The Rewatchables - ‘Boogie Nights’ (Part 1) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey are blessed with one special thing: Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Boogie Nights’, starring Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, and John C Reilly. In Part 1, the guys break down why they love the film, dive deep into the characters, and discuss the history of how the film was made. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I have some good news for you. The hottest take. It's back. Oh yeah. Monday through Thursday, four times a week. You hear from me, Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy, Mallor Rubin, Wazding, Lambrey, Van Lathan, Julie Lipman. Many other ringer staffers. You get one take. You got a defendant to the death. Sports takes. Pop culture takes. Food takes. Airplane takes. Oh, yeah. It's coming back. First episode drops. August 29th. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly. The All-In-One Creative Steaks. with AI powered image and video generation. Built for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast. Because the asks aren't getting smaller.

And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at adobe.com slash Firefly. I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand.

It went perfectly, really. offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood? I think it's lamated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where you can find the big picture.

with Sean Fennacy. You can find Chris Ryan on the ringerverse breaking down the Dragon House. Dragon House get ruined for season two by HBO or no? Yeah. Yeah. And what's the other one you do? Watch it?

Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that because we have a new pricing structure for the watch. If you just want to hear us talk about TV, it's five. But if you want to hear us talk about House of the Dragon, that's 10. Okay, gosh, good to know. We are, this podcast has been around for five years. This is the first time we've ever had a two-part podcast.

This is part one, Boogie Nights. Sean, Chris says you have a great big cock. May I see it? Boogie Nights is next. I want you to know I plan on being a star. New Line Cinema presents. Jack Warner. Don't like it.

Exotic. The life of a dreamer. Are they a lizard? No, they're Italian. The days of a business. Cut. Terrific. The award goes to...

Not this part. Official selection of the 19th. 1997 New York Film Festival. Boogie Nights. R. All right, Chris and Sean are here. My name is Bill Simmons. This has been my favorite movie

of the last 25 years, Boogie Nights. It is my birthday. It was already my birthday by the time everybody hears this. This was my birthday present to myself, Boogie Nights. I was going to say,

it's not your birthday. You're like, it's my birthday? My wife, I asked her, we've been dating since 1998 a year after this movie came out. Uh-huh. I asked her, what movie have I...

Carefully. I asked her, what movie have I watched the most since you and I started dating? And she said, without missing a... Cruising. Boogie nights. She's like, boogie nights, cruising. No, she said boogie nights. Then she said Shawshank Godfather, but she was like boogie nights by far the most.

And then just go with it. And just go with it, probably fourth. I just love this movie. This is my first note. The 73-minute stretch. It's 73 minutes exactly. Eddie has the fight with his mom, and he shows up at Jack's house. It's at the 28-minute mark of this movie.

From there, right all the way through when he sings, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel the heat with Reed. It's my favorite stretch of any movie, probably ever, but definitely the last 25 years. So I'm starting there. Sean, what's your favorite thing about this movie? It's the funniest, scariest, saddest movie of the last 25 years. Never had those three things stitched together as perfectly as they are here.

This movie still makes me laugh. so hard. Yeah. And I've seen it, I don't know, 55, 65 times. I mean, it's really in the upper echel line. If you price in its cable run and it's like omnipresence in our lives

for like 20 years where you're just like, it's just on while I'm doing this. The Michael Penn score that was on the DVD menu screen was basically the soundtrack of every night of my life in college. Every night I would fall asleep watching this movie. So it's still funny and it's still sad. It's really sad. No movie makes me feel better

and no movie makes me feel worse. And no movie makes me feel more young and no movie makes me feel more old. Like when you watch this, you know, Anderson has talked about, PTA talked about how it was important to him that the characters only changed like one degree or two in the movie.

Like he's like the myth of that we're going to go through this profound change is like, that's not actually how it works. But the viewer goes through this incredible journey. Like you feel exhausted when this movie is over. Do you remember a scene in the theater? No, I don't.

I don't really remember, like, in the late 90s, it was just kind of like, it wasn't as, like, I'm waiting, like, for Friday for when this comes out. Like, I think I was just in college, and it just became a part of my life. I couldn't really pinpoint the day I saw it. I did see it in theaters.

I saw it sort of like a month or two after the release, but I was 15. And so it didn't have, I didn't have the same level of awareness of, like, this is coming. in the way that I assume that you did. I saw it in Boston, Massachusetts, at the theater that's near the Tower Records

with my friend Jen Morris from college, and we were super excited about it. It had all these people I liked, and there was incredible buzz for PTA as a filmmaker, for the film itself, and we went, I just had the best time. Was that the movie theater that was sort of over, psychoply?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where I saw The Matrix. Yeah. We had the best time, And when he pulled out his dick at the end, it was like, Bravo. He just fucking landed the plane. It was like, we'd heard rumors that it might come out, but this was 97. It was early internet.

And they were still pretty good about keeping secrets. And just that ending and everything about it and the way it ends with the ELO, and it's just like, oh, my God. And we just kind of stumbled out. And I was like, I know that movie's going to be in my life. But then I've talked about this before. The illegal cable box that my roommate Richard got from Big Out. and then he moved out, left the cable box. And this was on a paper-reve channel, I think, for like three straight months.

And I was doing my website, I was bartending, and it was just on. It was like where you talked about in college. It was just on every day. So I got to know all the scenes, all the lines, and then it went on the HBO run for what it felt like was like three years. It just felt like it was on every night at like 11 o'clock at night. You know what I was thinking about? There was like a bunch of bars that Sean and I would go to specifically library. But like there were plenty of places where they would have TV.

but it wouldn't be sports, it would be movies. And sometimes you go in and be like a Bruce Lee movie or whatever, but Boogie Nights was like one of those movies where you'd like look up and be like, even though this is on mute, I'm just going to watch this. We just stopped talking. We just start watching the movie on mute. I mean, it's, it's transfixing.

It's so exciting. There never been a movie quite like it. And especially from at this point, the cable side, just being able to dive into different parts and be like, oh, cool, he just showed up at Jack's house. I know what I'm doing for the next hour. Put it on at any time. And then the DVD thing was really important with this.

The DVD market was pretty new at that point. And this one came out and was immediately like the best DVD anyone's ever made. It had deleted scenes. It had footage. The deleted scenes were good. It had Paul Thomas Anderson just talking over the movie, over the deleted scenes, explaining why he cut stuff. And we did something at Grantland with House.

We did like the 20, my 20 favorite boogie nights characters. We did a pod during PTA week. And House, I listened to it to make sure. we didn't overlap with anything. The house was saying he would come up. We would go out drinking and he would come up. We would go back to my apartment at like 2 o'clock. And we would just put on from when like when, you know, he shows up at Jack's House.

We would just watch that for an hour and laugh our asses on. I did watch the deleted scene. I was like, I should rewatch it one more time, like just to see it. And then like I was like, I'm going to start it as he's walking into the party at Jackshouse. I only skipped one part. I watched it three times this week. I only skipped one part on my third watch, which was when things really start to fall apart. We get in the back of the limousy with Roller Girl cross-cut.

When it's like the grimest it is, I'm like, I don't think I need this a third time in five days. But otherwise, everything else I wanted to see again. Yeah, you're just these characters. My wife always says that thing about these characters that become your friends, like the 902 and O characters, the OC characters, these TV shows. But the Boogie Nights people, I think that's, to me, the legacy of this movie is just how many characters I like. But there's like 20 characters that you, they're not even in the movie that much and you just have. feel for them. So he's going to the PTI history, like

the Altman influence and the stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, the elevator pitch on the movie is so good. It's like if Martin Scorsese and Robert Alman had a baby with a 12-inch dick. Like, it's just so like how exciting is that as a concept.

You know, he's a kid from the San Fernando Valley who spent his entire youth desperately wanting to make movies. And he's the son of Ernie Anderson, who's a famous voiceover. artist and TV host. The Lerboat.

Guy who was the voice of ABC for many years. And so he's like a Hollywood kid, but also on the outskirts of Hollywood, because he lived in the valley, which is this sort of like quasi-disreputable quasi-suburban experience, which he later renders in licorish pizza. And Magnolia. And, you know, this is the setting of a lot of his movies. But when he was a kid, when he was a teenager, he made a student film kind of, a personal short film.

He's 17. That is a mockumentary about a porn star named Dirk Dirk Dirk. And that's the germ of this movie and really the germ of his career. And he shot it on video and he starts to figure out how to make movies. And the colonel was in it. The colonel was in it. The colonel plays Jack Horn. Bob Ridgely.

And the guy who goes and sees Buck about the stereo in the beginning is the guy who plays Dirk, right? Yeah. And there's a lot of like, if you've ever seen that movie, he does port over some stuff, but he's also completely reimagined. Yeah, isn't that more like spinal tap kind of like? Very much. Okay.

Very much so. And it's also like, it's pretty crude. It's not like so thrilling. But you can see that he has a real sense of humor. And that's the thing that is so great. He's made a lot of movies since then and a lot of them are funny. But he has gotten like the master is hilarious, but it's a deeply serious movie. Same with Phantom Thread.

These are like deeply serious stories. Yeah, Phantom Thread's funny, but not this is like Anchorman level funny in a couple of spots. Pure comedy at times. It's also worth mentioning. You guys have had him on the pot a couple of times in the last few years for liquorish and for what was? The Phantom Thread. For Phantom Thread. And he's like, I wouldn't call him, it doesn't sound buttoned up, but he's like, almost shy, like, or a little introverted and, like, very like, oh, you guys, like, thanks so much.

He's got him more mysterious the older he's gotten, but he's usually the opposite. If you listen to him on the director's commentary of this movie, it's, like, true, like, enfanterebral badass. Like, I know that I have all five tools, and I'm, like, I'm, like, pretty into, like, what I made here. And the confidence is what I really think about when I think about this movie. It's just like, imagine opening a movie. It's your second movie. The first one is well regarded, but is certainly not a box office hit by any means. You somehow get Michael DeLuca out of like fun this thing.

And you fucking open it up with a three minute dizzying steady cam shot that's like takes on De Palma and Scorsese and all these other people and you're like, all the characters of the movie are pretty much in this shot. I mean, it's just so brazen. It's so cocky. Yeah, it's not confident. It's cocky. It's bravado that he brings to the movie, which the movie demands. Yeah.

What other young, so he's in his mid-20s when he makes this? 26. What other filmmakers? What other movies are like this? This is like, Orson Wells, Quentin Tarantino, Jean-Lucidar. But Tarantino was a little older, though.

He was like 28, wasn't he? Yeah. I mean, I think of John Singleton. John Singleton's really young when he made Boys in the Hood. Spike Lee is really young when he's really young when he's. makes she's got to have it. Yeah, Spike's a good one. Soderberg was pretty young on sexiles and video tape, right?

He was. Yeah. Yeah. All these guys, I mean, it's hard to get a movie made when you're in your 20s. It's hard to get people to take you seriously, and we'll talk about how some of his actors maybe didn't always take him seriously. Right. Also, a thing I like about him is I think that turned people off, which is what you're saying, Chris.

He's like, I've seen every movie and I'm smarter than you. Yeah. That's his whole attitude when he's making movies. He's like, I see everything. I know everything I want. Well, that's why Joe Reynolds. I don't think he loved it. Definitely not.

go into some of the Burt stories. Yeah, he's, even when he's doing the director's commentary and the commentary of the deleted scenes, to me, it sounds egotistical, but he's really not. Like, he really loves the movie they made, and he really, really loves the actors. And he loves when they're in character, in situations he set up for them,

but then they're ad-libbing outside the script, and he's just, like, dying at John C. Riley and all these different people. He's so delighted that these great actors that he put, together are actually taking this in a different direction, which is, I don't know, that's one of the legacies of the movie to me. It's like amazing filmmaker. He catches all these different actors at the right time. The movie's unlike really any movie that anybody had made to that point. It's got

pieces of different things, but there's really a one-of-one at that point. And then on top of it, he's got like this anchorman, Adam McKay type thing going on in the middle of the movie where these people are just, you know, kind of doing their own thing and really exploring the studio space with these characters. Yeah, you think about everything he pulls off. There's a musical sequence. There's the fake documentary. There's the Angels Live in My Town, like credit sequence.

Like all the flourishes that he does. Yeah, there's a big shoot-em-up action sequence. It's not a documentary. It's fire and fire. It has a name. You treat that documentary with respect it deserves. It's fire and fire. The Brock and Chess story, I think is what it was called.

Based on Exhausted, which one of the crazy things, I mean, PTA, like, I think pretty admittedly, huge porn fan when he was a kid, right? Fascinated by John Holmes, owned all of the John Holmes movies or got holds of the cassettes or whatever, to the point that he had all of the laser discs of Jade Pussycat that he collected and then he gave out to certain people who he felt like... You're a big Jade Pussy. What is the Jay Pussy Cat episode of the show? But he, uh, there was this documentary they made about John Holmes called Exhausted, which is one of One of the funniest things to watch, even if you don't have the boogie Nets context,

it's about this guy, John Holmes, who had the biggest, most legendary penis of the 70s. He's the most famous porn actor we had for the first. I'm just nodding along it. That's right, Bill. You're absolutely right. That is absolutely true about his penis. Tell us more, SG. You would describe him.

I don't know, he's like the Will Chamberlain of porn. Like, he's pushing porn into a whole of the level. And they decide to make this documentary about him that treats him very seriously. and he's talking very seriously about his craft, but he's a fucking porn actor. And PTA thinks this is the funniest, greatest thing that's ever happened. And this is the genesis for Boogie Dots. He's also talking seriously about karate.

He's like, I'm very good at karate. Yeah. Saying that in his own documentary, which is stuff he's lifting wholesale for the movie. All the stuff PTA loves is, like, in the exhaust of which he steals for the movie, he's with this guy, Bob Chin, who's the director. And he starts pontificating about, you know, and Bob lets me block my own scenes

and there's his pause and Bob's like I don't let him block his own scenes It's like legit It's one for one in the movie That's in Boogie Day's where I was talking about blocking my scenes So in the YouTube commentary he does Have Exhausted he's just like I took this See the bar, we captured that exactly

I had to have that clock Like he loved exhausted so much But that's like these filmmakers You think like think of the great filmmakers They're all weird Like Spielberg weirdo as a kid right All he wanted to do is he saw everything through the way. They're obsessed.

Yeah, they're obsessed. Yeah, and this is like the one thing. They just want to have a camera and capture people. There's just like there's a group of those of those guys that just seem like the Ken Griffey Jr. type. Like, this dude was just touched by the gods and was bound to make movies at some point. Yeah, I think I've said this before, but like there's a handful of people from this generation who basically spent their youth inhaling the 70s movies. But, you know, particularly, I think Fincher, PTA, and Quentin Tarantino. or probably my three favorite directors, honestly,

are perverts. They're like, they're perverted. Self-admended perverts. Yeah, they like, they know a lot about porn. They know a lot about extremely violent movies. They know a lot about what's like kind of underneath the surface of people's desires. Yes. And he's like, what do people really want to see?

And in some ways, like that seems, I don't know, problematic or whatever, but it's honest about what the human impulse is. And so a lot of those movies are so exciting because it's like, Like, wow, someone finally put it on screen. Someone finally put a crazy movie about porn on screen. We've been waiting a long time for this. And so it feels, it feels honest because he did spend a lot of time watching porn as a teenager. It's also the way he conceives of or presents that world in the movie.

Like, you think about when Jack comes in and introduces himself to Eddie at Hot Tracks, and he's like, he's kind. Like, he's a really sweet guy. Like, yet you could view that as like this corrupting influence on Eddie's life. How old are you, Eddie? I got my papers. Some tiny old piece of gold. But the porn industry is treated very matter-of-factly.

I think that it's an extension of the fact that PTA was probably just like aware that this was one of the economic drivers of his neighborhood, of this place he grew up. It wasn't like, oh, this is this remarkable taboo, nobody knows exotic thing. He's like, no, these are like working people. They have homes. They pay their mortgage. They go to work. they have to raise money to make their movies just like all independent filmmakers do.

There was like a kind of I think respect for it but also like it just doesn't treat it like a zoo animal and that's why you can watch this movie so many times because it's not like really that horny of a movie. No. It's kind of that's the thing is it's like a comic film you know

and then it turns into a tragedy but all the people in this movie are essentially with a few exceptions sweet. You know like they're fucked up. But a lot of them are very, very kind. Well, you mentioned the Altman thing, and I think that's where...

Not the Colonel, but, you know... The Altman and Jonathan Demi, those are kind of his two dual heroes. And those guys are really humanist filmmakers. They make a lot of films about families, a lot of ensemble movies. They're really interested in the people that are on screen.

And, like, Jonathan Demi could weirdly humanize, like Hannibal Lecter. You know what I mean? He had a real gift for looking at people who you think would be depraved in it. Even if you don't love them, you understand them, and you're fascinated by them.

And that's a huge... of his too. And I think you're right, there's like a real practical work-a-day quality to the characters in the movies. And everybody is kind of constantly thinking about like the Buckswope character. The whole movie is basically about his journey to try to get the life that he really wants, which is to sell stereos. It's the whole point of his arc is if only I could just transcend my circumstances and just live a happy life with my wife and my kids and sell stereos. And I just want to be a cowboy. Like, why can't I just do that? One of the DVDs I have, and I had multiple ones, but I went back,

I watched it this morning because I was like, I think the deleted scenes and one of them he has director commentary because they're not on YouTube or anything. And there was director commentary.

He said something really interesting and there's this, and we'll go over the deleted scenes in part two because I think they're really important. There's, in the New Year's, when it turns 1980, Jesse St. Vincent,

played by Malora Walters, is sitting with Dirk Diggler. And they're talking and they're kind of like bonding. And this scene you can find on YouTube, but you can't find the PTA part. And she's kind of talking about her as an actress and she's like, you know, I have small tits, my pussy's too big, but I just,

I just feel like, like she's just talking about her career and they're kind of bonding. And then it cuts to Amber Waves and she's with Scotty J. And Scottie J's doing this like crazy story. He's probably cooked up. And I told him, whatever, man. He's just, he's rambling. And PTA is talking about how much he loves this Phil Hoffman part and how much he loved, it was so hard for him because Phil's his friend to cut this because he loved it. But he's, like I just, I needed to get through 1980, but he's like, the real reason I had to cut this was because I didn't want Jesse talking about her career. I wanted these people to always be like, I'm in this industry, I do my job. I don't ever want them questioning it. It was the same reason

he got Becky Barnett has that deleted scene where her husband beats shit. He felt like he had done the ramifications enough, but he didn't want them to be too self-aware about their jobs, which I thought was really interesting way to think about it. The only time it really comes up for real is Amber's custody hearing. And that's what he says. He's like, I have the Amber's custody here, so you know the ramifications because she loses the sun.

And I didn't need to do this. I needed to keep going forward. He's like, the key is Reed and Dirk. I can't. And we always talk about this, like when we had a documentary. It's like your A story, your B story.

You want to kind of stay in the highway and you can get off an exit. You can get some gas, but you don't want to go too far off the highway. So that scene, which is really good. And the Becky Barnett scene is really good, but you go off the highway a little bit too far.

And it's like, do you need a Jesse backstory? Probably not. I would argue that you do need that, Becky, seen, and we can talk about that a little later when we talk about it. I agree with you. I do too. And I think it's a really well-done sequence in the movie, but that's kind of neither here nor there.

The thing that's interesting about that is that a lot of the notes that he was getting from the studio and he was making the movie was all about how he needed to narrow, narrow, narrow the story to Dirk and Jack. That this story is about Dirk and Jack, and that PTA's response to that was, this is a story about a family.

And all the members of the family, And certainly Dirk and Jack are at the center of the story and read and Dirk's partnership takes over in the second half of the movie. But if you don't see the tableau, if you don't see everything that happens in the frame of this house and these people's lives, you're not really getting the point of what I'm trying to say, which is like these people really came together for this period in time to make something together, to make an industry, to make movies, to make friendships and family and babies and all these other things. And that that is really what matters in the telling of the story. It's why the movie works. I mean, if the movie was just cool porn star, porn director, and their psychotic relationship, that would be good,

but that would feel too much like a Scorsese rip-off. This is something different. That guy, Robert Ellswitt, who I just called that guy, even though he was a fantastic cinematographer. One of the best ever. Yeah. So I apologize. He said, this is what he said about PTA.

Paul's movies are really about one thing, families. They're about someone trying to create a family, find a family, they get rid of the one they have, create a new one. But it's everything, everybody is seeking love, acceptance, redemption. It all happens inside a family. And the family that they try to create in Boogie Nights are these people making these

porn movies. It's actually an American backstage musical. There's literally 12 movies like that. And he lists a couple. That's the format of Boogie Nights. And without even really trying to imitate it, it was just part of Paul's DNA. The family thing's kind of stuck with him throughout his career, right? Is there been a movie where that wasn't a theme?

I guess? No. Even Phantom thread, I feel like. Inherent Vice a little bit is like, and that's an adaptation, but it's, I mean. Even that movie, though, is about this kind of like loose collective of people who all know each other in the 70s in L.A. And, you know, like Doc knows every person he talks to in that movie. Like, he wouldn't make Argo, even though Argo is a perfectly excellent movie. Even then, he probably would have made it even more about how the hostages.

Yeah, right. And, like, how they turn into this, like. Yeah, that's a good point. He probably would just be able to project that theme on. any movie that he made because it's what matters to him. Would he have made the 11th Halloween movie? Probably not. Maybe that's about family, though. Michael Myers and Lori.

But that's the one caveat with somebody who is like as singular as him, who only makes things that he really wants to make. And usually it originates with him is I do, I would like to see his Halloween movie. I mean, that's the one thing you miss out on is. I'd love to see one for hire Paul Thomas Anderson gig. That would be fine. Well, the same thing for Tarantino though. Same.

Completely. That was why when there was talk of him doing Star Trek, it was like, oh, cool. It's also, there's a sort of, there's a sort of, there's a flip side to that equation. You know, like, watching it later in my life, I am definitely like, this guy just fucks his mom. And like Amber

just fucks her son. Like, it's like the edible kind of like urges and the pathologies underneath these people. There's a lot of religious shit too. Yeah, what they're trying to kind of solve in their broken parts of their soul. Roller Girl wants her to be the mom. Yeah. Let's take a break. There's a lot more to discuss.

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Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounds.lily.com. So we mentioned the characters. I wrote down 20 characters that I feel like are wholly distinct. And I think this might be the record for a movie. It's really hard to figure out Joey Pants in this movie because the 18th person has a full role. I'll just give you the list. Dirk Diggler, Reed Routtschowd, Amber Waves.

Buck Swope Buck Swope I don't know How he came up with that name Jack Corner The Colonel Floyd Roller Girl

Scotty J Maurice Becky Barnett It's 100% Chocolate Love Jesse Todd Parker

Rahad The Malina character Dirk's mom Little Bill Little Bill's wife Kurt Little John Cheryl Ann and Dirk's dad

I just gave you 20 characters I feel like I know all of them, even though Dirk Dad, Dirk's dad's barely in the movie. Did you say Floyd Gondoli? I said Floyd, yeah, and I might have missed two.

But, I mean, there's just 20 right there, and I feel like in my head I can see them. I know who they are. I know what they're bringing to the movie. And in some cases, like Dirk's dad, it's in two scenes for a minute. Shave when you do that. School never occurred to you?

I agree. I mean, it's a feat of casting, right? I mean, half of these, two-thirds of these people, maybe we'd seen once or twice in movies before. Well, I was going to add, so I think we always talk about the that guy. This is that guys at the time. Sure. And they, so, like, John C. Riley was in that guy.

He was in, like, Days of Thunder. He was in some stuff. I didn't know what his name was. I just knew what he looked like. Louis Guzman, Phil Baker Hall, Molina. Cheeto was, I knew him from the goat movie, and he'd been in some smaller roles, but he wasn't Don Cheeto yet. It was devil in a blue dress was the big.

breakout for him and then this came right almost right after that. Ridgley never knew his name until he was the colonel. William H. Macy had been around, but I don't feel like he was fully William H. Macy yet. He had just done Fargo. The take on this was that Burt Reynolds was the star and that William H. Macy was like the most notable name

after him. Right, so maybe the year before he became. And his agents were like, this isn't a very big part and he was like, I'll do it. Thomas Jane became Thomas Jane in this movie. It's like, who the fuck is that? Hoffman, we talked about in the scent of a woman, he was basically that guy from son of a woman and you'd seen him, but I don't feel like he was fully Hoffman yet.

Was this the movie that PTA saw, was that the movie that PTA saw that got him excited about him? He got a son of a woman. Robert Downey Sr. was like a historic that guy, and probably still is. And then Malora Walters. I mean, and then Dirk's mom, who Julianne Agleason was a stage actress and he's just like, I wrote this part for you, you're a homicidal mom. I thought of you immediately for this. It's a little scary.

iconic mean-spirited mother. But I just, to me, that's one of the legacies of this movie. It's just like over and over again. It's like, that one, that one, that one. And he could just pick it. But in that way, he thinks just like us. Like, well, we're on the show and we're talking about people and are like, fucking love that guy.

Love when that guy shows up in a movie. That's how he thinks when he sees John C. Riley and casualties of war, he's like, fucking love that guy. It makes me laugh. He's a really good actor. What was the Tarantina one? Paul Calderon? Yeah.

On one of the pods we did with him, and he was like, Paul, God, I just always liked him. Paul Calderon's like, we talked about that on Copeland, too. How good he isn't. Yeah. My man from Amsterdam. Yeah. It does seem like one recurring theme with like the truly great transcendent directors is they just love movies so much that they almost think of themselves like a GM in sports where they're like, that person.

Why isn't that person made it? Oh, I love that person and this. And they're just like collecting assets. He's got such a good eye. I mean, like we'll talk more about it when we get to the awards. But like even people that you didn't mention stick with you. Like Sherrillin sticks with you. You know what I mean?

Who also would go on to be, you know, Laurel Hallman. It was like the star of the L-word. You know, she, like, went on to become a big person. Yeah. So. The kid who plays Johnny Doe. You know, like, it's just like he gets faces right. He gets vibes right.

He's just a great castor. The porn piece of it. That's just the piece? Just what? Well. Which piece? I think this is for my house and I talked about this when, uh, when we did the 20 characters thing.

The relation of this movie to porn and people, I'm like basically the same age as PTA. The relationship we had with porn versus the relationship people probably have under maybe 30, 35 now, where porn was not accessible to us in any way. So it was either your parents had a couple of cassettes hidden in the closet,

or you stole one from a video store, or you stole one from a store or whatever, or you'd Playboy magazine. And, like, I mean, people would watch like scrambled porn on whatever cable thing. It was you just couldn't get porn. So there was this whole generation, Sean's worried, he doesn't know if I can land the plan on this, I'm going to.

There's this whole generation of kids that PTA was tapping into that they knew who John Holmes was. They knew what this world was. They'd always been kind of fascinated. They didn't know any behind the scene stuff with it. And I'm taking you behind the scenes in late 70s, early 80s porn was a real draw. It was like, whoa, can he pull this off?

What is this? I don't, nowadays, I don't know what this movie would even look like or how it even, nobody has the same kind of association. We all knew kind of the same actors back in the day. You wouldn't know. Well, it's like what he talks about. He's like it costs like 20 grand, you know, to make one of these things. You have to have distribution.

Like, I would imagine there just wasn't as much for one thing, right? Like they were just like, hey, there's like five big stars or whatever. going to be in movie theaters when when Spanish pantaloons comes out like it's at the theater and there are people like running to get in and stuff like that was a moment in the late 70s where you did release real porns that money was spent on in theaters and they would be in the you know whatever the thing in the front they would have the actors names the marquee yeah yeah the marquee yeah like deep throat was a genuine hit in the movie theater i mean it made a significant amount of money i think the thing though is like he's looking at it in hindsight well he's

He's got 20 years distance from what he's experiencing. He's the crux of this movie is weird as this sounds other than the family piece. He's nostalgic for this era before home video destroyed porn. And he dives into it the same way like the godfather is about like family and the mafia's relationship to capitalism and all this stuff. It's like an apt metaphor for how he views the movie going experience too. He loves being in movie theaters. He watches stuff on home video. I was cracking up watching Floyd basically like talking.

You could change out the floor. Jack scene and make it like streaming TV. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's like Christopher Nolan talking to HBO Max in 2021. That's what that conversation is. Right. So you have Jack. He takes Dirk to the diner with Roller Girl and Amber,

and he's explaining to him his theory on porn, right? And he's like, basically it's how do I keep them in the theater after they come? When they're covered in that little joy juice. But they just want to know how the story ends. It just got to sit in it. And he's really passionate about it. not like bullshit. He's like, this is the thing that's driving him. I know people

want to jack off to my movies, but how do I get them to care about the story? Then it circles back with the big scene with Floyd, which is like the crux of the movie where Floyd's like, you're holding on too tight, Jack. And, you know, home videos the future. These four weird looking

kids I brought to your party, they're the future. People just want to see people fucking on film. And Jack's like, he just can't believe this is going this way. Wait, I'm a real filmmaker. Think about how sad he looks walking through the video warehouse. Oh, God. But that's what's so, like,

I know you've seen a lot of Bert Reynolds movies. If you watch a lot of Bur Reynolds, especially at the height of his fame, he was a winking at the audience kind of actor. He was a really charming, I know how cool I am kind of guy. And that was his persona, especially when he's in that like Hooper Gator, kind of like, I'm the man period. Yeah. This performance is nothing like that.

No. He's dead serious and sincere. He's playing it. He's never, ever turning to the audience and going like, I'm a slimy porn director. It's not like that at all. It's like, I love what I do. I'm really passionate about what I do. And I want everybody to feel the same passion that I feel. And that's such a smart choice by PTA, smart choice by Bert Reynolds. It makes the movie feel more sincere and not like spinal tap or some jokey thing about, you know, a guy's huge dick. Like, that's not really what the movie is about ultimately. Part of what makes it so effective so many years on, because it's not a laugh. That doesn't

take away from Reed Rothschild being the funniest person who's ever lived. But it's, still, it makes the movie feel more real. Wait a minute. You come to my house, it's my party. Tell me about the future? He's so upset. My generation has this crazy relationship with Burr Reynolds, right?

Like when I was growing up, and we talked about this with the Clint Eastwood pod. It felt like Bert and Clint, and then Redford and Newman were the four biggest stars. If you go back and read Adventures in the Scrum, invoking Goldman again, but if you read some of his, what, 1970s, 1980s, books.

It's just like he's invoking Bert as like, this movie gets green lit if it's Bert Reynolds and it's like the right stuff. Whatever. Two movies where every which way but loose and smoking the bandit are just two movies where they're like, we don't only have an idea, but... Why don't you drive?

We're putting Bert in a car, he's got a hat, and there's a guy behind him in a truck, and he's just going to be like, hey, any smokies? And there's going to be a cute girl in the passenger seat and we're off and America will go to this. And guess what? We did. and they made sequels. And then he made Cannonball Run, same thing.

Bert, just drive and do the Bert Reynolds laugh. He was also, I think, the most important talk show guest of the 70s. You know, my generation was Johnny Carson great. And it was like he was the number one Johnny Carson guest. He would come on, he would crush it. He would flirt with whoever the guest was. The comics could make fun of him. And he was just the fucking coolest guy.

So to see him as Jack Horner, the stunt casting of that, and then they have it work, the impact now, now we know it's Jack Horn. But in 97, it was like, I can't fucking believe this is Bert Reynolds. Yeah. As Jack Horner, porn and Pesario. So this is kind of in the evening shade era. It's after evening shade, yeah. Like, had he been in a movie in that period in the mid-90s when he was doing evening

shade? We can go through it. So, he moves to, by the way. He moves to, uh, he shifts to TV late 80s. He's in B.L. Stryker. Mm-hmm. Didn't make it. Evening shade, five years.

that goes off the air Strip T's 96 where he plays what was the guy's name Huey Long was one of those guys No Huey Long His name was Congressman

David Dilbeck Yeah whatever Yeah he played So that movie became famous Because they gave Demi Moore A whole bunch of money And she's getting in it And then that movie didn't do well

And it just seemed like it was done And then this movie revived his career But he hated it And he was promoted And honestly cost himself I think an Oscar Oh for sure No question

which we'll litigate a little bit later but yeah the what is so you're younger than me what do you what do you see from Reynolds in the movie or in his career? Just in general like deliverance longest yard like that era Reynolds because I think he was a really good actor

yeah I wrote about him when he passed away I think he is probably like the best athlete movie star we ever had you know like he he really especially in his best movies you just mentioned a couple of them longest yard and deliverance

he's basically playing an athlete in both of those movies. And he's utterly believable. He has that same kind of like, it pains me to say this, but that same kind of like

Tom Brady, like winning, like you can't beat me quality to him, you know? Charisma. Yeah. Yeah.

And, little Brad Pittish. For sure. Brad Pitt's probably the closest now. But you would never believe that Brad Pitt would be the

quarterback in a prison football movie. Like he's just, he's too pretty. Yeah. Like Bert Reynolds is rough and tumble. He seems like the kind of guy

who would go to jail. Yeah. Like in a weird way. And like you could tell you, like he had knee surgery when he was 22 and you could tell. You know, like, he seemed like a man. You went to Florida State?

Yeah. Yeah, he could be the quarterback of a prison team. He could fight off a bunch of rapists and the appellation, whatever, and deliverance, but he could also be a divorced guy in a rom-com. Yeah. And he could also be in smoking the band. There's nobody like him now.

He was really underrated because a lot of his most interesting choices were not successful, but they were cool choices. Like, he made movies with Peter Bogdanovich in the 70s that failed, but were really interesting. Like, he tried to make a musical with Peter Bogdanovich. Yeah. It was a huge flop, but he wasn't just the Smoky and the Bandit guy. No, he made the end was an interesting one too, where he tries to kill himself.

Didn't totally work, but it was, I don't know, I kind of like it. Yeah, he was more thoughtful than he got on, but it's funny to read all the press about this movie, because by the time we get to 1997, he's like, I'm fucking Burt Reynolds, man. You will treat me with respect. It's interesting how some of these people age, right? Like Newman, when he hits a point where he's too old to kind of be Paul Newman anymore, he really retreats and then all the movie choices he makes

basically from late 80s on are like older guy parts you don't know a lot about him they're very precise he's just living in Connecticut he's doing his salad dressing for charity he's racing some cars but we don't know a lot about him bert seemed like he had the hardest time giving up being a celebrity

yeah but these people all have like they all have expenses you know so they're just some of them do do shit you know and some of them 2014 he auctioned off basically everything I mean, the smoking the bandit car, the longest yard, football helmet, all kinds of stuff. I have a lot of regrets about not buying the longest yard helmet. Was he going to do the Dern part in once upon time Hollywood?

He was. He was. And Tarantino talks about spending time with him and doing the table read with him for that movie. And you could tell that he had changed a lot from 1997 to 2017. That he became much more contemplative and much more reflective about his career and what he had done. But I think you're right. I think you've had a hard time giving up being the man. Wasn't he doing like basically like.

Same for Stallone right now. Public speaking where he would go and be like story time with Bert Reynolds. And he would just like... If he did, I would have loved to have seen it. I thought he was doing stuff like that. Because that's what Tarantino says. He would just go up to Reynolds and start asking him about like early 60s cowboy shows. And Burranz would be like, oh, that was a great director.

You know, like this guy to this. Yeah. He also, this was the last movie where he was still pretty handsome. He's probably like 61 at this point. He does driven, I think, like two years later. And he's got the plastic surgery phase. And that's like one of those movies where it looks like he's wearing a Bert Reynolds mask.

Sly had done whatever he started to do. He's got like the Sly Stallone mask on. Well, his hair and his beard and as Jack are so perfect. Yeah, it is. In this movie, it's the only time where you're like, if that guy's wearing a wig, it's actually okay because this guy would wear a wig. Yeah, and it's based, at least physically on a specific...

Well, remember, Tarantino, his theory on this was that it was supposed to be Gerard Damiano. Yeah. And that's why the hair was like that. That's got a very funny take on that he did on the ringer pod that he did. Oh, well, we can do it now. He loved this movie. The one thing that made him mad was,

if this was based on Damiano, who was like a real director, he was like, there's no way that guy would have made the piece of shit of Brocklander's Oral Majesty 7. He's like, who's a real director?

That wasn't happening. Well, he wouldn't have looked at the dailies of it and been like, this is my best work. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned the soundtrack when we were talking the other day, the best recreate the actual time period soundtrack.

This are days and confused. Days of Confused is easier because it's one day. This is going from 77 to 84. It's this or Goodfellas. Yeah. Every choice. Goodfellas is a good one too. The thing that I love about Boogie Nights

is that you could almost imagine the music in this movie being dietic, meaning like it would be playing at the party. That's the point that I was making. The soundtrack that captures the moment that they're in, you would imagine all of the characters are listening to these songs. Like Goodfellas is really cool

but there are moments where it's like... I don't know if Jimmy listens to Hendricks. You don't think Jimmy Conway was crack at. The musical fusion is really great. But in this movie, every single song is a song that would be playing in Jack's House. Yeah. Or at Hot Tracks or whatever. Right, with the club.

Yeah, the soundtrack, I've seen this movie so many times that I made a Boogie Nights playlist once and just put it in order and I felt like I could... You nailed it. Have it on outside and it'd just be like the movie was on, even though the movie wasn't on. It moves so distinctly from once on to the other in a way that you just instantly know where you are in the movie.

And almost every choice is great. Even like Spill the Wine, which is a song that I never really loved that much, but how it's used at Jack Horner's house. And the girl jumping in right as it kicks up into the pool and it's just like, man. And he wanted these songs to the point that what was the EOLS story? Jeff Lynn. He brings him to a screening to try to convince him to let him use that last song.

Living thing, yeah. And he's sitting there watching him and the screening ends and Dirk pulls out his dick and then it ends of the song kicks in. And Jefflin raises his arms like, yes! And he's like, cool, I get to have that song. But yeah, he really cared about this stuff.

The music, I guess, I'm trying to think of what other PTA movies. I don't know if he's ever used the soundtrack like this again, right? No, I mean, Inherent Vice has a wonderful sound. soundtrack. He starts to get more into

scoring with Johnny Greenwood. And John Bryan even, yeah. Yeah, he's John Bryan and Punch Drunk Love. He's much more precise, like, you get that song from Popeye and Punch Drunk Love that becomes like the theme of the film in Phantom Thread. It's almost all, I think it's almost all score. Liquorice Pizza is the last, is, is, yeah, that's true. He's very similar to this.

It's the first time in a while that he goes with kind of a jukebox approach. But it's like with licorice, there's almost this, like, probably to challenge himself like some obscurity. You know, like, it's not, it's the Paul McCartney song that was, it's a great song, but it's not like, this movie is best of my love. And when best of my love plays in this movie, you're like, oh yeah, this is probably one of the great pop songs written in the last 50 years. Such a happy, great way to start a movie too.

I forgot to mention during the porn part, PTA admitted that he interviewed Gerard Damiano and he said, quote, he was the best of the hardcore directors. He went through a period of believing he could make art films about sex. video came along in 1979 and destroyed that illusion. That's such a crazy thing to make a movie opus about, and yet he did. He takes this one kernel and he's like, this feels like a movie, and it becomes basically Goodfellas or the Godfather for that one little tiny idea. That's also an interesting way of thinking about why this movie makes sense as not just like an entertainment comedy, that it's a really sophisticated drama, is, you know, that period in the

70s where not just deep throat, but like, I am curious, yellow. and like there were a series of films that were ostensibly introduced to audiences. Even summer with Monica, the Bergman movie, were like introduced to audiences as kind of soft porn. Yeah, they were sophisticated foreign films, but they were soft porn too.

They were full of naked people. Don't look now. Right. Yeah. And the controversy around that movie. Yeah. Last tango in Paris. And so there was this like collision of, it wasn't like porn now where it's like Sierra goes home

and he fires up porn hub. You know what I mean? Like it's not like that. C.R. it was it was still Sierra's like Philly Special

typing it in see when it's coming up that's that is the name of your directorial debut in the porn world he was a Damiano guy was Doug Peterson though was the question

you could still make the case that there was like an art house quality to it and so in a way Paul Thomas Anderson as an aspiring young cinephile and as an aspiring young porn addict

was like these two things make sense together yeah well there's the there's that weird Bill Bill Bill Billings movie is the 70s, 80s changeover. And this idea that Floyd has this

awareness that, like, people aren't here to see your lighting. They're not here to see your stories. They're not here to see Chet and Brock. They're here to watch people fuck. You know, and like, they want it now in their homes. They want it. Like, that kind of, like, changeover from it being like,

let's Trojan horse some sex into this cop movie or into this, like, down-nabby story is now gone. Like, it's just like, let's just have these people screw in a car. That 70s, 80s changeover is a really important part of this movie, and I hate to use that you had to be their card, but I do feel that way.

The late 70s, there's something so happy and cool about it. You also just can't do cocaine for that long. You just lose your mind, too. But even you look back at the pop culture and the sports from that era, right? Like Saturday Live, you watch the third and four seasons of SNL, it's like 77 and 78 and the movies that are coming out and the music that's coming out,

and it's like, the last vestige of some great groups we had in the classic rock era. And then it hits 80 and there's like this subtle turn where the 80s had so much promise. Oh, my God, we made it to the 1980s. We got out of the 70s and we got out of Watergate and all the assassinations from the 60s and these terrible and the Carter presidency and the 80s are going to have so much hope and be better. Try to buy on Jimmy there by you. Well, you know he was one of my favorite presidents.

So he was not a popular president at the time. But we got to 80, and even like the music turns, it gets darker. You can watch it. Like some of the Saturday Lives are on Peacock. Even the feel of the Sirent Live on the set, it's just like this darker, grimeier. Coke's really starting to come in. And I don't know. Even as a little kid, you could feel like there was a happiness thing.

And then it kind of ramps back up around 84. I think you're right. I think in the 70s it felt like, anything could happen in your popular culture. Like there's still an unpredictable quality to it. And then in the 80s, everything gets more adversarial. It's like punk breaks, but also like movie studios really buttoned down. Yeah.

So you don't have these crazy creative experiences where these, you know, filmmakers get $60 million to make their dream movie. So you get, you know, a lot of movies that we like, but like you get like Beverly Hills Cop and Rocky 3 and 4. Well, you also have the people from the 70s who were like, I'm going to change the world. and then by the 80s, like, I need to make money. Exactly, exactly.

And that's why the big chill is such an important movie. It's all these people kind of look at each other going, what do we stand for? It's a great point. What are our ideals? So, yeah, that changeover, it's weirdly awesome. That welcome, goodbye, 70s, hello 80s, and there's so much promise.

And then the 80s, not as bad in real life as it was in Boogie Nights. It helps that it's. Chris, of course, won a title in 80. When did you win the title? The Phillies won in 80 and then the Sixers in 83. Yeah. I mean, that's another reason that that part sucked, that era. You were crushing at that time. You were five years old. Yeah, and like a little vest on, ride my bike.

We got to take a break, and then I want to talk about New Line and New Line's relationship to this movie. It's only getting every customer's order right. It's only a point-of-sale system connected by Spectrum fiber-powered business internet, helping you track hundreds of secure transactions. And it's all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based customer support and local technicians. It's only everything. Get business internet advantage free forever when you get four mobile lines from Spectrum. Visit Spectrum.com slash free for life to find out how.

Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. All right, so New Line's crushing it as we head into 97. We have some really cool movie studios just from a creativity, trusting young directors. Like, there's obviously some bad stuff going on to it, but we don't know that yet. New Line has seven. they have dumb and dumber and they have the mask they are working with cool people

making fun stuff trying to find young up-and-coming directors they have Mike DeLuco is the big executive who's pre-storied history there's some good pieces about him and runs currently running Warner Brothers yeah but in the 90s was definitely

a little like fast cars yeah he was the cool young movie executive who was dating Julianne Moore yes and he champions PTA PTA is coming off hard eight which was supposed to be called Sydney the studio took it from him he was scarred emotionally

and this is the second movie and all he's thinking is nobody's fucking with me this time his scripts 185 pages which I guess is an incredibly long about I don't know enough about reading different movies scripts it's about a page a minute

yeah so yeah so and he's like we're filming all of it and that's how it's going to go he's already walking with a three hour and 20 minute movie right and he's like this has to be three hours and it has to be rated NC-7 and these are my two conditions.

And they make the movie. And eventually it's like, it's got to be under three hours and it's not going to be NC17. They start battling. We covered Grantland did an oral history about this movie. That's fantastic.

Amazing piece. Howie Con and Alex Fresh. I think it was the single best oral history we probably had. And at some point, they become super concerned about the movie. It's scoring badly. People are upset.

It's got the wrong live. There's a big chunk of, in the oral history about the focus groups for this. Yeah, the focus groups are a disaster. So Bob Shea, the guy that runs New Line, he does his own cut. Yeah.

Now, he's not an enemy of this movie, because I think a lot of people just would have either buried it or whatever. But at the same time, he's very adversary with PTA at this point. He does a cut. They decide to do a focus group. Are you going to start hashtag release the Shay cut on Twitter? That's not something I want to see. I don't need to see it.

As much as, I mean, Bob Shea, for the record, like, put out John Waters movies. Yeah, he did a lot of good stuff. Cheba movies. He was a real like exploitation grindhouse independent cinema dude who also helped the nightmare on Elm Street franchise rise but then got older and got richer and got started releasing lots of

mainstream movies and so this is him in his 50s or 60s in his like I'm in charge of the fucking studio and I gave him money who's this fucking 26 year old telling me his movie has to be three hours so he does this cut there's a focus group PTA goes to the focus group he talks about this in our history and walks up and down the line telling everybody how much it sucks

and tries to basically neg it. It ends up coming out. It's 239, but at some point something flips. And I don't know, I just remember vaguely from like the marketing of it being excited about it during the summer because that was the era of

they would release the summer preview of entertainment movie premiere and the fall preview and everything started to become about previews. And when they were doing the fall previews, it's like this is coming. It's like, this looks amazing. That drumbeat had started

before it got made like it sounds like especially from Howie and Alex's oral history it's like this was a script that was not being widely distributed it was like it wasn't getting like His agent John Lesher was very careful about who he shared it with right and then when the actors

would see it they were like holy shit you know and now the casting what ifs here is like amazing but it sounded like this was like how can I get in this movie movie it was a hot script and a lot of, I think a lot of actors

were excited by it, but a lot of actors were also scared off by it, and there's like a little bit of a dance that we can talk about like, we're hitting that in the part too, yeah.

For me, from my vantage point as a kid, the thing that did it for me was the trailer. I think it's like one of the all-time greatest trailers ever. That was on my list.

The moment, like a minute and a half into the trailer when Mama told me not to come hits and the car, the Corvette pulls out of the garage, I was like,

holy fuck. When is this movie, this is all that I care about. And he's at fame for this. I mean, he has the best trailers. He cuts his own trailers. He has the best trailers because this trailer works so well. I think he realized how important the trailers.

I mean, I enjoy watching this trailer to this day. I've seen this movie 55 times. He's notorious for putting sometimes footage that isn't in the movie and his trailers. Like, he really treats it like its own art form. That was my relationship with it, too. I don't know when I saw that it was at some point in that summer, I don't know, August, whatever. You probably saw Austin Powers and they played it. Yeah, and the trailer comes on.

and within 90 seconds you're like I will run over somebody on my way to the theater to see this in the theater I cannot wait for this to come out they crushed it I do feel like trailers mattered more back then we had way less information about movies it's harder to have that same sensation

but yeah I think once the trailer was out and percolating then we were off then it was like okay wait a second so Mark Wahlberg and wait the guy's got a 13 inch dick are they going to show that is this a porn Julian Moore I've always like

Bert Reynolds is like really in this and you just it just built and it became a thing. I wonder how because you know this movie probably from everything I read about it

and I remember was not like a people protesting outside of the movie theater not at all no this was and I think a lot of that is down to the fact that it's about a guy

you know I mean I think it's I was gonna ask I wanted to talk about this I think that ultimately the thing that saves this movie's skin if this is a movie about

Molora Walters's character or a roller girl. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it just isn't the same film. You know what I mean? It's much more tragic, right? It's completely by design, right?

Because he talks a lot about how there are two huge influences on this movie. One is exhausted, which you talked about. Yeah. The other is this segment on a current affair about Shauna Grant. Yeah. Who is porn star who died.

And he said, he talks about it and he says it's obviously this really tragic tale and it's very sad. Literally a girl who like gets on a bus in Iowa and comes to California to find stardom and suddenly she's in porn. And then she eventually kills herself. But he says that he's like,

there was in this very twisted way something kind of funny about this segment of a current affair. But he never could have made a movie about Sean Graham. A porn actress who commits suicide. He basically had been roller girl killing herself at the end of this movie.

And it would have been so much darker, so much less fun. Like we're talking about this movie because we think it's so fun to watch. So it's a very calculated decision on his part. I think there's one other piece of this, though. And there wasn't protesting anything like that.

There was just genuine excitement for it. I just think this was an amazing era for movies. And it starts really with Reservoir Dogs. But Pulp Fiction is when it officially starts. But 94, 95, all these directors that are coming up, even people like Kevin Smith, like chasing Amy,

I wanted to see that the first night it came out. Definitely. But I just feel like that, this movie moved into that group or it's like, oh my God, we always compare movies to basketball in this pub, but it was like one of those things where we had all these great stars. And it's like, oh my God, we have another.

Now we have Janice. It's just, this is essentially like the question at the center of the pod that Sean does. But it's like, they made this movie for $25 million, right? And it's like, I know why they don't do it. I know what the return on investment calculations are. But when you read about like the Russo Brothers spending $400 million on a piece of shit action movie, you are kind of like, why? Why are you guys doing this?

Like, is there a boogie nights out there for $30 million? I'm more worried that there's not a Paul Thomas Anderson. Like, that might have been the last crazy era of directors. Well, and when you read about what the set was like, I don't know that you could do a set like this anymore, right? Well, you definitely couldn't do the thing where they all went to porn sets and watched them shoot a porno. Some of it is that opportunity cost and that return on investment that you're talking about. Some of it is that, you know, maybe this generation of filmmakers isn't necessarily interested in telling these stories. mostly I think it's just because

studios just know they can make more money on bigger movies. So this whole film, think about the amount of time that this took up for Bob Shea. Bob She spent a lot of time working on this movie. He ran the studio. Yeah, he would just be making the comet.

Yeah, exactly. He would have just been making a huge movie, which if it works is meaningful to the share price of the corporation that owns his movie studio. It wasn't like that in 1997. The business was, you know, It was still a big business. And they had home video.

Right. There were multiple different ways to make money. You could tell me it could go one of two ways. Either there's this whole new generation of Spielberg's coming up because we have the ability now. We have this incredible technology and equipment. You can edit a movie in your iPhone now. Like my kids know how to edit stuff, stuff that I never knew anybody that would have

the skills that just a normal person has now with editing. On the other hand, there's no way. In 2022, you'd have like 15-year-old Paul Anderson with not a ton to do, just like I'm obsessed with movies and I'm obsessed with this exhausted documentary. Like, now he'd be on TikTok. I don't sound like old guy on the couch, but like, I just wonder, like, will we have this next generation people who's like, all I care about is movies. You definitely know this better, I think, than we do because you're raising teenagers.

Yeah. But I think that the thing that Paul Thomas Anderson had was an obsession with this world. And I think we actually live in more obsessed times. People can go even deeper into the things that they care about than they could be for. So that's optimistic, then. So you could. And I always say this. It's like, Damien Chazelle, Ryan Cuegler, and Greta Gerwig exist.

Like, they're three young filmmakers who make mainstream movies for big audiences. And they're really, really artistically sales. Yeah. And then there's a whole other generation of them that are maybe not as commercial, but that are exciting. Like, those people exist. For the most part. Cougalers 12 years ago, though. I mean, that's when Fruitvale was, what, 2012?

10 years ago. So basically, like, who is the 26-year-old you're saying? Yeah, who's the 26-year-old now? I don't think that 26-year-olds are trusted by studios, is the other thing. Well, what about our guy, Cooper? Cooper Rife? Yeah. Yeah, I mean.

But, I mean, can we, is he an anomaly or is there going to be a generation? But he's made two movies and now he's making a TV show, right? Yeah. Well, that's the other problem is he gets pushed right to the TV show. Yeah. Like, is Boogie Nights's a TV show now. There's also, like, and we've talked about this a lot, too, where a lot of first indie directors often get sucked up into

the Marvel Disney kind of... Oh, we loved your little first feature. Why don't you do this season? Direct this episode of Mandalorian or whatever. Yeah, exactly. That is what happens. Yeah. We got to talk about the Mark Wahlberg piece and the Julianne Moore piece really quickly. Mark Wahlberg, who I would say over the last 25 years

has probably had one of the best careers in terms of outputs, money made, celebrity. If you're just talking about actors, he's what in the top six? There's a case for him as one of the two or three most successful movie stars the last 20 years. You stretch it out over the 25 years. It's kind of uncanny.

He also is weirdly not aged. Successful is a good word. And somebody who can do, he showed he can do comedy, he did action films, all this stuff. Made a lot of movies that people really like to this day. Our history with him in 1997, he was in Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

He was Donnie Wahlberg's brother. He had one really good song, Good Vibrations, which I stand by as like one of the best summer songs of the early 90s. Nobody's trying to take the vibrations from me. Can you wrap the second verse of good vibrations right now? Come on, come on. Feel it, feel it. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch had been from South Philadelphia.

Do you think you would feel this way? No, I honestly didn't know where. I'd probably turn them faster than others because they were from Massachusetts. Okay. He was a Calvin Klein underwear model. He was in basketball diaries with Leo in 95. And that was when it's like, wait, that's Marky Mark? he's in fucking basketball diaries,

and that was like an important Leo movie. He had a little cachet at that point. That was the movie that I was like, I can't believe it. Because I read the Jim Carole book, and I was like, I cannot believe this is happening.

Right. So it's like for that. And then he's in fear in 1996, which was a successful movie. Caught Reese Witherspoon at a good time. When is the Rosillo solo solo rewatchables on fear happening? That's going to be for the 300th episode. That's actually for my birthday.

Yeah. But then becomes the lead of boogie nights. When's three kings? After. Everything's after. So the big risk was the star of my movie is Mark Wahlberg. I'm telling you in 1997, it was like, really? Mark Wahlberg's going to be the star?

It felt like an asterisk coming out. And now 25 years later, he's like unbelievable in it. And I'm so glad he's the star. We did not feel the way in 97. Where is it to have two guys who are at the center of your movie who at the time and in the future both had like serious misgivings about the film? Yeah. I mean, it's really, I mean, I guess.

Don't worry, darling, is an example of that. But for the most part, the idea that Bert Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg, Bert Reynolds, during the making of it, Mark Wahlberg in the years since, who was pretty reticent to talk about this movie. Like, it does not align with his obvious, like, his beliefs. I got him in, for Grantland in 2014,

I had him on the pod for 35 minutes, and I snuck a couple of boogie nights questions in. I think it was one of the first times he ever even talked about. What was he? He was also one of the last times he's talked about it. He seemed excited to talk about PTA. But, yeah, I think it. You know, he definitely has not jumped over the couch to go talk about.

He's very spiritual now, and clearly, like, Christianity is a big part of his life and his family's life. And so I think that there is some embarrassment about the movie, even though he's proud of the movie, paradoxically. So our colleague and pal, Jeff Chow and I were talking about this last night, there's, like, a big question about this performance in this movie to me, which is that is Mark Wahlberg bad or not? And if he's bad, is PTA leveraging his badness? Or is it a self-aware bad performance? And he is, at this point of his career, sophisticated enough to give it. Because later in his career, Mark Wahlberg becomes a really good actor. He's got two Oscar nominations.

He's in some great comedies. He's got range. He's a good action star. But at this time, with a very short resume, and playing a guy who's dumb and it's a bad actor... I've thought about this a lot. I just... I'm going the other way. I think he's, like, perfect.

So that's where Jeff and I landed. I think so too. And I think if you put DeCaprio, who is the, it's the sliding doors thing, if you put DeCaprio in as Dirk, the mom scene and the, it's my big dick, I'm ready to fuck scene are completely different. He's just like, honestly way too good. So he just changes the dynamic where like you watch Eddie in that scene with Jack specifically and you're like, this is really sad. like you're kind of pathetic. You know what I mean? And I just think DiCaprio brings like so much interiority and like pathos to these kinds of

parts. And Mark is kind of like I'm banging my head up against the limits of my intelligence. So, okay. But do you think that Mark knows that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm on the other side.

I think he actually knows what he's doing. I think that's why PTA threw so much stuff at him. Like he talks on the director's commentary stuff. Like I made more. Mark Watch exhausted over and over again so he could understand the beats of acting a bad porn actor. The scene in Rahad's like where he's like, it's just the long shot of his face. I think he's amazing in that scene. I think the case for him being a really good actor is three scenes.

The scene with when Dirk's mom goes nuts on him and starts ripping the posters and he gets so upset. I actually think he's like great in that. I'm not stupid. Why are you doing this to me? And he's like spits flying out. This isn't your stuff? I think the, what state? State of California?

I'm ready to shoot, Jack. I think he's amazing in that, and there's the whole testosterone thing that we're going to a part two. We kind of had this conversation when we did Departive, where we were like, Walberg as Costigan and like what happens if you like, are like putting him in that role, you know what I mean?

Because in some ways it's not, it's not a similar role, but like it requires the same kind of like collapse at a certain point. So the scene that convinced me that, what you guys are saying is right that I agree with is actually a deleted scene. It's the long extended deleted scene between him and Louis Guzman.

Yeah. Where they're shooting a scene from one of the Brocklanders movies. Yeah. And you can hear off-screen PTA throwing lines at him or, and that's sort of like Adam McKayley. He talks about him in the director's commentary.

He's like, I just, I had two great actors that just want to let it roll. Like, I feel like he genuinely believe that. And he and Guzman are so fucking funny. Yeah. It's like a 10-minute deleted scene. where they're just doing diet

in the restaurant. And Walberg is genius at it. He's so good at the comic timing of that scene that you're like, oh, he's really good. Because you're seeing him like cut and go to the next take and do his process of acting,

which you don't ever, we never see that. He does another thing too where he's so wide-eyed, innocent and whatever in the first, what, 40 minutes of the movie, but there's still that side of him where it's like, this guy size me up,

I wonder if he wants five or ten. Like, he's still a hustler. Yeah. He plays both of those sides, I think, really nice. But then as his life starts escalating and he becomes like kind of ego, that's my dojo. Like he hits that. And then as he starts to become like koki and suspicious and he meets Johnny Doe and he's like, who's this? Like he becomes like Walbert from fear.

I don't know. I thought he landed the plane. He's great. He's really impressed by it. And it's also like, look, he works. He does this movie, does Three Kings and his Iheart Huckabees. Like he was like a very, very, very, very. discerning actor for a while.

Taking chances. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right, so we settled that. Julianne Moore, who first came on the scene for me in hand that rocks the cradle, where it was like,

who's this lady? She's great. And then she's in shortcuts. She's naked from the waist down in this one scene. I love shortcuts. As Carver was like my favorite short story person. And I just love that movie.

And especially her. And it was like, this person could be a major, major star. And then the next couple, she's in nine months with Hugh Grant, but it's right after he has the what was it, like the hooker in Hollywood Boulevard. And it kind of sabotaged

that movie. She was in Assassins. She was in a Jurassic Park scene. All of a sudden it's 97 and it hasn't happened for yet. I just watched that Jurassic Park the end of it was on. Yeah, she's doing fine, but it hasn't happened yet. And PTI, he files away out of probably shortcuts would have been.

I think also probably safe, the Todd Haynes movie, which is about a woman who thinks that she has something physically wrong with her, but she doesn't know what it is, which is a very upsetting movie to watch in a post-COVID world. Right, but that's a pretty small scale movie. It was an indie Sundance movie,

but it's really critically a name. She was like a known quantity, though. Yeah, yeah, but she wasn't who she is now. Yeah. Right. She wasn't one of the best actors of her generation. And he puts a ton of thought on Amber Waves and he studies these different porn actresses,

like Annette Haven, all these different people, like that there's this kind of, they're good actors, they're a little detached, they've looked like they've kind of been in the porn scene, maybe a year too long. She's playing Veronica Hart. There's a sadness to them. Yeah.

Well, she's playing like a compilation of a bunch of actors from that era where it's like, there's a dignity to them, but there's a sadness. Like, what's going on with these people? And that's how Amber Waves comes out. I have some Amber Waves character questions. We'll get into later. The performance is great. And it was no surprise.

It was like, is she going to win an Oscar someday? And you would have bet after the movie. She was nominated for this movie. the only actor nominated for the movie. No, in Reynolds. Oh, sorry, right, and Reynolds. Right, only actress. It's a pretty hard, it's a really hard part.

Like, it really is. Like, what she has to communicate, the, like, motherly quality that she has, the Coke scenes are, like, really high tension, the Edipole stuff that you were talking about, Chris. And, you know, she's beautiful. You have to be a good director. She's not like, she's not like roller girl either, you know,

a lot of those porn actresses that you're talking about, they did have kind of like a weather quality. Yeah, weathered and attainable. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, the scene with her and the first sex scene with her and Dirk is like,

mind-blowingly good, bad acting. You have to think about how many layers of what they're doing is, like where they're convincingly in that movie, but also convincingly on a porn set, but also convincingly in a PTA movie. Well, PTA says He was so important to him Because again, he was a lunatic

That the bad porn acting Was also believable be bad And not like Saturn and Lab bad And it was like who could be the best Realistic bad porn actor And he was like Julian Moore one That fucking scene She was the best one kills me

That's so good The set up for that scene is so fucking funny He's like I've just got back from you know Why is this the plot? I think you have the job, but I want to check one more thing. Oh, my God. She's, so yeah, she takes off. And then, you know, the Heather Graham piece of this, Heather Graham's, she's in six degrees in separation.

That was like her, who's this moment. She's in swingers. Crushes it. Swingers, I still feel like it took like two years to really become swingers. It wasn't like a smashier right away. Yeah, she looks younger. Her hair is darker. And I think drugstore cowboy is the one that PTA saw.

I think he saw her. She's like the dead girl in the drugstore cowboy. Yeah. And she's really good in that movie. And she's really young and has that incredibly expressive face. She becomes a phenomenon after this movie. I mean, she basically gets the Austin Powers movie. I think she becomes one of the defining, I don't know, babes of the 90s.

During an era of like Maxim is happening and all of these different. We're moving into some weirder era. the internet's kicking in and she's like the queen of it for a couple years but good in this movie like a really good acting performance the idea of just like fucking roller girl

I don't even know how you come up with that my lead actress is going to always be on roller skate she never takes them off just everything about it I don't even know who else could have played roller girl I mean it's like it's the kind of part like Scarlett Johansson would have been like in 2003

yes I'm taking that. But it's just right part, right person, right time. And she's one of the reasons this movie immediately took off. Yeah, and I just, that's one of the performances in the movies, the movie where it's like when you're watching her, it's funny. It's like, I don't ever think of it as have the gram. I always just think of it as Roller Girl.

Like, I'm never like outside of the movie with her. Yeah, you're right. It's almost like she was like born to play that part or something. There was a, at the time, what felt to me like a famous cover of Details Magazine. that she was on, where she was painted entirely gold and was naked. Was that after Austin Powers? I think it was between Austin Powers 2 and Boogie Nights, I think. And it was a trifold cover.

So it was three parts, and it was her whole body, and she was laying down. And I bought that at the newsstand and ripped that cover off and put it up on my basement bedroom wall because I was 16 years old. This was that era. She was that incredibly hot actress. And this was the movie where she took her clothes off. So if you were a teenage boy You were like holy shit Now obviously like as an older person

As an adult as a parent And all this other stuff It's a lot easier Seth Rogen website Right What's the Mr. Skinner Yeah This was that era

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Anna Kornicova And it was just all bubbling At the same time Yeah Yeah But it was an industry And PTA talks about this too She's also just so happens

to be a really really good actress Especially in a part like this Where that combination of like innocence and anger and frustration and craziness. Like she's perfect for that. She's the same throughout the movie except for the limous.

You know it really does it? It's actually, but there's another quick moment. It's this bubbly almost caricature and then the first time that she has sex with Dirk she's like, don't fucking come in me. And it's like,

oh God, this is so dark. Yes. Like, and it's like, I don't take my skates off. Yeah. The way she says it is so edgy.

And it's like, yeah, it's, Aim it at her tits, Eddie. This movie's unbelievable. Well, the funniest part of that by far is Jack just sitting there comfortably while these two teenagers have sex? That's insane. Right.

Yeah. Two, 77. Jack is, it is insane. No, it is insane. No, it is insane. Philip Seamor Hoffman. Yeah. It feels like this got the momentum going for him, too.

Which for almost anybody else playing Scotty J would have been the nothing part. And now, like, I'm a fucking idiot. By the way, when you talk about a nothing part, like, what is that part? It's like the, and he put so much thought into like. Hoffman was like, there's not a lot on the page. Like, I'll just, but I'm going to try and figure out.

Trust me, like a 14-year-old. I always want to look like I'm a little kid whose clothes don't quite fit. His funniest scene, I was going to do this. and what stage is the best, but we can do it now. Him in the background, when Jack and Dirk go at it in the pool, and you just watch that scene

and just watch Philip Seymour Hoff in the whole time. He's unbelievable. And he's mortified. His arms are crossed, and he looks like this little kid who's watching his parents get divorced. He's having like a meltdown. But it reminded me when we did the Magnolia Pod

for We Watchables 99, and he has that, he's in the background. Cruz is dying. Yeah, Robards died. Robarts is dying. with Cruz. And Cruz is having that great moment. And Hoffman's not even in the scene.

Dude, can I tell us? And he's breaking down. It's such a good call. Nobody's better at. Best thing about this movie and Magnolia is there are so many scenes where so much of the cast is in a shot or in a moment. Because, you know, usually think of like, oh, today, Cheatel, it's a Cheatel day. So we're going to do a bunch of Don Cheetle scenes or whatever. It's like, no, like these guys were all on the set.

You can see them in the background of shots. And like, it's just an astonishing because that's what. gives you the feeling like these people are actually working and living in the family thing. Yeah. So then it takes off for him after that. We had no doubts about Philip Seema Hoffman after this movie. And PTA kind of like adopt him as his

like inspiration. Yeah, I think they became legitimate friends. Very close. Very close. Yeah. I mean, Cooper was just his son was the star for him, basically. Yeah, yeah. Because in that deleted, I mentioned it. But when he says he has to cut a scene,

it's like if you had to cut a scene with Chris, which you do all the time, by the way. I don't know. That's not true. I want more from Chris. I want to hear more Chris all the time. Cut C.R. And then the John C. Riley piece would be, I guess, the last big piece where...

He's now underrated in this movie, is my take on this. Oh, yeah. He's so fucking funny. But I think he was properly rated for years and years, but then he's been in other stuff, right? Some people think of him as, like, a stepbrothers or, you know, walk hard. Like, he's been in so many things at this point that this performance... This is his best movie. And you think about what?

This movie would have been if... like, say, Thomas Jane had played Reed Rothschild. Right. And, like, the edge and weird, like, like, the anger that might have been with Reed. And, like, this guy basically, like, immediately cedes the spotlight to Eddie and just becomes his, the Robin to his Batman for the rest of the movie. And it just feels, like, so kind and sweet.

Yeah. And he... I was going to go Pip and Jordan, but Robin Batman's fine. Yeah. But he, I mean, he kind of was... There's a perfect contrast of it in the movie, right? Because he kind of was Dirk before Dirk comes along. Even if he was, like, the second lead in movies,

He was the star and Eddie was the new kid. People told him and looked like Han Solo. That's right. But then when Johnny Doe comes along, Dirk reacts like, fuck you, man. He doesn't invite him in the way that Reid invited him in. Yeah. And that is a testament to like how warm John C. Riley is as an actor that he can pull that off. Plus, everything he says in the movie is funny.

There's not a single line he has that isn't funny. That's impossible. How did he do that? Yeah, even when he's getting mad about that they took the tapes. That's the funniest part. Yeah. He's like, you're using all this technical jar. Y PMP.

I don't understand this. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks a lot. Yeah, he's, I did a mailbag early on for page two. This is like 20 years ago about who is the better

sidekick Reed Rothschild or Tubbs from Miami Vice. And it's like, great Colin Bill. It's like 1100 words. I have categories. Could you want about the NFL maybe?

I think my editors were like, let's just, let's just, I was like PTA and they were new lines. Just let him go. Yeah. But yeah, he becomes John C. Riley after this movie, and it leads to a whole bunch of good stuff. He's had a good career ever since. This movie, we'll get into the other characters when we do part two.

This movie is nominated for three Oscars. Best Original Screenplay. Supporting Actors for More. And Supporting Actor for Reynolds. Did not get Best Movie. Our Best Picture Nominees that year, Titanic Wins. As Good As It Gets. Good Will Hunting.

the Fulmonte and L.A. Confidential. Tough year. I love L.A. Confidential. Yeah. That's a good one. No, but I'm saying I don't, I guess it squeezes out the Fulmonte?

That was a sensation. I know, it's hard to say, like... Like, I'm not saying Fulmonte is like a better movie than Boogie. But who are you bumping out of that one? Like, as good as it gets, Nicholson wins the Oscar. It's also, like, guaranteed Jack Nicholson is in the front row of the Oscars, which, like, five more million people tune in for.

We've definitely... Yeah, but we gotta bump one out, so who are you bumping out? I'm not bumping out of LA Confidential. I guess Fulmonte. Yeah, I think I am too. Fulmonte is my least favorite movie out of all of these movies. It was a phenomenon. As good as it gets,

is not that good? Oh, I don't like as good as it gets, but it's just like, you just got to get... It was huge. James L. Brooks. He still, he kept his title. Very good performances, but like, okay, stack it up against the other James L. Brooks movies,

especially the Oscar movies, you know, the broadcast news is the... That was my other terms of interment. And it's just not as good as his other four movies that are much better. So in that respect, but no matter what. It's telling he didn't get nominated for Best Director, Brooks. And Peter Catanio for the Fulmonte is nominated. The Oscars are so weird.

Like, Adam Magoyan nomination, I think, is cool that he was nominated for the suite here after. That's a really good movie. It's a really good movie. PTA should have gotten one of those five. Cameron wins for Titanic. Gus Van Sant was in there for Goodwill Hunting. Hanson for Confidential. Mm-hmm.

I just don't think the, I mean, you think about it, especially who's voting for the awards at that point in time. I don't think you're getting a lot of 78-year-olds digging into boogie nights. Or a 26-year-old kid they've never heard of. Yeah. You know, I mean, he was so young. It's too bad. If we're doing that over again, I think

they're in both categories. Supporting actor, Reynolds doesn't win. Robin Williams wins for Goodwill Hunting, which I just can't argue. Yeah. We got to do that it's not your fault to Jack, right? It's not sure. It's not your fault. Anthony Hopkins for Amistad. Great Caneer for his

good as it gets, which is, that would definitely be a do-over. He's fine. I think he was okay. I thought he was pretty good at that. Yeah. How about that? And then Hopkins,

I mentioned him. Forster. Sorry. Forster for Jackie Brown. You know my feelings on that performance. One of the worst things you've ever said to me in person. You don't like that performance? It's fine.

What? It's not John C. Riley and Boogie Nights. I'm sorry. It actually hurts my feelings. It's not John C. Riley and Boogie Nights. Stop. I think we can have both and we can eliminate Greg Kinnear out of here. Great. Let's do that then. Best actor.

John Quincy Adder. He's a Boston guy. John Quincy Adams. Best actor gets tough. Nicholson's in there. He wins. Damon's in there for Goodwill Hunting, not touching that. Duval's in there for the Apostle. He's amazing in that movie. Leo is not in there for the Titanic and should have been. We litigated that in the Titanic Pod. He's the final two are weird. Yeah, Peter Fond and Uli's Gold.

Oh, yeah. I forgot that. I don't remember that movie. He's a beekeeper. Dustin Hoffen and Wag the Dog was just like when LeBron gets 13 all-N-B-A even though they're like Played Night games. It's fine. He shouldn't have been best-leading actor.

Yeah. He's pretty funny. We litigated the Wahlberg thing before. I genuinely believe Walberg should have been best-leading actor. I think he fucking carries this movie. He's so good in it. Oh, yeah. I don't disagree.

The funny thing about Wagged Dog is, it's like, De Niro is definitely the male lead of that movie. Completely. Leading actress. I guess this movie didn't really have a leading actress. Julianne Moore lost for best-supporty actress. Basinger won for LA confidential. That's a tough one. I would do that one over again personally.

We got the old lady in Titanic, stop. Minnie driver and good Warren thinks she's good. Say her name. Whatever. John Cusack and in and out is really good. But I actually think Julianne Moore, that's kind of a travesty. She didn't win for Best Supporting Act.

It felt right in the moment, though. Maybe. It's very similar to Peter Fonda being nominated for Uly's gold. It was an acknowledgement of someone who had had a good career, who maybe had not been totally recognized. And it was like a self-aware kind of performance where she's playing like the imitation of a screen gem who's a prostitute.

And so there was all this kind of like intertext conversation about Kim Basinger as a sex symbol. She's good in it. I remember. But Julian Moore should have won. I agree. Screenplay Goodwill Hunting, Damon and Affleck win. Brooks and Mark Andrews are nominated for as good as it gets. Boogie Knights, the Fulmati,

and then the obligatory Woody Allen. Deconstructing Henry. I do like deconstructing Harry. To deconstructing Harry. I do think that's one of the better late Woody Allen movies They just ran into the mat and Ben Buzzaw Yeah This movie made

They made it for I had it for $15 million budget You had 25? You were probably right Made 43.1 million Our guy Raj I know it tripled what it cost So yeah that makes sense Our guy Raj four stars

Yeah The sweep and variety of the characters It brought the movie comparisons To Robert Altman's Nashville and the player there's also some of the same appeal in pulp fiction in scenes that balance precariously between comedy and violence through all the characters and all the action

Anderson's screenplay centers on the human qualities of the players boogie nights has the quality of many great films in that it always seems alive I think that's fair it's a good way to put it this movie always seems live speaking of alive should we take most rewatchable scene

to part two or do it now I think part two let's do part two all right so we'll do all the categories in part two Can I give you one quote from another review that I thought was really powerful? Yeah, let's hear. And Andrew Saris, who's one of the most important film critics of the... Bill's a big Saris guy.

The mid-century, who, like, helps develop a lot of the ways that we talk about movies, wrote in a review of this movie out of the New York Film Festival, not since the mysteriously reclusive Terence Malick, Badlands, 1973, has there been such an explosion of sheer talent on the American movie scene? He's talking about a couple of different people that are emerging there, but he's using this as the time to announce that. to kind of like codify that thing that you were talking about that's happening in the moment.

That's big, big praise. He's the guy who like popularize a tour theory in America, right? Yeah. So he's the person who's like the director is the author and in charge of creating the vision of masterpiece. We left that one thing before we go to part two. And I should have done this sooner. How many lines popped out of this movie?

I have the best. Lines of carpet meth or lines? No, cocaine lines. But the, oh, you think so, doctor? Like there's a hundred of them. And when I was at ESPN.com, I had done this movie quote gimmick a couple times for my old website. And I think I had, I don't know, I'd written a few columns for them, but not that many.

And I did, I don't know, 33 quotes from Boogie Nights or 50 quotes from Boogie Nights. And I handed them out as awards. You really leaned on the Patrick Ewing Gold Club testimony. I hit out the awards. But what was hilarious was this was, I didn't have the editorial. juice yet. So they're doing these quotes, but they're editing the shit out of the quotes. So like, it's blank, blank, blank, great.

I like simple pleasures like dot, dot, dot, dot. Lollipops in my mouth. That's just me. That's just something I enjoy. That was one of the quotes. But it's all about the summer 2001. And it's kind of hilarious because, one, it's all these edited quotes. And I don't have the leeway yet.

Two, all that you just see how many fucking incredible quotes are just, in this movie that House and I, House is my Boogie Nights friend. We've just said the quotes back and forth, really for 25 years. We've done it on podcasts. I started calling him the Colonel at one point. It's just been,

this movie's been in our life with the one-liners forever. But then on top of it, it's the snapshot of the 2001 NBA season. It's amazing. The GMs are all idiots. You have four Joe Smith categories. There's all these terrible signings

and Todd McCullough getting 60 million. So it's pretty funny reread. But, um... It's a shot. Yeah, sorry. But that... I think you have a Pat Crocey one in there. I think I did.

It's like, this is the curly, he puts up the money for these pictures. But that's how many good quotes were in this movie. I was like, I gotta do the movie quotes gimmick for the ESPN audience. We'll see if it works. And it has to be boogie nights. I will say, for when Chris and I became friends in the 2000s, we definitely would like talk about these columns before we knew you. We were like, that's funny as shit when you would do that. The movie quotes.

Yeah, there's certain movies that just this have it, but this one will go into in part two. So when part two, we're hitting all the categories, and it's probably going to be two hours. I'm sorry, this is... It's your birthday. This movie has to be a two-part podcast. It has to go for three and a half hours.

You like lollipops in your mouth. I do. It's just like cinema, you know? In particular, you like to watch people fucking on film. That's just me. This was produced by Craig Horlebeck. Thanks to Dylan Berkey as well, and we'll be back for part of it.

too of the Boogie Nights Pod that will be up pretty much right after this one.