Transcript

Intro Clip

So let's talk about the future. Let's talk about what video means to this industry. And let's talk about how all of us— not one of us— how all of us are gonna profit. I've been doing theater in San Francisco, San Diego— not as long as you've been doing stag and hardcore, Jack. We're all familiar with your biography, Floyd. Floyd, no one is doubting your credentials or your history. Then why the resistance? I mean, this industry is gonna be turned upside down soon enough. Why help it? Why not be prepared? Colonel's got the money. You got the talent, Jack. I got the connection to the equipment and the mail-order distribution. Not to mention those kids out there who are hot fuck action to the max, Jack. This is the future. Video tape tells the truth. Wait a minute. You come into my house, my party, to tell me about the future? That the future is tape, videotape, and not film? That it's amateurs and not professionals? I'm a filmmaker. That's why I will never make a movie on videotape. I'll tell you something else. I will never, ever loan out any of the actors I have. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not a complicated man. I like cinema. In particular, I like to see people fucking on film. But I don't want to win an Oscar, and I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I like simple pleasures, like— Butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth. That's just me. That's just something that I enjoy. Call me crazy, call me a pervert, but there's one little thing that I want to do in this life, and that is I want to make a dollar and a cent in this business. Jack, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you stay one step ahead of the game. We're going in circles now. We're in familiar territory. The territory we're in is the future. Not to mention the cost. You know, if it looks like shit and it sounds like shit, then it must be shit.

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are watching Boogie Nights from 1997, the Paul Thomas Anderson classic about the '70s porno industry.

Nic

That's right.

Steve

Yeah, this is part of our 2 Dads 2 Decades, you know, journey. And Nic, you brought us Boogie Nights. You brought Boogie Nights to the table. So why don't we start off? You tell us a little bit about your history with the movie.

Nic

Yeah, I saw this on video soon after it came out. Okay. Not in the theater because it was not at the theater that I worked at.

Steve

Oh, there you go.

Nic

And I would only see the movies that were at the theater that I worked at because you could not beat the price. So yeah, I caught this early. Uh, one of our mutual friends who you were in drama with, Matt Gilbert, is a big fan, uh, of this and, and made sure to introduce it to us. So we watched it a bunch, and he's like a big film guy, so a lot of the, the P.T. Anderson stuff that was happening, he was really into that. I just thought it was— I was like, this is cool, it looks cool, the acting's good, you know. Um, but this has always stuck with me as just such an epic story, and it gets so deep with so many things and is really just like something that, that builds a world that's always been so interesting to me and is one of my favorite movies of all time. And I thought, I got to talk about this on the pod. If we— if I got to pick a movie for '97, I got to go with my favorite movie from '97.

Steve

There you go. Great, great, great choice. Actually, one I had not seen. I am a very big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. You know, I just actually was— I flew to and from New York a few weeks ago for business, and on, I think, the flight home, I watched One Battle After Another, which was a ton. It was absolutely spectacular. You know, There Will Be Blood is one of my favorite movies of all time. Like, you know, so I love Paul Thomas Anderson. I think he's a spectacularly talented writer-director, but I just never got around to seeing this one for one reason or another. So thank you for bringing it to the pod because I got to watch it this week and really, you know, I got my notes here and I don't want to give away too much about my feelings about it. But, you know, we'll get into it in just a minute. Let's start with the facts on Boogie Nights. The film Boogie Nights was released on October 10th, 1997. I looked this up. It was actually released on only 2 screens on October 10th, and it was 3 weeks later that it opened wide. So really Halloween of '97 is really when it technically opened wide. It was a very well-earned R rating. The original cut Anderson had was apparently an NC-17 cut and he was asked to recut it. It was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, and Julianne Moore. The scores, we got Rotten Tomatoes 91% fresh, IMDb 7.9, just under that kind of elusive 8.0, which is a really very high rating. And then Siskel and Ebert, pair of thumbs up. Quite a bit of awards action on this. We got 3 Oscar nominations, though no wins, at the '98 Oscars. Reynolds was nominated for supporting actor, Moore was nominated for supporting actress, and then Anderson was nominated for best original screenplay. None of them did win. At the '98 Golden Globes, Moore was also nominated there but did not win, but Reynolds did. He won best supporting actor, I believe, in a comedy, because the Golden Globes break them up that way. And so, yeah, the comedy or musical, I think, is how they do it. At the 1998 MTV Movie Awards, there was a win for Heather Graham for Best Breakthrough Performance. And then Best Dance Sequence was nominated Mark Wahlberg.

Nic

I'm not sure exactly which dance sequence was nominated, but yeah, I mean, there's the scene where he's kind of like, you know, making it and they're discoing it up and they're buying shirts and stuff.

Steve

I think that might be it. Well, yeah, talking about his shoes and his shirt, that must have been it. Yeah. Um, and then at the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, uh, nominated for Worst On-Screen Couple were Mark Wahlberg And I think the way it was worded officially was his 13-inch appendage. The worst onscreen couple. On a $15 million budget, the film took in $43.1 million worldwide for 2.9 times what it cost, which is definitely a hit, if not a blockbuster. But this was obviously a very critically acclaimed film.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah.

Steve

All right, man. All right. How does Boogie Nights kick off? Why don't you get us started?

Nic

OK, so kicking off Boogie Nights, I want to just talk about the score of this movie because I think the pop songs and stuff that they use throughout this movie, I love. Yeah. I love all the placement of it. I think they're brilliant, they're perfect. I think the score is so effective and it's really interesting. This is like kind of morose circus music almost, like, like very sad kind of organ music that's playing, which really, I mean, the saddest type of circus style spectacle is probably the porn industry. Like if you really get down to the way the animals are treated and everything, not to mention the people that are in it, if you're into that. So yeah, there's this like sad circus music, you know, starting off and, And then all of a sudden we get bright on the screen. It says Boogie Nights and we get the beginning of that song, The Best of My Love. That didn't it, didn't it? You know, so we got some grooving music and we have this excellent where it says San Fernando, San Fernando Valley, 1977. We have an excellent one-shot scene going from the Boogie Nights sign and it's taking us down the street and it's taking us into this nightclub where a lot of the characters that we're going to be hanging out with are all hanging out.

Steve

And we should mention real quick that it's on a marquee. It looks like the Reseda Theater that says Boogie Nights. And that's it for the opening credits. There is no film by P.T. Anderson. There's no starring Mark Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds. Like, there's no list of actors. It is just that. And we are in the movie. This is not a cold open. This is just— this opens with the least fanfare, I think, of any movie I've ever seen. Yeah, which is great. But it was very odd to kind of notice that. But one thing I've noticed as we get into the nightclub, right?

Intro Clip

Yeah.

Steve

Get into the nightclub and we see, you know, I think Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore show up and walk in and they're greeted by Luis Guzmán. Plays Mo, Maurice, Maurice, Maurice. Yep. What I noticed is that I think in the first 5 minutes of this movie, I think about 5 minutes, every single person who has a speaking line— and that's— this is coming— my direction from here is I've never seen this movie before. I didn't even know who was in it outside of the main stars. I could name every single one of the actors or actresses that had a speaking line in the first 5 minutes. And I wouldn't have been able to in 1997. Sure. A lot— for a lot of them, this was really—.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, a lot of them became famous, but The hits on the character actors in this is unbelievable.

Steve

Luis Guzmán, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Mark Wahlberg. I think that's it. Like for the, for the— oh, and then Bill H. Macy for the beginning, for the very beginning of the movie. That's just in the first like 3 to 5 minutes. Those are the people, those 8, 9 people are the people who had speaking lines. Yeah. And every single one of them was recognizable and nameable from their face. It's crazy. Which is amazing. Yeah.

Nic

And we end up with like 5 more of those as the movie goes on.

Steve

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Nic

So Yeah, so this great scene. So we can see like, you know, Jack, uh, Burt Reynolds is Jack Horner. He's the big porn producer director. Amber Waves is Julianne Moore. She's kind of like the main star at the time and also his, his lady, right? So this— they're like the mom and the dad of the porn family. Um, so we've got all this scene, all this glamour, and then we go to the back room of the restaurant to the dishwasher, right? And we got Mark Wahlberg, and it kind of like freezes on him, obviously a young kid, and he's washing dishes there. Burt Reynolds goes back to see him and he starts talking to him. And, and Mark Wahlberg, whose name is Eddie, he's like, do you want a $5 or a $10? Yeah. And Jack's like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, $5 to see it, $10 to watch me jerk it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. And, you know, so he's obviously famous for his big hog and people like go to the back room of the restaurant to give him a little extra cash. And they're like, yeah, let me get a gander at that thing. There you go. So Jack declines, but he does say, and I quote, "I've got a feeling beneath those jeans is something wonderful just waiting to get out," uh, which is how my wife talks to me generally.

Steve

Oh, good for you.

Nic

Yeah, most of the time she's talking about a stain.

Steve

Oh, but, um, so we have a few people go home after— in the bar, like, Eddie heads out after the, the place closes and everybody else is kind of leaving. And, um, we see, uh, Amber and Jack go home, and Amber actually gets on the phone after doing a little coke and, like, is trying to— wants to call, you know, it's like late at night, like, it's got to be like 2 AM. Yeah. And she's calling her ex-husband asking to talk to their son. But of course, the kid's got to be asleep. And she's like kind of like freaking out about it. And we get a little touch of her situation, which is clearly, you know, she's divorced and her ex has custody, it seems. And so, you know, it's a little bit of a rough thing for her, obviously. Little Bill, played by William H. Macy, goes home. He's like— I can't tell if his job is sort of like line producer or something with the company. Like he does the sort of stage management stuff. Yeah. He's not the DP because that's another guy. But he's like some kind of producer, right? Basically. Um, and so I think maybe Jack's the director, Little Bill's the producer.

Nic

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Steve

But he goes home, and when he gets home, he can hear sex happening somewhere inside, and he, uh, goes and walks in on his wife having sex with somebody. His wife played by actual porn actress, uh, Nina Hartley.

Nic

Yes, someone else that I could have named by their name, uh, without admitting it to my wife. But yeah, a classic.

Steve

But, uh, but you know, he's basically just like, what are you doing? And she's like, could you close the fucking door? Like, there is this clear—.

Nic

That's so much disrespect.

Steve

So much disrespect. She has no give a shit about Little Bill at all, uh, and he just leaves.

Nic

Yeah, William H. Macy is the most disrespected actor. Like, he's so good at that role of the guy who's the most— like, imagine him playing, uh, Vince Vaughn's character in Swingers.

Steve

Yeah, no, that wouldn't work. Like, that's just like— that's not—.

Nic

Just give him those lines and see how good he could do it.

Steve

Yes, well, he could do it because he's Bill Macy, but yeah, that's true.

Nic

We have everyone's kind of like sad home life, and we have Eddie. He comes home and he— oh, we, we're talking about great bedrooms. Yeah, we got to point out he's got some nice posters on the wall. He's got Bruce Lee and Serpico and stuff, but he's clearly a teen who's living with his parents, right? So he's got this bedroom in his parents' house, and then he's, uh, doing one of the things that makes you the coolest, is just doing air karate in front of the mirror in a Speedo. And, uh, you know, we don't see the actual hog. We can see it slightly behind some fabric, but I think it's slightly larger than average, folks.

Steve

Stay tuned. It's pretty, pretty big. Uh, we then cut to a record, like a stereo store, where, uh, Don Cheadle's character Buck Swoopes is, uh, trying to sell this hi-fi system to a customer. And I love this, he keeps referencing the TK-421 modification. That is a Star Wars reference. Oh, okay. Because in Star Wars, when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker steal the stormtrooper outfits on the Death Star to try to rescue Princess Leia, there is another stormtrooper who calls through and like, "TK-421, why aren't you at your post? TK-421, where are you?" And that's, and it's like, "Oh, hey, we're here, sorry." You know, and they try to like communicate. But yeah, so that is a Star Wars reference, which I think, this is because later we hear, we hear this is '77 and we, and you know, late in '77, I guess, because that movie came out early in '77. And we hear other characters talk about watching Star Wars a bunch. So I think Buck is just making shit up as he goes because there's no money. He just wants to sell somebody extra and he's just making up. So he just thinks of that, which is great because it just shows that Buck himself is a Star Wars fan.

Nic

And Buck, the Don Cheadle character, kind of a recurring theme throughout the movie is he can't settle on like a look.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And he's always going for these really strong, like these extreme looks. So he's in this kind of country and western, like polyester button-up shirt look right now, which is very funny. So he's trying to sell the stereo to this guy and he's saying that it pumps out 3-4 quads per channel, which I'm not a sound guy but that sounds like a lot. It's not a thing!

Steve

And he's just kind of—.

Nic

He's grooving, he's like oh you know, "you'll have to hear it for yourself." So he plugs his eight-track in and it's just like ba-da-dum da dum duh duh duh.

Steve

Oh terrible. You know?

Nic

And he's just like grooving to it, right so...

Steve

It's not even good, not that there was a— Look, I'll be honest, there was a time in my life when I was into country music and in the '90s I think there actually was kind of a lot of decently good country music. Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw and like, you know, Alan Jackson. There was some fun stuff pre-9/11 when they all got weird. Uh, but in the '70s, country music was pretty terrible outside of Johnny Cash.

Nic

Name for the time. That's what I'm saying, you know.

Steve

So like, not even Conway Twitty in that time.

Nic

Exactly, dude. So, so, and then Buck kind of gets berated by his boss. He's like, what the fuck was that? Hey, I thought your, your acting would bring some good pussy into this place, which is how I talk to my employees. Um, but it's kind of like each of our characters as we're going through this, everyone just being degraded in their life that exists outside of like the porn world.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Yeah. Right. The next one we have is we have Roller Girl, and she's clearly a high school student. Heather Graham. Heather Graham. She wears roller skates all the time, does not take them off. And she's like sitting there in class taking a test. And this guy turns around and starts doing like the dick sucking pantomime to her in a way that makes him look so much worse than it could ever make the person he's doing it to.

Steve

And he keeps— and then he keeps mouthing, I love to suck cock at her, which is like, I guess he's saying you do, but he is saying literally, I do, which is like, okay buddy, good. Maybe he was trying to bond.

Nic

Maybe he was like, oh hey, I'm new to the school, I also love to suck cock. But yeah, so she gets upset and skates out of class, you know. So everyone's like, just their life outside of the porn world is dog shit.

Steve

We should also mention, so Eddie has told Jack that he's 17. We've now seen the roller girl is in high school. We learned from, uh, there was a moment, uh, Eddie was at breakfast with his parents and talking about having to get to work, and his mom says you know, what about school? And it's clear he's dropped out of school. Yeah, right. So these are not, you know, people who are like kind of on the up and up. But these— I, they never really talk about Roller Girl and Eddie being under 18 at the beginning of this, but I, I, I'm not sure why that doesn't matter, but apparently it doesn't. Uh, it just never becomes a part of the story. But they are clearly— well, okay, Roller Girl could be 18 if she was, you know, yeah, in her senior year and kind of like maybe, okay, fine. But like Eddie says he's 17. Like, to me, that I'm pretty sure that's, that's what they got into so much trouble with Tracy Lords, right, when she was, you know, under 18.

Nic

It really seems like their minds in this movie, 16 is their cutoff, which is not correct, but it seems like that's just the given in this. But yeah, it is interesting they don't ever mention that.

Intro Clip

Yeah.

Nic

Um, Eddie is, uh, he's home now and he's got his girlfriend with her, and you know, he's banging his girlfriend and all she cares about is this hog.

Steve

Is she— seem older? Is she supposed to be like in her late 20s or something?

Nic

I guess that, yeah, that, that's the vibe I got, you know. And she is not into anything, but he's trying to like goof around with her a little bit, you know. She's like, oh, get out, and he's just like Everybody was blessed with one special thing. I'm going to be a star. I'm going to be a big shining star. Right. So, you know, he's getting really— he's getting really proud.

Steve

This is the first time we hear from a character that not only does Eddie have a big cock, but he fucks good. Like, basically, you're good at fucking me, basically, she says. And, you know, it's like that's outside of an actual porno. We're not going to really see that in a movie like this. So we do have to have characters tell us like, hey, that was really great. Good for you. That was wonderful. But we're being told, yeah, Eddie apparently has quite a gift here.— that he's able to—.

Nic

And his home life is miserable. Like, his mom and his dad are just so at odds with each other. His mom is up his ass about, you know, you're a loser, like really in his face and stuff. Yep. So it's not good. So he's back at work and he ends up doing the dishes and Roller Girl is sent back to kind of like audition him. Yes, exactly. Right. Yep.

Steve

So she goes down on him.

Nic

She goes down on him. And then when he's walking home from work or walking to the bus station, Jack's car kind of slows down next to him. Roller Girl sticks her head out and she says, do you remember me from a couple hours ago?

Steve

He's like, yeah. So Eddie gets in the car, goes with them back to Jack's house. They're hanging out for a little while and Jack is basically telling Eddie what he does. You know, I make adult movies. This is what we do. People fuck in my movies. But I really want to make movies that like, you know, when people are done in the theater jerking off that they have to actually stay and like hang out. Right. He wants— I want to make different kinds of movies kind of thing. Um, which is, which is, you know, kind of cool. Um, and then, uh, then they go, well, then they go to Jack's house. I think that was at a diner. They were at a diner, right? Initially.

Nic

Yeah. And Jack, he's using the weirdest phrases here. He says something about the juices in the Mr. Torpedo area in the fun zone.

Steve

Trying hard not to say the words.

Nic

So, you know, like kind of the lore about this is that Burt Reynolds, I guess after the fact, wasn't happy with this. Uh, movie. Like, he, he was like, regretted that he was a part of it or whatever. And like, he had issues with P.T. Anderson during it. So I wonder if sometimes he was like, yeah, we need you to say cock and dick. He's like, no, I'd rather say the Mr. Torpedo area, thank you very much.

Steve

Yeah, I did read that. And actually, I read that since then Reynolds has done a 180 on that, actually. And in more recent interviews had said that he thought it was a wonderful movie and he was proud of having been in it.

Nic

So I hope he, I hope he came around. I hope he came around. Um, so we're back at, we're back at, uh, Jack's house, and Jack is is having Eddie and Roller Girl— okay, let's do it in front of me and see if you're ready to do it. Uh, this is like what's really funny in the movie, and it makes it difficult because it is vulgar, but the way that they're so casual talking about anything. And Roller Girl's like, I don't want you to fucking come inside me. And then it shows Jack, and he's just has a cigar in his hand, and he's just like, aim it at her tits, Eddie.

Steve

No, but it's not come inside. She's— he says, are you gonna take the roller skates off? She goes, I never take the roller skates off, please don't come on And that's— and I think that's what he— I'm trying to come on the road, come to roller skates, I think is what she said. Maybe I misheard it, but that's what I thought she was saying. It's like, don't come on the roller skates. But yeah, they have to— yes, be directed. I mean, look, Jack's a director. He's going to direct the performers in what they're supposed to do. Yeah. Um, so this gets Eddie home in the morning, right? I mean, it's, it's now the morning light is shining and mom's waiting up.

Nic

It's like Karen and her mom in Goodfellas. Oh my God, same kind of waiting up, right? And there's a bottle next door. She's obviously fucking hammered.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. And so, and so she's fucking pissed and she You know, it's basically telling him how stupid he is now. He'll never amount to anything. And she starts ripping fucking posters off his walls, all this stuff. And he goes, well, I'm going to get my things and go. And she's like, you don't— none of this is yours. This all belongs to me. So if you're going to leave, you leave with what you have and you never come back. So he does. He fucking just wearing the clothes on his back, runs out the door. Yeah. And makes his way back to Jack's house.

Nic

And this is great Wahlberg, I think, like the emotions in this fight. And he is like screaming and there's spit flying out of his mouth and everything. And like, at this time, Mark Wahlberg was not known to be like a really great actor. He hadn't done much. He might've done Fear by now or something.

Steve

Did you hear the story about how he got the role?

Nic

No.

Steve

So Anderson wanted Leonardo DiCaprio.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

So Anderson saw Basketball Diaries and wanted Leonardo DiCaprio, and DiCaprio wanted to do it. And then DiCaprio signed on to Titanic, and DiCaprio decided he couldn't do both. That wasn't Cameron telling him that, that wasn't Anderson telling him that. DiCaprio decided, if I'm gonna do Titanic, I can't also do this other picture. So he did Titanic. Obviously that exploded DiCaprio's career. So he's going— DiCaprio now says, apparently, this is allegedly whatever I read about this, that he now wishes he'd done both. One of the biggest regrets he's ever— that in his career that he still has is not doing Boogie Nights, that he wishes he had. But he recommended Wahlberg because Wahlberg was also in Basketball Diaries, and Leo and Mark got along so well that when Anderson came to him and Leo said, I can't do this, I'm doing Titanic for Jim Cameron, he said, you should talk to my buddy Mark. He was great in Basketball Diaries. I think he'd be great in this. You should talk to him. That's why Mark Wahlberg is in this movie. Damn. And this is the movie that made Mark Wahlberg's career.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So Mark Wahlberg owes almost everything he has to Leonardo DiCaprio.

Nic

But well, because, because Wahlberg— there's parts of this, I think we talked about this a little bit during like Starship Troopers, where you cast somebody because they're going to give you the performance that you want and they don't necessarily need to understand that that's what they're doing. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Steve

I do.

Nic

Yeah. So, so Mark Wahlberg being a little inexperienced experienced, and the different emotions, the ranges that he has to have in this movie are perfect just based on his background, right? Like, he's a white rapper from Boston who has a much more famous older brother, so he's gonna have the chip on his shoulder. He's gonna be able to freak out. He's going to be able to be like insanely egotistical and all these things. So like, this scene, it's almost like him being young and immature, I think, helped him like do that scene better where he's fighting with his mom.

Steve

Well, I think it's, it's clear that at this point in his career, Wahlberg's not got a lot of subtlety with his acting. Yeah, it's, it's all this way or all that way or all that which works when, you know, he's mimicking the, the acting proficiency of a porn actor. It works. But this is the scene where Anderson probably told him, I mean, I'm guessing here, but like, go ahead and let it go. Like, just, just, just be destroyed. Like, this is your mom telling you you're worthless. So just be destroyed. Let that go. Let it— because he's able to just like dig in and just be crazy emotional, snot and spit and stuff coming out. I mean, like, he's going for it. I just don't think he does subtlety very well.

Nic

And there's really no place in this movie where we get a lot of subtle stuff.

Steve

You know, but, but it works for this. Certainly good call, good direction from Anderson, you know, the whole deal. And Wahlberg, look, he pulls it off. Like, whatever you think, I have never considered Mark Wahlberg to be a particularly talented actor. He's got strengths and weaknesses like everybody. He's never been on like any of my lists of like, oh, this guy's fantastic. But this is definitely a movie where it's like, oh, okay, no, this dude can definitely fucking act. Like, there's no denying that he can act.

Nic

So yeah, for sure. And it's like, it does great in this. Great, uh, great choice. And sorry to Leo. It would have been weird with Leo though, you know. It would have been a different film. Um, so I like the film, the technique here. So we have this crazy emotional fight and he leaves his mom's. It's like fucking just nightmare. And then we have Eddie, who apparently has just walked all the way to Jackson, took a bus, whatever, but taken, you know what it's like trying to take a bus.

Steve

It's taken forever.

Nic

And he rolls up there and then we get some levity here. And it's this great, beautiful scene of Jack's pool party. And Eddie gets to meet one of our favorite characters, Reed Rothschild, played by John C. Reilly.

Steve

The wonderful John C. Reilly.

Nic

He's got Step Brothers energy with any co-star. I mean, he's so— him and Wahlberg would have been like a decent, you know, version of that too, like the way that they get along together. And this interaction is so funny. So Reed is there at the bar and he's mixing up frozen margaritas as he's kind of talking to him. They're like, oh, this is Eddie, he's the new kid, you know, whatever, new kid on the street. And he's talking to him, he's like, oh, so how much, uh, how much do you lift? You know, how much you bench and everything, and having this conversation. Um, he says, yeah, you know, have you ever seen Star Wars? A lot of people tell me I look like Han Solo, and this is ridiculous.

Steve

And he goes, really?

Nic

Like, and at one point Reed says, uh, oh, when you work out, do you ever go to Vince's? Uh, oh no, I would have seen you, I'm there every day. All his lines, he fired off like 10 amazing lines in a row, just such a short part. But the friendship between Reed and Eddie, yeah, is a, is a great part of this film.

Steve

It sparks, and it sparks off so fast. It's really— they really hit it off right away. By the midway through and all this stuff, midway through this party as it's picking up, they're hanging out together. So it's instant bros, uh, which is great. We now meet another character who we've seen before. You mentioned this when we watched The Ref. Um, this guy, The Colonel, plays a character in The Ref that's like one of the rich assholes in town, which is the only thing I've ever known him for. But you mentioned that he's The Colonel, uh, here in, in Boogie Nights. So he shows up and he's like the He's not a producer, but he's like the money man.

Nic

The financier, yeah.

Steve

Yeah, he's like the finance guy behind all of Jack's movies. He shows up with a rather young looking, very skinny blonde girl, you know, and she immediately is like, "Is there coke at this party? Can I have some coke please?" And she finds a dude with a mirror full of coke and goes to do that. Then there's, oh, I wanted to say, somebody, I think it was Reed jumps in the pool first. And does like some whatever. And then, and then, uh, Eddie goes, check this jackknife.

Nic

And he doesn't do it.

Steve

He doesn't do a jackknife at all. I was super pissed about that.

Nic

I was really—.

Steve

Letters to Pete. I was like, literally right here, that was not a jackknife. It's in my notes.

Nic

It definitely wasn't a jackknife, but was it Eddie's perfect version of what that character would think a jackknife is? No, it was really funny. But them competing in the pool is so funny. Um, we've got Maurice and Buck, so Don Cheadle, Buck, and he's again in like a crazy outfit. And Maurice is like, you know what I say, man? Wear what you dig. And they both have these insane open shirts, like, hanging out there talking. Really fucking funny. This is probably the best open shirt movie of all time. Yeah, for sure. And then we got Little Bill, William Macy, who's looking for— for his wife. Wife, right? And his wife is just laying down on the driveway getting fucked by this guy as there's like 30 people standing around watching. And he walks up to her and he's like, what the fuck? And she's like, go away, Bill, you're embarrassing me.

Steve

So crazy. And then there's this conversation between him and— I don't know the character's name, but he's the director of photography.

Nic

Oh yeah, okay, well, that's the real actor. Okay, he's in Rounders.

Steve

Oh yeah, exactly, yes. But he— they're chatting about the next shoot they're gonna do, and Jack wants to keep it minimalist. He's like, well, that takes a lot of lighting. So he's like, no, no, no, he means minimalist, not natural. So he's looking to to do it as cheaply as possible is basically the argument. 'Cause it talked a lot, I think even Jack mentioned when he was talking to Eddie, you know, you pay $20,000, $25,000, $30,000 to make a movie 'cause they're talking about film and developing all this stuff. And this conversation between the two of them, I just had a note here that like, this is like, Paul Thomas Anderson is like my idol when it comes to dialogue. Like anytime he gets two characters together talking in any of his movies, it's a delight. Like it's just abs— and the way these two are back, and this is again also a testament to the actors. I mean, William H. Macy is just one of my favorite actors of all time. They are just so natural talking to each other, talking about this with, You know, they cut each other off in little ways. They don't finish thoughts. There's subtext. They kind of talk about what they're thinking. They don't say what they're thinking. There's all these little things that it makes it so natural feeling. And it's just an example of why Anderson— I mean, this movie got made because the screenplay was written and was passed around Hollywood for 10 years before it got made. And it was just became famous as a script that people liked. Yeah. And then Anderson got to make Hard Eight and they— the studio stole it back from him. Basically, it was almost an Alan Smithee situation. He never took his name off it, but he was pissed at the final cut. So he got final cut on Boogie Nights because And finally, Michael DeLuca at, I think, New Line or whoever made this was like, I love this script enough, I'll give you $15 million. Can you make it for $15 million? He's like, I can fucking do anything you want for $15 million. And he did. He said, but I got to have final cut. Yeah. Which they never— I mean, he was 26 years old.

Nic

Yeah. For like, he didn't have a hit under his belt.

Steve

Yeah. He had a movie that cost $3 million and made $200 grand because the studio fucked it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And Hard Eight's not a bad movie. It's John C. McGinley, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson. Like, that's a good movie too. But they screwed the cut and it was like, whatever. So the fact that he even got to make this movie is crazy, but it all came from— he wrote— sorry, I'm getting some backstory here, but like Anderson wrote and directed The Story of Dirk Diggler, The Legend of Dirk Diggler. Right. It's a short. It's like a short film. He did it in high school. He was in high school when he made that. And it's kind of mimicked in the scenes where Amber is making a documentary and Dirk is talking or whatever. Like that's kind of how it's— and it itself was based off of a documentary on John Holmes. And that's obviously Dirk Diggler is kind of based on John Holmes in a lot of ways. And so, you know, Anderson had been writing this script for 10, 15 years by the time it actually got bought, you know? And it's just kind of, but it's so obvious why, because he's so good at making believable people do believable but crazy things, you know what I mean? And make choices that you go, "That was fucking terrible." But you know, I can see exactly why he did that. It makes a lot of sense. It's just such good dialogue and character. Anyway. Moving on, I think we're about to meet another one of our super high-end actors in this movie.

Nic

Yeah, so, so real quick is we have— before we meet, because it's important is how they're met. So we've got the girl who asked about the coke. Yes, who came with the Colonel, right? Now she is OD'd. We've got this guy just fucking freaking out. The Colonel with him has like one of the best like Italian goomba fucking sidekick henchmen that I've ever seen, dude. He looks good. He's not out of place. In Goodfellas anywhere. And he comes over and he's smacking this guy around. The guy's like, the guy's like, I think she OD'd. And the colonel's like, oh, you think so, doctor? She's got blood like running down her face and everything. But what they do is this guy and the colonel's henchman, Jack says, all right, take her out of here, take her through the back door. So they're carrying this body out, and as they're walking through the gate, then we get one of our favorite character actors of all time, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Steve

I mean, he was at this time Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he became, I mean died way too young. Amazing actor, like Daniel Day-Lewis level, you know, Gary Oldman level, kind of like crazy good actor. Uh, but yeah, he plays Scotty J, who's, uh, the boom mic guy. So I guess that's a grip, I believe is the term. I'm not positive, I might have that bad. Um, but yeah, like it's, uh, you know, they're, they're—.

Nic

He walks into the back, you know, as they bring in sexy thing comes in. Oh yeah, yeah, just a perfect song for the Scotty character. And he's dressed insane, by the way. Probably not for the '70s, but for our view when this movie was made and now.

Steve

Yeah, the shirt's too small.

Nic

Like tiniest tank top. It looks like if you put— try to put your like 9-year-old sister's like Old Navy clothes on or something like that. It's really funny.

Steve

I wear a 3XL t-shirt. This would be like me wearing a large. That's about where it would be. But yeah, he spots— and this was— this was— you mentioned this, I think, when I was talking about— but we spot, you know, he spots Mark Wahlberg. So Eddie still at this point and Reed across the pool and they're just sitting on lounge just chilling. And he does the Schmitz Gay SNL sketch, you know, drop the eyeglasses You know, the, the, the cinematography even like vignettes in on to just Eddie, and he is— Scotty is immediately in love.

Nic

I would love a cut of all the Schmitz gay stuff because it's so perfect, like, with Scotty. Yeah. And, uh, oh yeah. Um, so Scotty get— he walks right over to Reed and Dirk like he needs to be— or Reed and Eddie needs to be introduced. And then, um, and Eddie has to leave because Jack's like, oh, I need you to come. Yeah, the Colonel. And Eddie at this point is so polite. He's like, oh, it was really nice to meet you, I'll be right back. Like, it's, it's such like Andy Samberg's impression of Mark Wahlberg that he used to do on SNL.

Steve

How do you—.

Nic

Mom for— Right, yeah. Um, so he goes over and, uh, and Eddie meets the Colonel, and, uh, and Colonel's like, so, uh, Jack tells me you got a great big cock, mind if I see it? And all the different scenes of people first seeing Eddie's hog is really funny. And again, I would like a montage of that. I would like a little 10 minutes of just everybody's reaction to it.

Steve

I love it because he does that. He said, we're just looking at the Colonel and he's looking down and he does not move his eyes. And he says, "Thank you, Eddie." Yes. And then we can tell by the way the shadow on him moves that Eddie has walked away. "Okay, well, I'll talk to you later." And he walks away and the Colonel's face does not change. His eyes do not move from where the cock was. Like, I mean, he is still stunned at what he saw.

Nic

Everyone is looking like they're seeing the Blair Witch or something, dude. It's crazy. Uh, yeah. Um, so he's got his first movie now. Eddie has been cast.

Steve

Well, real quick before that, he's in the hot tub with Reed, and Jack joins him because he wants to pick his name. He's like, because the Colonel says your name's Eddie, you might want to think about a different name, something makes you happy, right? Like, you know. And he goes, oh man, like, you know, Jack, I thought of this name. I'd like a daydream about it, and I saw it in lights, like blue lights, like purple. And he's like really explaining, and the name was so great that it like exploded. And so I, I thought, what do you think of this name? He goes, let me hear it. He goes, dirt Dirk Diggler. And Jack's like, I love it.

Nic

And it shows the neon sign up here and say Dirk Diggler and start pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Really good. It's such a funny name.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So they love it and they're— they've decided like, okay, you got a name now. Yeah. And, uh, and it's his first, uh, he's been cast in his first movie. And again, Dirk— we'll just call him Dirk from here on. Yes. Uh, Dirk, he's in his dressing room and doing his best and he's really trying to know his lines and everything. And then Scotty comes to get him Philip Seymour Hoffman. This choice, I— it blows my mind, but it's so effective in defining this character. He has a clipboard with the call sheet or whatever and a pen stuck through the top of the clipboard, but he's like chewing on the pen without removing it from the clipboard.

Steve

He's like hugging the clipboard. Yeah, it's so good.

Nic

These mannerisms that he has throughout are just like fucking brilliant. Yeah. And so he's bringing him down and he's just like, talking about, oh yeah, I like your name. I like, you know, it's really, really into him.

Steve

Um, poor Scotty.

Nic

So he ends up, you know, getting into the scene, and this is Dirk Diggler's first scene. We get a few people responding to the name. Yeah, well, Little Bill's like, who's, who's Dirk Diggler? Yeah, yeah. And Jack's like, oh, that's the new kid, uh, Eddie. Good name, good name, good name.

Steve

And then Jack says, okay, Eddie, we're gonna do this. And then he goes, you know, uh, Jack, could you, could you just call me Dirk from now on?

Nic

He goes, yeah.

Steve

Yes, from now on. Yep, forevermore. And then we never hear the name Eddie. Never. Though through the entire rest of the movie, he is Dirk Diggler. Um, but yeah, it's— and so he and Amber, Julianne Moore's character, are, are doing their first scene, you know, his first scene, their first together. And, uh, I mean, everybody's just blown away. And he goes so long that the cameraman runs out of— yeah, the film. And he has to put on a new, you know, put in a new cartridge thing, whatever, a new big old thing, and start shooting some more. Um, and then, uh, Amber basically begs Dirk to come inside her. Yeah. Which I even was thinking at the time watching, I'm going like, man, that Jack's gonna hate that. This is a porno. You're supposed to do the money shot. Like, that's the whole thing, you know? But he does. And so Little Bill and Jack are talking for a little bit, and Little Bill's like, you know, like, he came inside her. Like, we could cut to some stock footage. He goes, it'll never match. He'll never match. Nobody's that big, kind of thing, you know? And to which Dirk looks and goes, hey, Jack, uh, if, if you need more, I can just go again.

Nic

Okay. So casual. The thing about— this is what I love so much is is Dirk Diggler's mentality is just any, like, super eager young kid who wants to impress in a new job, dude. He's Akeem working at McDowell's, like, mopping, you know, with this enthusiastic look on his face. It's just such, like, a youthful, like, hey, you know, oh, if there's something I need to do before— I love it so much. And he says to Amber before, he's like, hey, would it be okay with you if I, if I tried to make you look sexy? Yeah, like these things that he says is just—.

Steve

When you think of ejaculation, think of Dirk. Okay.

Nic

We're gonna need another mop.

Steve

Oh, just don't try to knock Samuel Jackson over with that thing, Dirk. Um, okay, so then we get some nice little montages, right? Oh yeah, we get some shopping, and it's Dirk and it's Reed, and they're going out and they're buying shoes. Which I've never been a fan of disco, but this song also has a prominent placement in the Aaron Sorkin series Sports Night, and I've always loved this song because of a couple of its uses in, in, uh, popular culture. And this was a great use of it again. Oh yeah, Boogie Shoes of like, probably if I'm ever asked what my favorite disco song is, it's Boogie Shoes. It's a fun song.

Nic

It's a good one. And we get them, we get them shopping. Yep. And the way he's describing these clothes, it's just so off the mark and really funny. Him and Reed and Scotty all good matching shirts. And of course Scotty's like way too small.

Steve

Like, Scotty's not that big. I'm sure you can find one that fits.

Nic

Every time I'm watching this, I'm like, I would need to stop drinking beer and stop eating carbs for 6 months to look like Scotty.

Steve

I would have to lose 80 pounds to look like that. Like, that's the fucking part. Like, That's crazy. But yeah, so then they kind of— we kind of cut away from the montage to back to the nightclub, back to Maurice's nightclub, and they're dancing out on the dance floor doing a bunch of like choreographed stuff. It looks really great.

Nic

We're like a high five as part of the dance. I love that stuff.

Steve

And Reed's there and dancing, but really it's Roller Girl and Dirk kind of in the middle. And Dirk's like, you like these shoes? And Roller Girl's like, oh, those are so nice. And he starts telling all about these different things and he's just making shit up. Yeah. And my favorite of the lines he says is when she compliments the shirt, he goes, oh man, this is imported Italian nylon. That is my absolute favorite one. Oh man. Oh my God. And then, oh, and then Reed and Buck— Reed's doing the card trick, right? He's doing a card trick for Buck and he like has his card in Buck's— like, aren't you scared? He goes like, what, of the evil forces you're using? And he like can barely hear him. So like, well, no, no, it's just, it's just an illusion. Yeah, I know, evil forces.

Nic

Yeah. Oh my God, I, I like them coming up. And we're getting good reviews, so we're seeing that they're reading good reviews for these movies, right? Which is really funny in that context because it could be anything, could be about about your musical or whatever, but it's about Dirk Diggler's giant cock. So, uh, we've got Reed now and Dirk who were in the van. They're riding with Jack somewhere and they're pitching him.

Steve

They're going to the— oh, they're going to the video or whatever.

Nic

That's right. And they're kind of pitching him this idea. So like, you know, Jack, you always talk about you want to make a movie that people care about. So we have this guy, he's kind of like a James Bond character. And yeah, I don't like the way John Holmes, you know, his character is disrespectful to women and all which is really funny when it shows the actual movies. But, um, but he comes up with this new character called Brock Landers. This is the name of the character, and, uh, Jack is really into that.

Steve

And Reed is the sidekick, Chest Rockwell. Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell, good stuff.

Nic

Um, legitimately hilarious. Uh, the, the intro that they show, like the actual intro for the fake Brock Landers.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Is really fucking fun.

Steve

I love the Cap Gun sounds from the guns.

Nic

His haircut is ridiculous. Like, that you have every— all action has to take place on a roof, right? Like, it's just incredible. Yeah, it's good stuff. Um, so yeah, so we get some— this is kind of part of the, the greater, like, success montage. And now Dirk has his new house and he's gonna show everyone around. Yep. Um, he— one of the highlights is that on— he has these curtains with DD on them. Yeah. And, uh, and he's like, yeah, I put my initials on here One day I was just thinking about my name and it came to me.

Steve

It's so bad. He's walking Amber through the house, giving her a tour, and they get— he gets to the bedroom and he calls it my dojo.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And it's all like got Asian art all over everything.

Nic

Oh, it's really good. It's really good. And then the, the crown jewel of his collection is that he's got a— this orange Corvette.

Steve

Competition Orange.

Nic

Gorgeous.

Steve

Beautiful. It's like a Stingray.

Nic

It's beautiful. Yeah, really nice. Yeah. So that's kind of like where we're at. So we're still kind of at the end of 1977-ish.

Steve

78, when there was at the beginning, there was the awards that they go to, uh, when they talk to Jack about the Brock, you know, Landers thing. That was like the '78 awards. He said it was early '78. And then, um, that was the second annual. And then later in that—.

Nic

Oh, it goes to the fourth, the fourth.

Steve

So it's been a few years. And one of the interesting things, right, is when he first wins like best male performer or whatever, he's got this whole speech about like, we're gonna keep making better movies. I think we can, you know, If you guys keep trying, I'm going to keep trying. Let's keep rocking and rolling. Like he does the whole thing. He does the famous, like, you know, karate kick with the spotlight at him. It's a great visual. Might be the COVID art for the episode because there's a whole lot in this movie I can't use. But then by the end, by the fourth one or whatever, he gets the award. He goes, thank you, and walks off. And it's, you know, we're starting to see what success is doing to Dirk Diggler and changing him a bit. And so now we cut to, you know, December 31st, 1979. This is the end of the '70s, beginning of the '80s, New Year's Eve. 1980. Um, and Buck now kind of looks like Rick James. Is that what he's going for?

Nic

I'm not sure, but it is one of those, uh, one of those outfits for sure. He's got like kind of the long braids. Yes. And everything. Yeah, it's, it's a crazy look though. Very bright, very out of place with everybody else.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, and this is the 1980, or it's about to be 1980 New Year's party at Jack's house, right? Exactly. Um, the first kind of crew that we have, so we've got a couple crews that are getting together here. We've got the Colonel who's coming there with his friend Floyd Gondoli. That's right. I think what Floyd Gondoli is, maybe like a competitor or somebody who does the same thing as them but maybe at a different level, because what he's talking about is like, you know, make them cheap, more amateur home videos, like the new way to go. Amateurs, that's the way to do it.

Steve

Philip Baker Hall, great actor.

Nic

Yes, really good.

Steve

Fantastic.

Nic

Yeah, he's— we've seen him, we've seen him a lot. Um, and Jack is just like like, no, like, I'm a filmmaker. I love Jack's delusion. Like, he's been able to create this bubble around himself. Yep. That he is— he's a good person and he's a father to these people and he's a filmmaker. And like, nothing— you know how we were talking about they don't mention the ages or any of that? That hasn't occurred to Jack because he is in this world that he's created for himself where he's the good guy, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, so that ends with him being like, you know, fuck you guys, I'm not switching to home video. I'd rather go spend New Year's with my friends.

Steve

Yeah, he leaves. Yeah. And, uh, there's one point in here Dirk is with Amber in her room and she asked him to do coke. Apparently he's never done coke before, which I find a little hard to believe that 3 years in the adult porno industry he never once did cocaine. Yeah, a little surprising. But he does it, he enjoys it. They— do they fuck or do they just— I can't— I think they just hang out.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And she kisses him or something, but like they don't— I don't think— I don't know.

Nic

And she wants to like be his mom. It's a little weird, you know, it's a little strange. It's very odd, you know, but it's like, it's a crazy coke conversation, right?

Steve

Yeah. And, um, so when— although I just noticed a note I got here— so when they're talking to, uh, what's Phil Baker Hall's character?

Nic

Floyd Gondoli.

Steve

Floyd. When they're talking, uh, he's talking to Jack and he says something about like, I'm a simple man who I have simple pleasures, I like butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth. Yeah. The Colonel, I don't know if he— I don't know if the character's supposed to be laughing or if the actor was just breaking because he is laughing his ass off, you know, out of focus behind him. He is busting up at that line. I like butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth. I like simple things.

Nic

I know, that line is so funny. It's almost like one of those Tim Robinson lines where it's intentionally off-putting just so that you don't stop thinking about it. So, so Dirk has just left from doing coke for the first time, right? And he walks out. So one character who's just walked into the party I love so much is Thomas Jane's character Todd Parker. And he busts in through the gate, one of the most most like emphatic entrances, you know. And he just like, now the party's here, kind of look, you know. And he has the perfect shithead like mustache, leather jacket kind of look. And he and Reed are talking about— he's like, oh, you see that orange Corvette out in the front? The look on his face as he's talking about Dirk's Corvette, and, you know, probably a lot of made-up stuff that he's saying about it, you know.

Steve

He's like, overhead cam, yeah, this and that.

Nic

But he last says, uh, 10 boats, a competition, or full fucking race cams. So, so Reed and Todd Parker are hanging out, and Reed really wants to introduce Todd to Dirk. Yeah. So Dirk comes out from doing coke, and, uh, and Scotty's there, right? Scotty is like lurking outside the door. He's been posted up since Dirk went in there, and he's like, oh, Dirk, Dirk, I gotta show you something, I gotta show you something. And of course he gets pulled away for a minute to meet Todd. Scotty finally takes him out. He's like, okay, I gotta show you this thing, you know. He's making Dirk like, close up.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And again, great Philip Seymour Hoffman being like, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, follow my voice. You're one foot—.

Steve

I can hear your footsteps, you know.

Nic

So, um, but he shows him his car, which is this really sick Datsun 280Z, and he's so proud of it. And he has like a jacket, you know, cool guy jacket. He's like leaning up against it and everything. Uh, so it seems cool, but then, you know, Scotty, who's clearly in love with Dirk, tries to kiss him. Dirk is very cool. The way he deals with it is incredibly gentle.

Steve

Well, he's shocked. Like, it's clear he has had no idea Scotty was in. Sure. I mean, it just didn't cross his mind. He was completely shocked. But his response is not, fuck you. It's just, Scotty, what are you doing? Yeah. Like, Scotty, we're friends. Like, what are you doing? This is not, you know, no, no, no, no, no, come on. And, and Scotty, you know, is just like kind of trying to apologize, trying to say this, that, whatever. And he's, you know, I feel bad for the guy. Like, obviously he's in love. You know, it's unrequited because, you know, Dirk's not gay, so he doesn't— he's not going to be with Scotty. Like, whatever. But, you know, I just feel terrible for Scotty. But, you know, he basically had asked Dirk, like, you want to go for a ride in the car? And he's like, well, no, We got the party here, man. Let's go back inside. And this— now Dirk has to like walk away, and Scotty basically gets into the car and calls himself an idiot over and over again.

Nic

Amazing meltdown. I mean, so powerful. He's just a fucking idiot. And they, and they let it hang on screen for just long enough that you have to be uncomfortable from it.

Steve

Yes, agreed. Yeah, another great choice by Anderson.

Nic

Yeah. So, uh, and so then the last kind of one of the characters that we, we have an adventure with this night is we've got Little Bill, and he's walking around He's got his champagne and he's looking for his wife because it's about to be New Year for a new decade.

Steve

You're going to— you're going to kiss your wife at New Year's. It's totally normal.

Nic

And he's kind of walking around the house and different people are like, hey, Bill, you know, we're doing the countdown. And he walks into the bedroom door and clearly she's in there fucking a guy like she always is. And he just kind of gets this like blank look on his face, very matter-of-factly walks out to his car, opens it, takes a gun out there, locks his car up again, which I like. Um, and he walks in there, and as he's walking in there, someone's like, hey, we're gonna do the countdown, come on. And he pushes by, puts a bullet in his wife, kills his wife, kills the guy, and then walks out of the party and shoots himself in the mouth, splattering one of Jack's paintings, unfortunately. But yeah, really gross, uh, really brutal end for Little Bill. Yep. So yeah, that's like the end of the party, and then it just cuts black screen, very small font, just says '80.' Yep, exactly.

Steve

So now we are into the '80s. I think we start off with Amber interviewing Dirk and interviewing Reed and kind of interviewing Jack. And there's like, she's basically making a documentary about the work they all do kind of thing. And it's pretty cool. But when Dirk and Jack are sitting there talking together, Dirk starts making comments about like, "Oh, Jack, you know, he really trusts his actors. He lets me block my own sex scenes and all this stuff." Yes. You know, whatever. And Jack's like, "Uh, no, I don't." Like, it's clear. So like, one of the things we talk about here is the character arc, right? Of where Eddie Adams was is to where Dirk Diggler is now. Yeah. He's gone through this cycle of like completely novice to, you know, a very innocent, very well-meaning amateur, you know, kind of low-level professional, to where now he believes that he is God's gift to this industry and that he is untouchable. You know, he's gotten all those things that superstars, when they're not careful at least, you know, fall into as far as traps go. And he is full into it. Um, he makes a comment about, you know, when you're on top like Napoleon, everybody tries to get you even when you're trying to fight the Roman Empire. So it's just like very weirdly historically off. Clearly a high school dropout.

Nic

Yeah, it is so coke-coded. And like, the way that his acting of like being coked up is really funny, like really well done in the interview parts of that fake documentary. Yeah. Um, yeah, so we've got that. And now we've got, uh, Jack showing up to—.

Steve

He gets a phone call.

Nic

That's right, he gets a phone call and he's like, hey, slow down, slow down, Colonel, what's going on? You know? And he goes to the jail and he's talking to the Colonel through the ass. And the colonel tells this horrible story. Yeah, you know, somebody OD'd, whatever. This girl was 15 going on whatever, but I didn't touch her. But yeah, they found some other stuff, and they don't say exactly what it is, but this guy is just like world-class, some of the biggest like scum piece of shit ever, right?

Steve

It sounds like at a minimum he was photographing underage— yeah, kids kind of stuff in the nude, you know. He claims he never touched them, but like, give me a fucking break at that point, right? Totally. And again, the girl we saw him show up with at Jack's party originally. Oded, maybe she was just very skinny, but she looked like she was very young, you know. So, and so clearly that's who the Colonel is. And he keeps asking Jack like, are you still my friend? Yeah, he's my friend.

Nic

Jack, tell me you're my friend. And Jack's not saying anything.

Steve

And then it's like the, uh, I think even before Jack hangs up, it's like there's a certain amount of time they have and the time runs out. And Jack is just like, he leaves him. He's like, no, fuck this. Like, yeah.

Nic

And it's crazy with the Colonel like just soundlessly mouthing like, you're my friend, you're my friend. And he's like trying to hit the glass and everything. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Jack is just fully done Disgusted there.

Steve

And it's good to see that Jack has at least some scruples. So there's some lines about it. Yeah, there's a line to be not crossed.

Nic

There's someone that Jack thinks he is not. Yeah, he's like, I'm not that fucking— exactly, you know, which is at least nice to see, I guess.

Steve

Um, I mean, it's a little, you know, when you look back at how early he started working with Roller Girl and Eddie slash Jerk, it's a little kind of— but we also get the sense what the Colonel's been doing are much younger kids than like almost 18. Yeah, you know, so So, um, not that I'm excusing that.

Nic

No, no, but I mean, but at least in Jack's head there's a separation, even if he's doing the exact same shit, right? Uh, so now we're at Becky's wedding, and I think Becky and Jerome— so Becky is one of the other actresses, um, beautiful Black woman, and she's married to Jerome, who it showed her meeting at one of the parties, I think, and they were talking about like astrological signs.

Intro Clip

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

And he's not in the porn world. Yeah, he says he's a manager at Pep Boys. He's like auto parts store management and stuff. So they kind of have a different life. And at this wedding, Jack introduces Dirk to like one of the new guys that he has working with him, Johnny Doe. Johnny Doe, who is such a hilariously bad actor, I think on purpose. But every— he's like, you're Dirk Diggler.

Steve

It's like, man, I'm so, so starstruck.

Nic

Yeah, it's really funny.

Steve

I did love— there's a little thing that I noticed with this where it felt very much like in Goodfellas when we're getting the voiceover from Karen at their wedding. Wedding about how like the social circle was just the mob people. It's the same thing. This social circle is just these people work in porn industry. Totally. Basically, I'm sure Jerome had his family and friends there too, but what we basically see are all the cast and crew of all of Jack's movies are the people at this wedding. Yeah. And I think it's even the reception's like at Moe's nightclub, isn't it? Isn't that where it is? It looks like Maurice's nightclub. So yeah, but it's, it was an interesting thing I noticed about— it felt like Goodfellas in that way.

Nic

Another quick prop to Philip Seymour because I'm sure that this was, you know, him on purpose, or P.T. Anderson. At one point he's at the wedding and he cuts himself off a piece of the wedding cake, but he cuts like the thinnest, widest piece of cake and then flops it onto a plate that it doesn't contain. And he's kind of like eating it off the side of the plate, and it's just like, dude, if you take the biggest genius in the world and say like, what could you make this guy do that hammers home the type of character Scotty is? It was so like so good, pathetic and disgusting and sad and everything all at once. I really love that choice. Yeah. So Dirk takes off from this wedding. He's pissed about meeting Johnny Doe, and Todd is there at the door like, hey, come on, let's get out of here. Yeah, so Tom Jane is—.

Steve

Yeah, and I want to say that the entrance of Todd initially was almost as memorable as Thomas Jane's exit from the movie The Mist, but we won't get to that one because I don't know if you've seen The Mist. Oh dude, well, unfortunately it's like 2007 or whatever, but he has to kill his own kid and then finds out he didn't have to. It's a lot of fun, really upper, upper, upper ending to that movie. But anyway, Anyway, no, love Thomas Jane. And yeah, so now he is introducing, they're back at Jack's, and apparently Todd is introducing Dirk to crystal meth now. So now they're snorting meth, and obviously that's a different high, and it's like doing something, and they're really into it. And Dirk, you know, has been pissed about the whole Johnny Doe stuff and like being replaced, whatever. He saw like Amber talking to the girl, whatever. He goes into the bathroom to basically work himself hard, and he's struggling, right? He can't get hard. I've never done crystal meth, but I have heard that that is a side effect of using it. And so, you know, he can't get her, but then he finally goes out to the— to the back, out to the pool, and tells Jack, I'm ready to go. Yeah, we got to shoot now. I'm hard. Let's shoot. And Jack's like, yeah, 20 minutes. Like, I'm not ready. He's like, no, no, no, we're shooting now. And like, it's a huge fight. Dirk basically pisses off everybody there, everybody who's a friend of his except for like Reed. And Todd, you know, isn't kind of— he's on Dirk's side. But basically, like, Jack almost fights Dirk.

Nic

Oh yeah.

Steve

And then fires him. Yeah, it's like, you're fired. Get the fuck out of here. Like, you're gone. On. Um, and that— and then Reed is kind of like, hey man, I'll work it out, Jack, don't worry, I'll get him back, it'll be fine, you know, kind of thing. But Dirk leaves, he's like, fuck it, I'm out of here.

Nic

No, and this part of the Burt Reynolds moments in the movie, this is one of his best. Yeah, like him just getting furious and flipping, really had the energy of like a parent who's been betrayed by his kid and is just fucking fed up with him. Um, yeah, so they're out of there, and now we've got another, uh, indication of the date where March 1983, right? And every time, right, it gets real dark, we've got a little levity, you know? So we got real dark with that fight, that was very disturbing. And now we've got Dirk Diggler laying down some vocals for his music demo, which—.

Steve

Why is he doing The Touch by Stan Bush? Like, it's not like an original song, it's a cover of a song from the Transformers movie.

Nic

Like, I don't know, it fits very perfectly, right? Um, he's so— he is just awful. And to the point that he's— he has to try to sing as bad as he's singing. He's straining. So, you got the touch.

Steve

He's speak singing, kind of like he isn't even really singing. I guess it's really bad.

Nic

Um, um, so, you know, we've got him doing his mu— his music demo, uh, and there's just Reed watching from the sound booth. So this song is happening, we're just seeing Dirk Diggler, and it's dog shit. And then it goes back to the sound booth, and the sound booth operator is, uh, one of the Penns, not Michael Penn I think it's Michael Penn or Chris Penn, one of those.

Steve

No, it's not Chris, it might be Michael.

Nic

It's not Chris. Uh, so anyway, he's just like, oh my God, fucking kill me, I can't believe this is my job. And then, uh, Reed is standing behind him dancing like Jason Sudeikis on What Up With That on SNL, like doing his— like, that's really good, man. Um, yeah, so that, that's going on. And of course, like, we're doing a ton of coke and we keep going back to the conversation as well, I think.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, so we're getting into all drugs, but we're cutting to some of the other characters as well. We see Roller Girl taking her has to take her GED. Yep. Um, we see Johnny as the new star every once in a while. And now we're noticing too that, uh, Jack is shooting on video. Yes. So the quality is reduced. I think this is at some point in this sequence. I think he walks through like the warehouse where the videotapes and stuff. So it's like, you know, he's— he basically accepted Floyd's thing, especially after the Colonel was gone. He needs a new finance guy, or he needs to make it for a lot cheaper, you know, the whole deal. So, you know, that's the situation he's in. He's now doing video, which he said he would never do. We see Buck and Jesse, who— Dirk was kind of dated for a little bit. I think she was an actress, a porn actress as well. Yes. And she like painted some pictures of a few of the artists.

Nic

So some of the paintings show up.

Steve

Yep. But she and Buck are together, have been, it looks like, for a couple of years. And Buck is trying to get a loan because he wants to open his own stereo store. You know, he knows enough about the stuff. He worked at somebody else's for long enough. He wants to do his own. So we see him going in to do that. And it's just— oh, and then I love too. To show us the changing of the times, we see Jack and his camera guy shooting a new scene with these two women we're not familiar with in the movie, but they're in like a hot tub and they have just the most cartoonishly enormous fake breasts. Crazy. And it's like, oh, it's the '80s, isn't it?

Nic

You know, like, for sure. Um, yeah, so now Jack's— everything Jack has done is like, yeah, bad quality, you know, everything he was fighting against. But we have all the characters kind of trying to do what they think they need to do to turn their life around or survive here.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

We get a cut now to September 1983, and we have Amber, we got Julianne Moore, and she's in the courtroom, or, you know, in it, like a whatever conference room with the judge and her ex and the lawyer and stuff. And they're talking about custody of her son. Very upsetting scene, but clearly she's learned no lessons. She's lying. She's not, not fit to have the kid around, right? There's a scene earlier we didn't mention, but there was a party at Jack's house.

Steve

The phone rang. Them.

Nic

And Maurice picked it up, and it was a kid looking for their mom. They couldn't find who it was because they're all using fake names, right?

Steve

Because they don't know anyone's real name. Ask for Maggie.

Nic

Yeah, Maggie is right. Um, yeah, so then it kind of— at the end of that, after he said, no, sorry, she's not here, hangs up the phone, and it cuts to her looking up from a coke, uh, table. Exactly. So, you know, she's clearly fucked all this out, but it's a really, really powerful scene. Her husband's pissed at her, and it's not gonna go her way. And then it just cuts to her just just like deeply sobbing outside the building.

Steve

The cut's fantastic because the cut comes from— so the ex-husband says, you know, she's been arrested, uh, or she gets arrested all the time, something like that. And she goes, well, no, no, not anymore, like whatever, like that's in my past. And so the judge says, well, you know, when was the last time you were arrested? And she— I think she says like, you know, well, you know, like— or she's— no, the judge asks, what were you arrested for? The last time you were arrested? And she doesn't respond right away. We get a brief hold on her for a second or two, and then it cuts. Yeah, her just absolutely bawling outside on the street, um, which clearly it didn't go way, which, you know, look, we like Amber. She's a character we're rooting for in this movie, but she should in no way be— have the, you know, custody of her child if she's doing this number amount of drugs and she is living in that environment. Like, she can claim all she wants that Jack's house is not what her ex-husband says it is, but it pretty much is.

Nic

So yeah, and she's not in the condition to like watch over a kid the whole time anyway. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, so that's her kind of evolution now. Um, so Jack in in the progression of his product becoming cheaper and more gimmicky and more exploitative, is now driving around in a limo with Roller Girl, right? So there's two things happening at the same time. Maybe we'll just separate the two things instead of bouncing back and forth like that.

Steve

That's a good idea.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve

Um, but we should, but we should mention, over these two sequences, the same score is playing. And you were talking about the score earlier, and the music here is perfection.

Nic

It's absolutely the tension building of it. It's just, it's incredible. Amazing.

Steve

Amazing. But yeah, but let's start with the Jack and Roller Girl sort of sequence, right? Even though it does cut back and forth. So they're in a limo and they've got the camera in there and he's got like a microphone, like he's hosting a show, you know? And he's like, "We're gonna pick somebody up off the street and see if they wanna fuck Roller Girl," that kind of thing. And Roller Girl's like, "Yeah, I'm into it," kind of thing. And so they're talking to somebody and at first they're like, you know, "You go to school?" He's like, "Yeah." He's like, "Where?" He's like, "Is it okay if I don't tell you where I go?" But he later, like a minute later drops that he goes to CSUN, to Cal State Northridge. But, you know, he basically looks at her at one point and goes, was like, yeah, we went to school together. Isn't your name Brandy? Like, huh, that's interesting, or whatever. And she's kind of like, oh no, not me. But like, this is—.

Nic

I think this is the guy from Second Motion.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

So from here, Jack should have hired on the spot if he knew about that.

Steve

But yeah, so, so they start fucking and they're filming it, and Jack's trying to direct the guys like, hey, you're covering her up, you know, you can't— you'll make it look sexy. You can't just go in like that. Make it look sexy. And she is not fucking enjoying it at all. No. And, and finally it's like, okay, fucking stop this. This isn't— we're not getting anything we can use, which is I don't know how the porno industry, I've never been in the porno industry, obviously. I don't know how it worked in the '70s and '80s, but I've heard things about how often they get tested for stuff. And I mean, you know, this was still kind of pre the AIDS crisis really being understood to reach heterosexual sex the way that we know we now understand it does. But it seems like you wouldn't want to just pick somebody up off the street and not like have them tested and have them work with your performers. It's terrible. It doesn't make any sense from like a, from the business of that business, you know, kind of thing. But they try and it doesn't fucking work. Work. Um, and finally they're just like, no, fuck it. And he's just like, oh, you know, you should have jerked me off at least. You got me hard.

Nic

You know, I gotta, I gotta say something about that mentality because, um, I don't understand a guy feeling so put off by like, oh, you gave me a boner and now, now what do I have to do? My favorite thing in the world to take care of it?

Steve

The thing I've done on at least a multi-weekly basis since I was 14.

Nic

Like, what the fuck are you complaining about, dude? Yeah, so, so he, he ends up— they kick him out of the limo. They're like, dude, okay, this isn't gonna work, get out of here. And he's being very rude, and he's about to go, and then he sticks his head and he's like, you know what, your fucking films suck now.

Steve

Yeah, right.

Nic

And then Jack loses his mind, gets out, and just starts punching this guy in the face. He's got him on the ground and everything. Yeah. Um, as he's kind of getting pulled off a little bit, Roller Girl comes up with— this is some real Pesci-style whooping because I can, I can very viscerally imagine the weight of a roller skate on my foot from all the times I've been roller skating.

Steve

100%.

Nic

It is so heavy.

Steve

Yeah, especially back then. These were not Rollerblades. These were not like made of, you know, some acrylic titanium and that thing. It's like heavy plastic and metal and that's it.

Intro Clip

Oh yeah, dude.

Nic

So she, after this guy was already beaten and bloody, like, she is just stomping him, uh, with her roller skates.

Steve

I thought she was killing him. I'll be honest with you. But they do, as they pull the limo away, they show that he is moving around. Yeah, so he's not dead, but oh my god, she's stomping his face. Again, the music in this whole sequence is building and building in this incredible way. And so let's cut now. So that was the entire sort of like— so while that's happening, the movie is cutting back and forth between that and Dirk standing on a street corner. Yep. A pickup truck pulls up to him. I recognize from other movies, but I don't know what now. Like, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Nic

I've seen him in a few other things, and the only thing I definitely know him from is this. And when I've seen those other things, I'm like, hey, that's the guy that paid Dirk Diggler to watch him jack off. And my mom's like, what the hell? It's Christmas.

Steve

So he picks Dirk up. He asks Dirk, are you waiting for somebody? He goes, yeah, but I don't know if they're coming. We don't really know what he's doing, who he's waiting for or what. I don't think that's clear at all.

Nic

No, I think what he's doing is out there hustling what that guy pays him for.

Steve

I kind of figured that, but I don't think, for some reason it wasn't clear to me. I wasn't sure what's going on there, but he gets in and he asks the guy for $20 to watch him jerk off because, you know, inflation.

Nic

I was going to say, this is subtle commentary on Reaganomics back in the '70s. It was $10.

Steve

It was $10. Now it should be $20, but the guy's only got $10. So this is the crazy part to me. The dude watches him try to jerk off, and he— and Dirk's not— he's not staying hard. He can't do it, like, whatever. At which point, that's like when he decides, like, basically, dude, I can't do it. I'm just gonna, like, I'm gonna leave now. An entire other pickup truck full of guys who's clearly with this dude, yeah, all pull up and like, you shouldn't be doing this, F-slur, like, we're gonna beat you up. And they beat the shit out of him. This, you know, they're basically gay bashing because they think he's gay.

Intro Clip

Yeah, whatever.

Steve

And what I didn't understand is like, what was the plan for this? Were these guys always going to drive up at that time, like randomly? Like what?

Nic

Like it seemed like he was trying to get him to start doing the thing so that they'd have proof enough to like beat up Dirk Kegler. But okay, a couple problems with the scene. One, his— your friends aren't watching and trying to make sure that you're authentically enjoying this. And he's like looking and licking his lips and being like, oh, faster, faster.

Steve

Yeah, he seems into it.

Nic

Doesn't need to do that. Um, and also Oh, the opportunity lost. There was a guy blocks away who was definitely gonna jerk off who you could have watched if Dirk couldn't do it. The guy who just got booted out of the limo.

Steve

Yeah, right.

Nic

You could jerk him off for him. Yeah, he could use it. He's had a rough night. So, oh man. Yeah, so just an absolute— just a merciless beatdown of Dirk. So he's just been degraded to the maximum degree, him and Roller Girl and Jack, and just everything is shit.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And as they're driving— I forget which one is driving away. I think one drives by on the road and then the other drives by the other direction. So we kind of see this action's all happening real nearby, right? And then we see this Volvo station wagon, which is Buck and Jesse.

Steve

Yeah, and Jesse's pregnant. Jesse is pregnant and, uh, asks Buck for a few different donut— they're at a donut shop. She asks for a few different options, I mean, bear claws and a few other things. So he goes inside and, you know, he's feeling good about getting her some donuts. He goes and he tells a guy he wants a dozen. There's just one other dude sitting in the donut shop. It's clearly late at night. Yeah, um, I almost got the Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. That's who I look like. But I almost got the sense that this is the parking lot that Dirk— I thought they were gonna see Dirk in that parking lot. It seemed like it was that spot.

Nic

They are really near, yeah, actually.

Steve

I'm not 100% sure, but they definitely don't see Dirk. You know, it doesn't happen. But basically he goes in, he orders these donuts, and as he's getting ready to leave to pay, a dude comes in to rob the donut shop. He's got a gun, he's like pointing it, "Give me the money, I'll give him the money in the safe," the whole deal. And Buck, totally reasonably, is fucking freaked out. He's got his hands up, he's like, "Okay, fine, fine, I'm not gonna touch anything," whatever. But the other motherfucker, the Andy Reid dude in the thing, has got his own gun and decides he's just gonna go in He's gonna not get up and he just pull it and like aim it at the dude. And it's like eventually, and Buck sees him and it's like, "No, no, no, don't do that, don't do that, whatever." So the guy in the booth shoots the shooter and then the shooter shoots the guy in the, the robber shoots the guy in the booth. And then as the guy in the booth is dying, his hand goes up and he pulls the trigger again and shoots the donut clerk in the head. That splatters all over Buck. So now Buck is covered in the dude's brains, but he also had the cash from the safe in the bag.

Nic

Yeah, it was a paper bag full of hundreds.

Steve

And so, and you know, Buck just got denied. We didn't mention this. He got denied for that loan to open his stereo store. So he decides he's going to open the stereo store with this money instead. So he takes it and goes and really, um, can't blame him, but also that's not a great choice. I don't know.

Nic

Very, very Tarantino-like.

Steve

Uh, yeah.

Nic

The way, you know, everything went down so quickly and so unexpected.

Steve

Um, which again, should mention, because we're talking about it, Tarantino, Rodriguez, Anderson, these guys were all friends with each other. They all knew each other. They're working at the same time in LA. They're all friends.

Nic

They're probably watching the same old movies together and they're being influenced and watching each other's shit.

Steve

Like, I mean, I've watched an interview recently from back in the, from about '98, '99 where Anderson was talking about, uh, how he saw a cut of Reservoir Dogs with Tarantino that was this super shitty, like 16mm, uh, 1:33, you know, 1:33 ratio. Like it wasn't, it was like a square. Like it wasn't, you know, it was like 4:3 instead of like widescreen. And he's like, Tarantino, you're not gonna watch this. I guess like, no, no, watch, dude. This is gonna be great. Great. Look at how good the movie is even when it's fucked up. Let's watch it. And it's like— and that's— Anderson got this idea of like, my movies need to look good even on like shitty prints, nice, with shitty audio, with whatever. It's still got to work, right? Yeah, like, dude, I don't want to be the guy that has to have a perfect, you know, environment for the movie to work. And that's a very Tarantino attitude and something that Anderson then, you know, took on himself as well. But yeah, so these guys are all buddies working in LA together and influencing each other, all around the same age. And so yeah, definitely this felt very Mexican standoff at the end of Reservoir Dogs, right?

Nic

Yeah. So, so it just, it ends with that, right? We've got that cash on the ground, and now title card again, Long Way Down, parentheses, One Last Thing. Yep. We've got Todd Parker. Oh, Todd. We've got Reed, we've got Dirk, all sitting around a table kind of hatching a plan. Again, this is similar to kind of the Reservoir Dogs swingers, like, table scene that we were just talking about.

Steve

Things tying these movies together.

Nic

Wednesday. Yeah. Um, and then Scotty is kind of just like hanging. So to picture Scotty's existence in this friend group is very funny because he's just like there while they're doing all this stuff, and he's not fully included, but he doesn't want to go, and he's still— I don't know, it's really good. So Todd Parker has this plan, okay? And his plan is, I know this guy, uh, and Todd Parker, what his job is, is he's a dancer at like a men's, you know, kind of like Thunder from Down Under type thing or whatever. Uh, and he's like, I know this guy named Rayhad Jackson. He's, you know, into all this stuff, all these drugs, guns and stuff. He's got more money and more drugs than God. All right, he comes in the club all the time. He loves me, he knows me. Here's my plan. We're gonna get a bunch of stuff that looks like coke, sell it to him as coke, right? He just wants people hanging around his house, so he'll definitely buy it from us. Yeah, hack the money up. And then, you know, there we go. That's as far as we go with planning. We're cokeheads.

Steve

Yeah. And Dirk's like, oh great, that's enough money for me to get the vet fixed because that's the most important thing.

Nic

So, and this is something that is a deleted part of the movie. So, because later it shows the vet, and the vet is smashed up when it drives away. I think there was a scene in the movie where Becky, who we were at her wedding earlier, was being like beaten up by her husband, and Dirk went to go like try to help her, but he crashed his vet on the way.

Steve

Oh Jesus.

Nic

And ended up, you know, not being able to get to her. But I think that's why the vet is fixed. And I almost wonder if P.T. Anderson intentionally put the fucked-up vet in later with the hopes that the other stuff wouldn't get cut.

Steve

You know, well, but he had final cut, so it was, it was obviously he decided to cut it because of the timing or some other reason.

Nic

They did give him a time limit, so he had to make some choices there. Um, but yeah, so they decide, all right, we got some, we got some fake coke, we're gonna go to this guy's house, and that's our plan.

Steve

And I love too, Dirk asks, well, what if he tests it? What if he tries out? He won't, he won't. How do you know? And that's my thought too, like, that's fucking insane. Like, every other movie I've seen where somebody goes to try to like like sell coke to somebody, they test it every time. In fact, they usually make you test it.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, you stick a switchblade in the side of the cellophane and you pull it out. We all know how to do this.

Steve

Exactly right.

Nic

Um, I, I will say, going into this, this scene might be my favorite scene of any movie. I love it so fucking much. The whole Alfred Molina scene is just unbelievable.

Steve

Loved it and also, also hated every second of it in a lot of ways.

Nic

Uh, it makes you uncomfortable for sure.

Steve

So uncomfortable. The dude throwing the M80s, the firecrackers, and the whole thing was just ever— I jumped with the characters every single time. Yeah, they never— I never knew when it was coming. Even you could see the guy on screen doing it, it still felt really random and this stuff. And they're super loud. At first I was like, oh, those are the loudest. Remember those poppers, the little like white things? Yes, I thought that's what they were. And then I saw them light one, I went, oh shit, they're fucking M80s.

Nic

Inside a really fancy nice house.

Steve

But when they first walk in though, the song song that's playing. Yes, it's Sister Christian by Night Ranger.

Nic

Really good.

Steve

It's a glorious song. So good.

Nic

Yeah. So they get to this guy's house, okay, and he's got, you know, just your classic very nice fancy Hollywood Hills house. They get to the door and there's like a double layer of gates. He has this personal security guard who looks kind of like a Ving Rhames.

Steve

I thought it might be Ving Rhames at first, and I got a better look at him, it clearly wasn't. But the first couple shots you don't really see much of him, and I thought, is that Ving Rhames? Yeah, it's not.

Nic

Um, and then we've got Rayhad Jackson, who's Alfred Molina, and he's in this like silk robe. Yeah, it just clearly coked and drunk out of his mind, just dancing around his living room listening to his mixtapes and stuff. And then we've got this other guy who looks like he's 12 years old. Yeah, I mean, it looks like a 12-year-old, uh, Chinese kid who's wearing like pajamas, who's kind of randomly walking around the room lighting and throwing these— yeah, these firecrackers everywhere. So yeah, throughout the scene we've got the music, and then at random intervals holes, we've got the firecrackers going off.

Steve

The firecrackers were not in the script. That actor playing that part was a personal friend, not an actor at all, a personal friend of Paul Thomas Anderson who actually did that at a party. And when he did, Anderson said, you should come to the set and we're gonna use that.

Nic

That's so cool.

Steve

And that's what he ended up, how he added it in. So none of the actors knew that was coming when they got to set that day to film that scene. Crazy. And it's by far the most, the fucking dopest, like part of the whole scene is this crazy tension-building firecracker sound.

Nic

You can see them reacting to it. Yeah, right. So, so we've got Ray Had and he's, and he's grooving out. He's like, oh, what do you guys have for me, man? They're like, oh, we got some coke. How much? How much? $5 grand. He's like, $5 grand?

Steve

Okay, okay.

Nic

Just super chill cuz he's got unlimited money. He just wants people hanging out, right? So they send the coke to his guy and he's walking around and all the stuff he's saying, you know, like, uh, Jack Palance won the Best Supporting Actor for City Slickers and he had a very brief scene in the movie. And I wonder if this would have been long enough for Molina to be considered for this. I think he maybe didn't move the action quite enough But I love everything he does here, right? And when he's talking about his mixtapes, yeah, what I do is I put my favorite songs on the tapes and everything.

Steve

The problem Alina had with that is that Reynolds was classified as a supporting actor, so it's just he's gonna overshadow everybody else. And there were so many other great supporting parts. The beauty of Pallance in City Slickers is that you got, yeah, you got Crystal and you got Daniel Stern and you got Bruno Kirby, but then that's it. Like, that's the whole, you know, so then you bring in another guy and it can be a thing. Here you have had 7 other people who could have been Best Supporting Actors.

Nic

That's very true. That's very true. Um, so, so they're doing this transaction here, and, uh, and one of the things that, uh, that Rayhead says, oh, you guys want to see something here? And he pulls out this case and he's got this really, you know, beautiful looking revolver. Yeah, the silver bullet and everything's like, oh, watch this, watch this, watch this. And he does Russian roulette on himself, but while these firecrackers are going off So he's waving this gun around and you hear these firecrackers pop, pop, pop, pop as the 3 guys sitting on the couch are like flinching with them, you know, and they're just super out of their minds. Yeah. And it's just incredibly tense. You don't know what's gonna happen.

Steve

Meanwhile, bodyguard guy is apparently examining the quote Coke that they brought. So there's always— there's this tension of like, is he just gonna pop up and go, this is fucking baking powder or soda or whatever the fuck it is, baking soda, I think. But like, you know, is that something that's gonna happen right away? So there's this other thing. And so both Reed and Dirk are kind of like, "Hey, Todd, we gotta go, man. We gotta go. Let's go." And so they decide that they're gonna go, and that's when Todd's like, "No, we're not fucking going anywhere." There's a safe, there's a floor safe under the bed in the master bedroom. "I want what's in the safe." And it's like, "Whoa, dude, there's a lot of guns in this room. Where did this come from? Why is this happening now?" Yeah.

Nic

And he says it so quietly at first, and he's gotta repeat himself, and he's like, like, this is a goddamn bedroom in the goddamn floor and the fucking floor and the fucking floor safe in the goddamn fucking safe. And he's just so out of his mind. There's a scene where Dirk, uh, just like fully spaces out. It just zooms in on him and he's just like fully— which I can really— like, sometimes you're in these surreal situations where you're just like out of it for a minute because it wasn't even like he changed his behavior after that little space out, you know. He gets right back into it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So yeah, so Todd pulls out his gun and he's, you know, threatening Rahad. He shoots the bodyguard. Uh, Rahad comes out of the bedroom with a shotgun, just kills Todd right away. Yeah. And then Reed and Dirk take off out the door. They're getting shot at.

Steve

They're getting shot at. It's like they've got the vet in neutral. They got the vet in neutral, like rolling down the street. And like, you know, Dirk's able to get into it while the guy, you know, still shooting it up. Reed has to run off another direction. Yeah. I was worried about Reed, I gotta be honest. I was like, shit, is the guy gonna like hunt Reed down now? But sure enough, they go. Of course, he also, you know, Dirk out of money, his car is running out of gas. Yeah. So it stops and he has to push it all the way to Jack's house, basically in the morning. Now it's hours and hours. Yeah. That he gets to Jack's house. And this is another scene, both a great scene, both for Wahlberg and for Reynolds, where, you know, Dirk walks into Jack's house and Jack's like making breakfast or something. He's in the kitchen. And basically Dirk's just like, I'm sorry, but I need your help, Jack. Can you help me? Me. Like, I need your help. I don't know where to go. It's very vulnerable, uh, and it's, and it's the, you know, where this is one of the many ways in which the beginning and the ending of this movie rhyme, where, uh, it's clear that Jack and Amber are mom and dad and that this is a family, and it is better than the family he had. The mother that he had that was his actual mother didn't want him and threw him out and said horrible things to him, things that Amber would never say to him. Um, you know, his dad was completely ineffectual and did stand up to his mother on Dirk's behalf or Eddie's behalf. Yeah. And yet Jack is here to be protective and to be supportive and to be— to give him something to do. And now look, you can make all the judgments you want about the actual act of making pornographic films. I can, you know, whatever. In my mind, consenting adults are consenting adults. They do whatever the fuck they want. But you cannot deny that Jack and Amber's attitude towards these people, especially the younger people, like Dirk and Roller Girl, but even to Reed and to some others, is very familial, very parental, very protective. Yeah. And it's something that they weren't getting anywhere else in their lives. This is, this is the San Fernando Valley suburban white person gang.

Nic

No, you know, seriously is. I mean, it's like people— the idea is like everyone deserves to have this kind of a situation, whoever it is. Like, everyone deserves love and a sense of belonging and a sense of community. And sometimes these gangs, these groups of The Misfits have to form their own version of it. And yeah, that's such a good point that it's like, you know, uh, if O-Dog had a, had a huge cock, um, maybe Jack would help him out, get more cheeseburgers. Yeah. So, but yeah, I mean, it is, it is like so powerful, Dirk coming back. And so not, not saying that Jack owes him anything, not making it sound like I made you all this money, just fully like, I am at your mercy. Like, I, you know, and then Jack takes him in. He doesn't do what Paulie does in Goodfellas where he sends Henry, you know, walking.

Steve

You know, he hugs him, he brings him back into the fold because he also— I think, you know, Jack knows this was a kid who got in over his head, got too big for his britches, said some stupid shit. I threw him out when I should have thrown him out, but now he's back and he's clearly— there's— he's contrite, he's, he's, you know, uh, uh, you know, he feels horrible about what he said and did. And, and why wouldn't I take him back? You Yeah, you know, and I think it's fantastic. And so, and then we get all these kind of like wrap-up sort of elements, different people. So we see Buck has opened his store with the money he got from the donut robbery.

Nic

Uh, the ad for the store says, 'Come inside us.' Really good.

Steve

That's so good.

Nic

Um, and then we've got 'God Only Knows' by the Beach Boys, one of my favorite songs of all time, which is one of my favorite songs. It's so powerful.

Steve

So fucking powerful. And we get Roller Girl sitting for her GEDs. She's getting her GED. And then Maurice has gotten his brothers in from Puerto Rico, and they're changing up the name of the, uh, nightclub, which I think was like Hit Tracks or something, or someone. And now it's the— well, it should be the Rodriguez Brothers Nightclub, but it says Rodriguez, and it's like a Q instead of a G, and they notice and go, oh shit.

Nic

Um, yeah, we see the Colonel, you know, being like beaten up by his cellmate in jail. So we see some of that. Reed is now like kind of a— kind of like a horny magician kind of guy, one of those adult magician acts with a topless assistant.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, and Buck and Jesse have their baby.

Steve

Yes, that's right.

Nic

Yeah, so then we, we kind of get like a little while later than this because now the baby's like a little—.

Steve

The baby's like maybe 6 months or something. Yeah, it's in the pool.

Nic

Um, Becky, um, and, and we have the score again. We have this very like slow score and it's Jack kind of walking through his house. And this is really showing the sense of family. And he's even saying stuff to Roller Girl like, clean up, I want you to take the mess from one side of your room and push it over to the other side of your room.

Steve

It'll look cleaned up.

Nic

Yeah, it's so dad-like, you know. He's just— he's really good. But, but I had a huge problem with this movie, and, and I think a lot about the, the make it look like an accident from Desperado. All right, one line taking you out of the movie. Yeah, Jack is walking through the house and he goes outside and Reed is in the pool playing with Buck and Jesse's little baby.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, super cute.

Nic

And Jesse's painting a painting of them, and Jack is like, that kid's not gonna piss in the pool, is he? It's It's like, Jack, is piss your biggest pool concern?

Steve

Is it not a chlorinated pool?

Nic

Is your biggest concern, sir?

Steve

I, I read that, I'll be honest with you, first time watching it, but I read that as, as him telling a joke and Becky not getting it. That's how I read that. Like, but, but maybe that wasn't Jack telling it. I didn't think he was actually concerned. I thought that was him telling a joke. But yeah, um, but yeah, but Dirk's back in the game now too. Yeah, he's back in the game and, you know, he does— he's hyping himself up, he's going over his lines And this is when we get the reveal. Unfortunately for Mr. Wahlberg, we all know a prosthetic, not actually his member, but he does pull.

Nic

It's crazy. They had to make a smaller prosthetic to strap my real dick down.

Steve

Supposedly by legend, Willem Dafoe could have played this role without a prosthetic, at least is what we've been told in the past. But yeah, he reveals, he pulls the cock out and sort of, you know, lets it hang there. And he's, I am a superstar or whatever, right? So he says superstar, it's like our shining star. It's one of the two. But yeah, that's it. That's how it ends basically.

Nic

And that's it. Yeah, ends with the dong. So we finally get to see the dong at the end of this thing.

Steve

Yeah, that's what they did. I think it was good. It was sort of a, you know, it seemed like it could have been like a MacGuffin where we just never saw it. But I think showing it at the end is the right call. It's, it's a rated R movie that was flirting with an NC-17. Yeah, go ahead and show it to us.

Nic

Yeah, what the hell?

Steve

We've been hearing about it for 2 and a half hours, you know, it's like, so, so that's Boogie Nights.

Nic

So that's Boogie Nights. Well, this is my selection. Yeah. I'll kick it off here. Um, no surprise. I mean, I really feel like this movie is a fucking masterpiece. Like, with what he took for $15 million, and it's kind of like, that's the minimum budget you would need to like clear this music and hire these actors and stuff like that. Like, I don't think P.T. Anderson was like, okay, 7 for the movie and 8 for my pocket. No, no. Everything you see on the screen here. Yeah. The amount of actors who were like character actors at this time who went on to like be stars of their own movies or TV shows is incredible. Like, the number of people we see in this— I think all the performances are perfect. And then the themes of the movie, like just that you deserve to have a family. Like, there's a real sweetness to this. It's a challenging movie. I don't expect everyone to love it because there's parts of it that are tough to watch, that are disturbing. It's very long. Like, there's things about it that, that wouldn't draw everyone in. Um, and the last thing I will say is that if you do like this movie, there are, um, great special features if you ever get a hold of the DVD. The deleted scenes, some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen. There's extended scenes of Dirk and Reed recording their music and like mixing the music, which is great. Um, throughout the movie Maurice talks about how he wants to be in the movies, and there's a really funny scene of him trying to do do a scene with Roller Girl. Oh, interesting. Failing at it. Um, and there's more scenes of Todd Parker doing coke. So it's worth seeing that. And some stuff actually makes parts of the movie make sense. I think somewhere there's a reference that the new porn star Johnny, uh, Johnny Doe was killed in a car accident. Oh, and I wonder if that's—.

Steve

He did disappear at one point.

Nic

Yeah. So I wonder if that's removed because it makes it less impactful that Jack allowed Dirk back in. Fair. Because like, you know, then he would be like, well, I also need a new guy. That's true. Anyway, I think this movie was great. I— the original title that Paul Thomas Anderson picked, There Will Be Cum, I guess they didn't, they didn't use that. This is a masterpiece to me. This is a 5 out of 5. I love this movie so much, and, and I hope that people have enjoyed it and enjoyed hearing us chat about it.

Steve

Yeah, so I, you know, there's a great score, obviously, you know, it's hard to argue against. It's hard to ask for anything from this movie that it doesn't give review. Um, I had never seen it before, so I came in fresh, saw it the first time this week. Um, it really was a great experience. It is a long movie. It takes a little while to sort of, you know, get through the whole thing, but it also, it also doesn't feel fat. Like, it does still feel like it's pretty lean. It gives us a lot of stuff in montage. It's telling us, you know, 7-ish years worth of life for, for 10 characters. Yeah. So there's a lot going on. Um, I am a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan. I don't know anybody who who isn't at least a fan of at least one or two Paul Thomas Anderson movies, right? Like, you may not love everything he's done, but, you know, people who maybe hate Magnolia might love Punch-Drunk Love, or maybe, you know, you're not a fan of This, but you're big into, you know, There Will Be Blood, like, whatever, right? The guy's got such range as a filmmaker. I'm a little worried about grade inflation because this is the second week in a row that we're giving a 10 out of 10 to a movie, but it is what it is. Boogie Nights is a 5 out of 5 for me. I cannot ask for anything from this movie it doesn't give us. It's spectacular. So yeah, 10 out of 10 from the 2 Dads 1 Movie. Fantastic movie. Thank you.

Nic

I brought Steve one that he liked. I'm very happy about this.

Steve

You've done a couple. Yes. But this might be the first non-thriller that you've brought that I really like.

Nic

That's true.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Not in your niche.

Steve

All right. So next week we are up to 1998 because this is a David Zucker movie we're going to go watch. And we've seen Zucker do this. It was not with Abrahams and not with his brother Jeff, but this is a David Zucker joint from 1998. 1998, starring the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who of course have gone on now to nearly— they're almost EGOT status. They've got Tonys, they have Oscar nominations. I'm pretty sure they have Grammys. I know they have Emmys. So they're getting close to every, you know, to be able to do that. The movie's called Basketball, and it definitely flew under the radar. It was a bomb in the theaters. It took on, you know, a life of its own on DVD. And the fact that Comedy Central played an edited version of it every single night for like 4 years or whatever. Yeah. You know, from '99 to 2003, you could watch it every single night on Comedy Central. But Basketball is my pick for 1998. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. I haven't seen it in years, but like, this is one of, this is one of the last comedies that has that ZAZ style where every moment is loaded with jokes. Yeah. Joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. And we would go from that to, in the early 2000s, you start thinking about old school Anchorman, Step Brothers, where you've got that Adam McKay or Judd Apatow style where, you know, the humor's there, but it's a little bit— it's a lot more based on improv between the actors and character stuff, the character stuff, whatever, and a little, a little more heart potentially. But this was— this style of comedy is kind of like last gasp, uh, and I think Baseball is brilliant. So have you seen Baseball?

Nic

Dude, I have not seen it in a long time. I used to love it. Perfect. And, and I, and I hope that I still— I still say Steve Perry when I want somebody to to miss something. There's so much from this movie that, that is used in everyday life. I'm really excited to talk about this one.

Steve

I don't know anyone named Joe Cooper, and I still find ways to fit— it certainly does seem to be raining shit on Joe Cooper— into regular conversation if I can. Um, so yeah, so next week we will watch Basketball. Very excited about that. That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at 2 Dads 1 Movie 2dads2decades.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been Boogie Nights, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.

Nic

I'm Steve. And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.