movie review - Boogie Nights
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-eight years and a million words
Toronto, 1998.05.03
This was a surprisingly good movie about what appears to have been a catastrophic era for all involved: the 1970s porn industry in California. A sprawling cast turns in one memorable performance after another in an orgy of arrogance, indulgence, ego, and exploitation. I'm old enough to remember the at-times winking indulgence of adults of those times in distant Ontario and can only imagine what things must have been like to be, say, in your late twenties in New York or L.A. or London at the time. There are several impactful scenes in a movie without so much a fictional plot as a fictionalized documentary with a superb tone and pace.
Strongly recommended.