Boogie Nights (1997)

In 1997, a 26-year-old Paul Thomas Anderson somehow talked New Line into $15 million and final cut, then spent it on a two-and-a-half-hour epic about a well-hung busboy who becomes a porn legend, falls apart on cocaine, and winds up pushing a dead Corvette to the only father figure who ever actually loved him. That's Boogie Nights, and it's Nic's pick. It's his favorite movie of 1997 and one of his all-time favorites, the kind of thing a film-nerd drama buddy (shoutout Matt Gilbert) presses into your hands and says you have to see this. Steve, meanwhile, had never gotten around to it, which is wild for a guy who counts There Will Be Blood among his favorite films ever and watched One Battle After Another on the flight home from a work trip to New York.

So this one's a treat: Nic finally brought Steve something he loved, maybe the first non-thriller pick that really landed for him.

What you get is a loving, frequently filthy stroll through Anderson's San Fernando Valley. The dads geek out over how basically every speaking part in the first five minutes is a face you know cold, Luis Guzmán, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham, William H. Macy, and how each of these characters gets kicked around by the straight world before finding a home in Jack Horner's porn family. They clock the Star Wars deep cut buried in Buck's stereo sales pitch, swoon over Dirk explaining that his shirt is "imported Italian nylon," and spend a good while on Philip Seymour Hoffman turning Scotty J into the most heartbreaking guy at every party (the clipboard-chewing, the sad slice of wedding cake). Burt Reynolds saying "the Mr. Torpedo area" instead of the actual words gets its due, plus the backstory on how Leo passed for Titanic and handed Mark Wahlberg the role of a lifetime.

And then there's the nitpicking, which is honestly half the fun. Steve files a formal grievance about Eddie's pool dive not being a real jackknife. Nic cannot get past Jack fretting over whether a baby's going to pee in the pool (sir, is that really your top concern?). They both white-knuckle the Alfred Molina scene, flinching at every single firecracker, which, as it turns out, wasn't even in the script.

Consenting adults are consenting adults, the music is perfect, and somewhere under all the cocaine and chaos is a genuinely sweet movie about people who just want a family. Welcome to the Valley.