Interview: Total Film

Cult movie 
Source: Total Film

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(Scans courtesy of Madisen Beaty Online)

November 29, 1999

Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005

More Entertainment Weekly Tidbits

Magnolia partially graces the cover of the November 26th issue which proclaims 1999 - The Year That Changed Movies. This article has many comments from Paul and is a definitive must read.

In addition, I have collected the rest of the highlights of the issue below:

They rank Magnolia as one to see for the rest of the year and into 2000:

After 1997's electric Boogie Nights, director Paul Thomas Anderson delivers an Altmanesque epic intertwining the lives of a guru (Tom Cruise), a cop (John C. Reilly), a salesman (William H. Macy), a dying father (Jason Robards) and other denizens of the San Fernando Valley. (Dec. 17 - L.A./NY)

They also list the new directors for the next millennium. The entire article is here, but this is what they had to say about Paul:

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: Hard Eight (1997) and Boogie Nights (1997) are the work of a Valley Boy full of nerve and verve gunning for the deluxe adrenaline rushes of Scorsese.

Lastly, they review various movie posters and here's what they had to say about the theatrical poster for Magnolia"

MAGNOLIA C

What's New Line's solution to selling a three-hour-plus drama with eight plots that are only tangentially related, and a superstar, Tom Cruise, reluctant to overshadow his fellow thespians? The Magic Eye route: Tom is tucked behind two petals near one o'clock. (You'll need to look at the real poster to find him.) While hiding Cruise's mug is risky business, the studio gets extra credit for referencing the movie's inexplicable plague-of-frogs scene with a Kermit in the corner.

Mike De Luca Article

Here's a nice article on Mike De Luca, president of New Line from Newsweek. It has a nice summary of his career and the fact that he is finally putting his "bad boy" image behind him.

 

The Latest Rumor on Paul's Next Movie

The latest rumor about Paul's next project seems to be the most unlikely to me. This scoop comes from the wonderful UK film magazine Total Film:

Southern book Blue Movie – detailing how a brother and sister form an American acting dynasty decide to make a porn film as an expression of high art – is looking like the next project for Paul Thomas Anderson to direct, reuniting Boogie Nights’ Mark Wahlberg and Heather Graham.

Courtesy of Total Film Magazine - November 1999

I find this rumor very far fetched as Paul has been down the porn road before, and I doubt he's ready to revisit it. 

Interview: "Do The Hustle"

Total Film Magazine UK, Written By Cam Winstanley
February ??, 1998


He's arrived. Boogie Nights has catapulted an ex-teen star onto Hollywood's hot list, showcasing his turn as a thrusting young trouser serpent called Eddie, sucked into the world of '70s porn. Director Paul Thomas Anderson tells how he made a funny, honest mainstream patch of the film biz.

Dog-eared stroke mags stuffed under mattresses. Fuzzy videotapes featuring fat Germans energetically servicing busty farmgirl types ("Ja, ja, ja! Ich kommen!") Men with scruffy moustaches peering around rickety doors, enquiring, "Mind if I join in?" Well-thumbed pocket-sized magazines containing 'all genuine' letters that start with phrases like "I'd always dreamt about sex with identical twins, but never imagined that it could happen to me."

Pornography is something that men are usually cagey and embarrassed about. They enjoy it, for the most part, and like to consume as large an acreage of fleshy skin tones as they can, but one with provison - no one else really knows about it. Not friends, not lovers, and certainly not parents.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson stands alone in that he's not afraid to proclaim his fascination with porn - in a two-and-a-half hour movie. It follows the life of teenage dishwasher Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) as he becomes porn megastar Dirk Diggler in a series of flicks directed by old time sleaze-merchant Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), and is as fascinating and funny as it is horrifying. Hold your head up high, and share your sins, Mr Anderson...

We heard you'd seen your first porn flick at the age of nine. How?