MY DVD Collection - 09 Feb 2007

(Boogie Nights [de])

USA 1997
d: Paul Thomas Anderson
Kinowelt Home Entertainment/DVD (Region 0 de)

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Anderson's second feature - a dazzling, highly confident, atmospherically original and refreshingly non-prurient take on the LA porn movie community - may not be a '90s Citizen Kane, as some claim, but in terms of sweep, ambition and precocious cinematic competence, it heralds the arrival of a new talent. Charting the rise and fall of well-endowed teenage ingénu Dirk Diggler (Wahlberg), from dishwasher to subcultural skinflick superstar, and back to washed-out junkie, the film is less a cautionary tale than a freewheeling, talent-showcasing homage to the glitter, tack and kitsch excesses of the drug-fuelled late '70s and the hangover '80s. The sense of homage/pastiche goes further still: if the rambling ensemble construction derives from Nashville, the swooping long takes and whiplash pans come courtesy of Scorsese. But it's the music that calls the tune with the energetic soul and disco records of the period dictating the editing, pacing and the slightly sleazy, morally neutral tone. This is style condescending magnificently to content, but what stiffens this unashamedly exhibitionist movie's muscles are the 'family' of beautifully judged performances, from Reynolds' stand-out as porn-king auteur/father figure, to Moore's superb cokehead survivor-star and Macy's humiliated cuckold, right down to Hoffman's gut-wrenching gay crew member.
— WH, Time Out Film Guide
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Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson'’s second feature (1997) is a two-and-a-half-hour epic about one corner of the LA porn industry during the 70s and 80s--a seemingly limited subject that becomes the basis for a suggestive and highly energetic fresco. The sweeping first hour positively swaggers, as a busboy (Mark Wahlberg) is plucked from obscurity by a patriarchal pornmeister (Burt Reynolds at his near best) to become a sex star. Alas, this being the American cinema, tons of gratuitous retribution eventually come crashing down on practically everybody in mechanical crosscutting patterns, and because Anderson has bitten off more than he can possibly chew, a lot of his minor characters are never developed properly. Moreover, just as his first feature, Hard Eight, at times slavishly depended on Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le flambeur, Anderson here attempts to "outdo" Tarantino (in a fabulous late sequence with Alfred Molina) and to plagiarize a sequence from Raging Bull that itself quotes from On the Waterfront, rather than come up with something original. But notwithstanding its occasional grotesque nods to postmodernist convention, this is highly entertaining Hollywood filmmaking, full of spark and vigor.
— Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Magnolia

(Magnolia [de])

USA 1999
d: Paul Thomas Anderson
New Line Home Entertainment (Region 1 us)

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Anderson's meandering multi-story megasoap with a message is over-ambitious, self-conscious, self-indulgent, self-important and clumsy into the bargain. But it's also one of the most enthralling and exhilarating American movies in ages. Much in the style of "Nashville" and "Short Cuts" (though lacking Altman's light touch), this intimate epic charts the various fortunes, over a day or so, of various individuals living in the San Fernando Valley - including the dying Earl (Robards), his young wife Linda (Moore), and his nurse Phil (Hoffman); Frank Mackey (Cruise), prophet of machismo; and numerous people associated, past or present, with a TV quiz show - whose paths cross by design, destiny, chance or coincidence. Insofar as the film is about 'story', little happens save that Anderson initially conceals information, and then slowly scatters snippets so that we can piece the jigsaw together. For all the humour, it's a dark portrait of loss, lovelessness and fear of failure in contemporary America, and not a film that trades in understatement. As the lost souls make their way towards - what? - redemption? - a deus ex machina plot development occurs, as contrived, ludicrous, bold and grandly imaginative as any Biblical flood or plague.
— GA, Time Out Film Guide
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A sprawling, leisurely film that recalls Robert Altman's NASHVILLE in both idiosyncrasy and emotional depth as it strolls through the lives of several unhappy Angelenos. ... Writer-director P.T. Anderson strikes a near flawless balance between looseness and structure, and indulges the occasional flight of cinematic fancy without undermining the movie's emotional integrity. He opens with a series of Believe It Or Not? oddities, setting up the movie's preoccupation with coincidence and off-kilter tone and slyly foreshadowing its bizarre climax. The virtuoso sequence in which he cuts to each character crooning a snippet of Aimee Mann's mournful "Wise Up," one picking up where the previous one leaves off, is a haunting metaphor for the connections that underlie their apparent isolation. But most important, Anderson gives his cast the room to deliver phenomenal performances; he even harnesses Tom Cruise's superstar presence, channeling it into the glossy, charismatic image of loathsome but pitiable Frank Mackey. Oh, and don't ignore the biblical citation (Exodus 8:2) that hovers around the edges of several scenes; it's not there for nothing.
— Maitland McDonagh, TV MovieGuide