July 23, 1999

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

PT on the Set of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut

Because of the nature of the material--and also because it's how Kubrick always worked--filming on Eyes was an intensely intimate affair. Kubrick himself usually manned the camera, allowing only a handful of crew on the set. One outsider permitted to watch the proceedings was 29-year-old Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson (Cruise, who'll be appearing in Anderson's follow-up, Magnolia, smuggled him past security). "Kubrick had a really small crew," recalls Anderson. "I asked him, 'Do you always work with so few people?' He gave me this look and said, 'Why? How many people do you need?' I felt like such a Hollywood a--hole."

Aimee Mann label troubles/Magnolia music

Among the most publicized dropees has been ex-'Til Tuesday singer Aimee Mann, who's become the martyred poster child for axed artists. Last January, the critically admired Geffen singer played her third solo album to her new bosses. (The record includes tracks that may be featured in Paul Thomas Anderson's December movie, Magnolia.) "At first they told us they liked [it]," says Mann's manager, Michael Hausman. "But later we found out they didn't like it so much. I met with Jimmy [Iovine, former Interscope cohead-turned-Interscope Geffen A&M cochair], and he was like, 'You'll have to excuse me, it's so crazy here--we're merging bathrooms.' I've got an artist who spent two years making a record, and this guy's telling me about bathrooms." In early May, Mann received official word she'd been let go. Adding insult to penury, to take her unreleased record elsewhere, she must first buy back the master tapes from UMG, which could run into several hundred thousand dollars. (UMG would not comment on the status of these negotiations.)

July 19, 1999

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

I received an e-mail today letting me know that a title for the film used during shooting was The Rose

July 18, 1999

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

Paul has final cut

Ideally, the studio and director have nailed down the details before filming begins. New Line production's president and COO, Michael De Luca, has given Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson final cut on his next film, Magnolia; he says that it is vital to have as many meetings as possible before the deal with the filmmaker is even signed. "It's something in general we'd rather not do, but after Boogie Nights it became part of Paul's deal," De Luca says. "But Paul and I are so close it's a trust issue." (De Luca also supported the two and a half hour running time of Boogie Nights and says he only regrets that the movie wasn't longer "with a disco intermission.")

July 15, 1999

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

John C Reilly and a little tidbit on Magnolia

REILLY TAKES A “STORM”: Emerging as the perfect guy to play a male buddy, John C. Reilly will join George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg in the Warner Bros. pic “A Perfect Storm,” playing an experienced fisherman who joins the other two in the ill-fated voyage of the Andrea Gail. Film, to be directed by Wolfgang Petersen, is based on the bestselling nonfiction account by Sebastian Junger.

It’s Reilly’s second tour with Wahlberg after playing his porn star buddy in “Boogie Nights,” a film that launched Reilly into playing Kevin Costner’s best buddy and catcher in “For the Love of the Game,” the Beacon/Universal drama about a pitcher’s perfect game that will open Sept. 17.

Reilly gets a chance to be the star this Christmas in New Line’s “Magnolia.” He’s the central figure playing a police officer in a star-studded ensemble directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, for whom Reilly starred in “Hard Eight” and “Boogie Nights.”

February 1999

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

Paul - Y2K and beyond!

Paul listed was listed as one of the 20 talents we'll still be talking in the Year 2020.

"This auteur's skill with the quill - his control of interlaced story lines, his creation of complex characters, and his attraction to society's underbelly - aligns him more with Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and even Billy Wilder than with the would-be Tarantino crowd.

Interview: Roger Ebert Q&A

Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook
1999


Chicago, October 1997 - Paul Thomas Anderson has made one of the best films of 1997, and at age twenty-seven is getting the kind of attention no young director has had since Quentin Tarantino erupted. His Boogie Nights, which follows a cast of colorful characters through six eventful years in the adult film industry, is the year's best-reviewed film - a hit at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals.

Although the film's subject matter is touchy, Boogie Nights is not a sex film; porno supplies the backdrop to a traditionally structured Hollywood story about an unknown kid (Mark Wahlberg) who is discovered by a director (Burt Reynolds), encouraged by an older actress (Julianne Moore), and becomes a star - until his ego and drugs bring everything crashing down.

Apart from anything else, the film is about filmmaking. It captures the familial atmosphere of a film set as well as any film since Truffaut's Day for Night. The focus is not on sex but on loneliness and desperation, leavened with a lot of humor, some of it dark, some of it lighthearted.

Boogie Nights is Anderson's second feature. When I saw the first one in 1996 at the Cannes Film Festival, I felt I was watching the work of a born filmmaker. Hard Eight starred John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall in the story of a relationship between an old gambler who shows the ropes in Nevada to a broke kid. As characters played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson get involved, the story reveals hidden connections. It is a riveting debut film.

Fiona Apple - Across The Universe (1998)

From the soundtrack of "Pleasantville."' Filmed in 5 long continuous shots, consisting of Fiona Apple oblivious to the chaos of many men destroying a soda shop. Many impressive moments, including the camera passing across a mirror & its reflection is not shown. Shot in black & white featuring a prominent cameo by John C. Reilly.

Interview: Neon's 10 Films That Influenced Boogie Nights

Neon Magazine UK
August ??, 1998


1.  Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr.) (1969)
"I came across it at a video store when I was fourteen or fifteen. I got it because Robert Downey Sr. seemed interesting to me because I'd just seen Robert Downey Jr. in some little movie. I was also having a 'black culture' phase in my life, and this seemed like a real cool movie to watch. When I watched it, it was the first time I realized that you could be really punk rock in a movie. You could do just anything: it didn't necessarily have to make sense. As long as it was funny, or funny to the guy who was making it, it would come across as exciting somehow. It was made in 1969, and at the time, Downey Sr. style was considered to be very odd and very avant-garde."

2.  Nashville (Robert Altman) (1975)
"I actually just got a print of this to screen tonight because it's my birthday and that's what I'm going to watch. This film is perfect, absolutely perfect, to me. It's a cinemascope movie, which I love, and so incredibly bold. The long camera takes, the overlapping dialogue, the multi-track recording that he first implemented here. And to have all these stories but still keep you interested, it's amazing. The film feels so natural, dirty and fucked up, but so cutting-edge. Nashville gets me speechless - it's just one of his best. For me, it's right up there with The Long Goodbye."

Flagpole Special (1998)

This 17 minute short was shot by PTA for inclusion at the RETinevitable 1 which is held at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Paul made the film specifically for the festival at Adam Levite's request who incidentally designed the cover art for the Criterion LaserDisc & Boogie Nights 2 Disc Platinum Series DVD. The short lays the early groundwork for the Frank "TJ" Mackey character as John C. Reilly & Chris Penn spend the entire film talking about how to "Seduce and Destroy" women. Here's a brief summary of the short by Res Magazine from their Summer 1998 issue: "Paul Thomas Anderson premiered "Flagpole Special", a single seventeen-minute locked-off take on digital video of the torsos of two guys - a long haired, bicycle panted, chubby ranting about women as his pal idly strums his electric guitar. Based on a conversation Anderson found on a discarded audiotape, the characters, portrayed by actors John C. Reilly and Chris Penn, managed to keep up their inane dialogue for an irresistibly mind-boggling amount of time like a flesh-and-blood Beavis and Butthead." The press screening was ruined by an audio malfunction (see the Entertainment Weekly article below), but was eventually fixed before the screening held for the public. Here's the piece EW ran on their website.

SCREEN SHOW 

The director of "Boogie Nights" and other film notables screen their new experimental films Directors Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights"), Atom Egoyan ("The Sweet Hereafter""), and Harmony Korine (writer of "Kids") screened their new experimental films Tuesday night in a show of short films and art installations at RET.inevitable, a sprawling art event in Brooklyn that showcased cutting- edge music and cinema. David Byrne, actor/director Vincent Gallo, and techno artist Moby were among hundreds of downtown denizens who packed the catacombs beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Films were projected on 50- foot stone walls and ceilings, while DJs mixed beats to video collages of flashy graphics intercut with scenes from such flicks as "Rollerball" and "Clueless." It was a night for young cinematic talent: The only trace of the Hollywood old guard was director Peter Bogdanovich's cameo in a short film by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sofia. The directors' presentations veered from the inspired to the shocking. Egoyan's "Peep Show" used double exposures and dramatic film tinting that made it hard to follow the action. Music- video director Spike Jonze earned cheers for his hilarious short, "How They Get There," which showed how a harmless flirtation can end in a brutal car crash. Unfortunately, Anderson's eagerly anticipated work, a short video called "Flagpole Special," was ruined by an audio malfunction (Please note: this was only during the press screening. It was shown to the public with no audio problems).
Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly - Josh Wolk - 6/18/98