of the peep show

theater. Yeah,

Reegs: a lot of what you were saying there about the The sort of authenticity of it, basically that that's what makes it good.

Like not into that Austin Powers type 70.

Dan: Oh, the, the

Reegs: and a lot of that is because of the detail exactly. The, the, the sets and the blocking and all this stuff from a Paul Thomas Anderson that he gets, right. It's

Dan: decor or the place, you know, just that, how, how he's got that is how you would imagine. You know, I mean, obviously wasn't, I'm too young for all this, but it's how I'd imagine that the seventies would have been. And that industry, you know, it just had that right amount of, of grime about it, but the glitz and glamour

Sidey: I was still glam.

Yeah. It was a lot of

Dan: yeah, there was lots of GLA, you know, they dressed up and it was all fantastic. And, and some of the like Don Cheadle, you know, he he's his character in everything in it. There's

Sidey: is the same with him when he's being a salesman is my proudest nerdiest moment of watching a film.

Cause when he said. This is the TK 41. You've got to get the TK 41 upgrade. Oh. Was like, that's a Stormtrooper.

Reegs: Oh, nice. Nice.

Sidey: Look it up. And it is, this is a TK 41 white. You're not your posters.

Reegs: Oh, a little star

Dan: star wars thing. Is it? And I'm, I'm sure there's loads of references. I, I don't know enough about

Reegs: they mentioned

Dan: but there was a few others in there,

Sidey: there cause

Reegs: John C. Riley and mark Walberg have a conversation about star wars because he said, so they thought I looked like hands.

So like John C, right. It's not really someone I think of I mean the movie is, is this sprawling epic. It's going to be impossible to talk about. In much detail,

Sidey: but it's

Reegs: the story of all these people. And you then get these sort of shorter stories like William H Macy's character's story, little bell.

Yeah. His wife is played by the porn star, Nina Hartley. And she's just everywhere. He goes, she's getting fucked by some different guy, like going to a party. And like, you know, he comes around the corner and he

Dan: the nickname, little bell doesn't help him

Reegs: Nothing helps him

Dan: helps him. And, and it's a really kind of graphically tragic. And, and

Reegs: Well, it's a chilling scene because it lines up with new year's Eve. Like you get again, another really long shot that you get.

Dan: one of those that follows him,

Reegs: gets the gun from the car, comes back to the house. And as they're counting down to now, it's just so brilliantly done. You know, you've got to love

Sidey: Did you hear, she gave everyone in the cast gifts at the end of the shoot.

Reegs: Nina. Holly.

Yeah.

Sidey: Everyone got a copy of one of her porn films and she gave William H Macy the guide to anal sex.

Howie: Wow.

Dan: That's lovely. Isn't it's heartwarming

Reegs: So yeah, I mean, that's just one of the smaller stories, but you get a great performance from the tragically gone.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman, as I can't remember the character's

Dan: of like this sweaty camera, man. Isn't he who fancies

who becomes,

you know, we, we talk about Eddie.

He eventually takes his stage name Dirk Diggler and this, this film was, was based on a S a shorter movie. Wasn't it, dude. Paul Anderson Thomas Anderson had written before called the D Douglas story yeah, so it was something, a Donny university that he'd worked. This is research C. He

Howie: it

Dan: worked to get the money to fill it.

Kind of mockumentary almost of so he had this framework and this idea of buzzing around his head before he got this cost and this script together. And then he's really just turned it into what is, I think, a modern day masterpiece, this almost, you know what I mean? 97 within our

Howie: client generation generation?

Dan: It, I probably didn't didn't I enjoyed it at the time, but I appreciated it this time, watching it.

Sidey: The, the main thrust, no pun intended of the movie is the sort of rise and fall of dark Douglas career.

And then all the things that go on around it. So he, he has a lot of success. He wins a load of awards for his acting and

Reegs: best cock.

Yeah. best cock.

Dan: That award ceremony

Reegs: the

vision that they are creating, not artists essentially, but they, it's not just going to kill logical stuff in heaps, making

Dan: How different are those?

Reegs: degrading to

Dan: different are they today, today than

Howie: none of us would know,

Sidey: watch that film,

Dan: Of course we don't, but you've heard of it because Pete is normally talking about it.

Reegs: and

Dan: and starring

Sidey: says he's

Dan: smart, he's got a small part, you know, but he's

Howie: completely down.

Dan: correctly, so you've got you you've you've acknowledged, but they.

Weave a story into it. Back in

Sidey: What's the name of the character he comes up with within the film

Reegs: where there's chest

Sidey: chest Rockwell, that's

Reegs: and there's here's one. I can't remember the,

Sidey: And they, so they had, they had making these series of films.

He's a sort of a hard nose sort of detective guide around like shagging and also just beating people up. But when you show them, they show the.

The

dailies and they're editing it together and he says, we're making movies here. You know, we're ready. I know you see the castle. It's fucking awful.

Dan: I, I just have to interject a little bit because the, the porn movie puns could come thick and fast here, but I just, I just thought,

you know, some of the names that

I've been porn movies and I was looking at you.

So E T the extra testicle you've got mail, everyone. I did last summer, the sperm and

the bone ranger, Goodwill humping cliff banger. Lady Manhattan, any given calm day. I mean, we've got loads a clockwork orgy,

Reegs: penis, hands

look

Sidey: jamming,

Dan: gulp.

Yeah. Gang bangs of New York.

There's so many, isn't it.

But I won't go there

Sidey: but what goes up must come down. Basically there's the same way where duck is hosting a big lavish party at his new pad. And we see all the trappings of his success. He's got this great pad he's done out.

He's really happy. He's got a fancy motor and he's having this really fucking weird, almost incestuous relationship with Amber waves played by Julianne Moore.

She's the mother, son sort of things really well, but she starts introducing him to cocaine. And as soon as he starts doing that, you could see the, this sort of spiral timing that with the, into the eighties and it all starts to go tits up for him.

But

Reegs: It does. I mean, it's funny at first because you get scenes, like when he's trying to record a Stan sound Bush, I think

Sidey: on the soundtrack

Reegs: You've got the power and it obviously absolutely awful. And mark Walberg is not a terrific actor.

I don't think, but he's absolutely. This is amazing. And this,

Dan: the

Sidey: This would be most people's strongest.

Reegs: all of it. He's good. He can do this. Naive guy, but when he's strung out and falling apart, he's absolutely

Sidey: Well, they also do that thing where I think we've spoken about it before, where the DiCaprio does it in once more time in Hollywood, where you're doing bad acting

Reegs: on purpose

Sidey: on purpose. And he's really good at doing that.

Maybe he's just

Howie: excellent

Sidey: know, but it's successful in

Dan: well, no, cause he picks it up in the past that actually he should be acting. Did you know that bill. Was offered the part for Jack Horner.

Yeah.

I think there was a few people before he went for bed.

Sidey: Well, cause Bert was offered it a lot of times and turned it down.

Didn't want

Dan: wasn't, he's not still not pleased with this movie,

Sidey: He hates it. Yeah.

Howie: Was it about the same time he did strip tease,

Sidey: Yeah, it was just slightly before. And that's why he didn't want to do it because striptease obviously. That vibe about it, whereas this was supposed to be, you know, probably like this is going to be good and that people didn't want to be attached to it thinking it's going to be that sort of shot.

So he wasn't keen, they had a scrap on set as well. Hey, Paul Thomas Anderson and Burt Reynolds a proper fucking ding-dong probably, but it would have probably taken him

Dan: I work in Burt was pretty bad-ass wasn't he in his day? Didn't it. Wasn't he a wrestler or he was

Howie: NFL player?

Dan: and F NFL player or something like that. Yeah, he's hardcore. I mean, delivering time. He knows the score.

Reegs: It doesn't go so well.

And before long cocaine really is a problem and you do get a terrific sequence of Warburg looking really strong out. And then how low things have gone, that

Dan: roller

Reegs: ease, sort of, you get this terrific couple of scenes sort of happening at the same time where roller girl is being accosted in a limo, but.

Somebody, she knew at school

Sidey: that was fucking really awful to her at school and

Reegs: And, and Walberg is handing out

Sidey: five and 10

Reegs: yeah. In the car park and it's, this is, you know, and, and a lot of this movie, although it is set in the world of pornography and has porn stars in it and stuff that's, you know, and there is sex and

Dan: I'm just wondering if everybody knows what five and tens in the carpark means, but if you don't then

Howie: call this number

Sidey: he got some QR codes

Reegs: ends up that they're so desperate that they become embroiled in this huge well, this scheme that gets way out of control at the end of the movie with Alfred Molina. Yeah. So did I, and he looked really thin and young.

Sidey: And that kids just walking around, throwing like firecrackers in the air,

Reegs: and it's just adding so much intensity to the scene.

It's just a brilliant, energetic movie. That's great soundtrack. How many of the songs have been sampled by the way? Every song that came on, I was like, that's a hip hop tune. That's a hip hop gene.

Sidey: The sane where Don Cheetos buying donuts. And he, there's a, there's a robbery and he ends up with brain matter all over his face and the robberies gone wrong, but he's the only survivor at the back of it.

Tino title.

Dan: kind of moment. Isn't

Reegs: it would have been good in our top five moral dilemmas. That one,

Sidey: Well, it's not a dilemma for me. I was going to say, what do you take in that bag of money?

Reegs: in his situation? Yes,

Dan: no CCTV.

Sidey: I was looking around. I want to see he was looking at, is there a

Dan: That's kind of what I was thinking. If nobody's watching and everybody has just been shot and you've just been turned down for the loan that can change your life and that amount of money, there's a certain amount of,

you know, It has been provided.

Let's take it, you know it, and he went yeah. And opened The store with, and I'd forgotten this actually I've forgotten this scene completely.

I, it just, you know, I remembered some of the disco dancing. I remember these massive cock at the end. I remembered kind of a few other bits and pieces, but I, I just couldn't remember this scene. It, and the other scene that I had only kind of remembered was the the little bill scene as well. So that was grim.

That was grim. And probably what I put it back in my mind, but this was. Tough to watch his, you know, blood everywhere.

Sidey: Everyone

has their ups. And then everyone hits rock bottom. Basically every character has, you know, he's there. They have the highest, it goes wrong. There's it? There's is it Bucky? I can't w Dante was characters actually.

Cool buck. He has the, the robbery. Julia Moore is trying to get custody or at least partial custody, shared custody of her son. But car.

Reegs: Also addicted to cocaine.

Sidey: rock bottom. You had that same, she's been kind of either high or just being a sort of mother figure to that film. But when you have the, the aftermath of that hearing and she's sobbing, it's fucking cause she was Oscar nominated for

Reegs: well, but this has got to be one of the best movies ever that was not nominated for best picture at the

Sidey: I was looking at that and only at three.

Reegs: I didn't even get a nomination for best picture

Dan: wins on an year. It wins, you know, it's

Reegs: I do have one minor problem with it. I don't know what your perspective illness is. It kind of, you get the rise and then you get the fall. And then the movie just kind of ends like really quickly after the fall has got to its lowest point.

He's just goes back and it's like welcomed them into the family and they start making

Howie: in off hours.

Reegs: Yeah, I dunno. It just didn't it felt like there's kind of no resolution to the story in a way that there's no, it's a it's nitpicking because it's a terrific movie full of great scenes.

Sidey: Yeah. I mean, he couldn't get, you know, you had the same with his own mother, which was pretty harrowing and shared him out there.

I think the point that I was trying to make was the only place that they could be happy was together, you know? And he, Jack basically takes them all under his roof. You see roller goal's there. Eddie's back on Jim was

Reegs: The new guy was there that got married

Howie: A porn star Fagan. Yes.

Dan: the, the very last scene is

Sidey: practicing his lines in the mirror,

Dan: practicing in lines in a mirror. And he's just looking at that kinder and he's talking to himself and he's almost psyching himself up to the performance, I guess, but

Sidey: Well, John Holmes used to do this power and it was, this was the inspiration

Dan: But th this was also and again, in, in the deep research I do for this podcast, I found out that and I wouldn't have pulled it out, but raging bull had decided. Kind of

Reegs: giant

Dan: giant and penis right at the end? No. You've got a Rocky Marciano talking to himself in the mirror on login bowl or him.

Yeah. It's it's based on Rocky Marciano's and it's so um he's talking to himself in the mirror and again, it's just that Scorsese

Right at the beginning of the film and right at the

Reegs: but don't gloss over the fact that we do finally get to see as

Sidey: massive

Reegs: schlong.

And we've seen everybody else's reactions. The Colonel's is the best and he ends up being a PIDO. So it's not so good, but the Colonel, he just he's, you just get a real tight shot of the Colonel's face and he asks, can I. He says,

Dan: Cause he's paying he's he's the producer

Reegs: And so he unzipped it, but it's still just basically on the Colonel's eyes and mouth and he just kind of looks down and then he looks up and he's just got this.

It was like brand stark. I'm going to go now like off into the distance. and we see the huge, it's huge.

Dan: You only see it right at the end because all the time, as you say, you just see the reaction of everybody else. And I thought that was, that was so clever to

Sidey: I've ever stared at another man's Dick because he just started the whole fucking time. No, it's true.

Reegs: what was it like in the cinema?

The penis? Was it, I mean, it must've

Howie: didn't, let me say

Sidey: Yeah, that's got a lot of tick in it.

Reegs: I'm watching men as well. I saw that on

Dan: well, it was, it was just, it was, it was just a glorious, but you didn't know you were going to see it. You know, it was one of those things you wanted to see it because everybody had everybody had, I hadn't, when I first went this year, it was just like, you thought you would have seen it before then, because it's a, it's a pooled fleet, but this isn't a porn

Reegs: It's a prop, sadly. Yeah.

Howie: it,

Sidey: Let's keep it

Reegs: Yeah But he's also because he's gone like full right wing Christian as an EMR, might well, so he, he also is like, oh, I don't like this movie and blah, blah,

Sidey: blah.

Reegs: Just because it's got a bit of sex and drugs and stuff in it.

Like

yeah. Everything

Sidey: really. It's a story about family as well as, so get over it.

Reegs: It's terrific. By the way, if you haven't got that,

Dan: There's there's lots of laughs there's the great lines. The deck or the detail is great. The, the launch yachts and everything really is one of, I mean, what else has this guy done that I would know?

Sidey: Magnolia.

Dan: I don't know that

Sidey: So when were the reigning frogs

Dan: Right. I'm John, I'm joining it down because I need to, I need to see some more

Reegs: there will be blood

Dan: or there will be blood I've seen.

Howie: which

Reegs: good. I mean, I do really like that movie, but I mostly remember the final five minutes with the, I drank your

Dan: I remember the first like 20 minutes way. It's just him alone.

Reegs: He also did the master as well, which is really good.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman sort of about Scientology. It they're all, they've all got a similar thing. All of his movies have got a thing about dysfunctional families and people coming together and that sort of thing. So yeah. Great stuff that he did. Another one Phantom thread, which I haven't seen it.

I think it's about a haunted dress.

Dan: I've seen that I stopped watching it. It's Daniel Day Lewis. I struggled to get into that.

Reegs: I heard it was a

Dan: if, yeah, it was, it was slow. It was just really, really, really slow. I mean, it was one of those things.

Phil is that you, you think something's going to happen, but it didn't, but okay. This loads or happened in boogie nights, loads happen.

Sidey: just quick bit of trivia for you about the award ceremony scene.

They got a hundred extras and said, right. Just turn up on the day. Just wear your seventies gloves. And we're just going to do this award ceremony. They didn't have a fucking clue what it was and the lady who was doing presenting the award. She oh, the winners don't take long. I'm so happy. I can't wait to work with him and have his cock in my pussy and ass. I know he's actually fucking walked out there. They just weren't, they didn't know what it was going to be.

Dan: Oh no. They

Sidey: so fun. Yeah.

Dan: It would just be like the funniest thing ever to be invited to isn't it?

Sidey: So that caused massive delay. Cause they had to, they wrote another load actually pre-war than

Dan: They want to not go to the church to pick up those extras, I