Boogie Nights

Written and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master, Punch Drunk Love) Boogie Nights is a story of talent, fame, success and excess set in and around the San Fernando Valley during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The script focuses on the rise and fall of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) a young porn star known for his physical similarities to Michael Fassbender. Diggler is spotted while working at a nightclub by famed porn Director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and soon becomes a star of the adult entertainment world. With the help of a select crew and actors, Horner attempts to go beyond making pornography and tries to create movies which people will stay to watch when they’ve ‘completed the task in hand’. With the aid of his adept crew (William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman) and on screen talent (Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle) Horner’s films become actual movies and the stars get rich.

This is the forth of Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s six feature films I’ve seen and unsurprisingly it is excellent. Anderson creates a wonderfully vivid and detailed world which changes gradually with the story. The characters are well written and the soundtrack is perfectly chosen. Anderson’s films have a tendency to attract awards recognition and even this story of sex, drugs and moustaches picked up three Oscar nominations including nods for Anderson (screenplay) as well as Julianne Moore and Burt Reynolds. In fact Anderson’s six films have thus far picked up seven acting nominations at the Oscars. Here the acting is superb from the top to the bottom of the cast.

The Big Lebowski

After a case of mistaken identity Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), an unemployed Los Angeles based slacker seeks out his millionaire namesake in order to complain about the mistreatment he received by mistake. The meeting is followed the next day by a call from the millionaire saying that his young, trophy wife has been kidnapped and he wants The Dude to be the bagman; delivering the money to the kidnappers. This sets off a chain of events which leaves The Dude bewildered and confused and all on the eve of his bowling league semi-finals.

The Big Lebowski is one of the hundreds of films which I’ve wanted to see for a long time and I’m happy I’ve finally sat down to watch it. I’m a fan of the Coen brothers’ work having really enjoyed seven of the eight of their films I’ve seen previously. This is most definitely joining those other seven and avoids being plonked in the bargain bin next to The Ladykillers. It’s packed full of great Coen dialogue and fantastical situations, all bought together with a great cast who are all on sparkling form.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

As soon as I hear the opening notes of John Williams’ iconic Jurassic Park score I can’t help but smile and be transported back to the mid 1990s and to a time when Jurassic Park was pretty much all the boys my age would talk and think about. I experienced the Jurassic Park smile recently when I re-watched the sequel to the 1993 film for what must be at least the eighth time. The smile stuck with me for the opening hour and a half as I reminisced about when I’d first seen the film and remembered what was coming next. Some of the things that made this sequel good are still evident but unfortunately so are the aspects that made it bad.

Four years on from the Jurassic Park Incident as it is now know, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is assembling a team to explore, catalogue and protect the Dinosaur inhabitants of a second island, close to the original known as Site B. For this mission he recruits a reluctant Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), a man who has been publicly and academically chastised for talking about the Jurassic Park Incident. Malcolm is understandably hesitant about mixing with Dinosaurs again until he learns that his girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already on the island. So, he travels to the island along with equipment specialist Eddie (Richard Schiff), photographer Nick (Vince Vaughn) and a stowaway to rescue Sarah but not only come up against Dinosaurs but the InGen Corporation who want to further exploit the animals for profit.