The cheerfully moronic escapades of Dirk Diggler et al. shine a light on a dark void in the American landscape.
Paul Thomas Anderson has an announcement to make in the opening moments of 1997’s Boogie Nights, the first time most of us saw his work. (His only previous feature, Hard Eight, is a gem, but few saw it when it came out in 1996.) The announcement is: I’m a filmmaker who can’t be ignored. In a dazzling…
