This and the screenings of Hard Eight (Sydney)are part of a mouthwatering Paul Thomas Anderson season running throughout October at Filmoteca that will be worth diving into head-first. This drama from 1997 follows Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a young nightclub dishwasher whose extraordinary physical attributes propel him to stardom in the adult film industry of the San Fernando Valley in the late 1970s. Reinventing himself as Dirk Diggler, Eddie forms a surrogate family among the eccentric performers, producers and technicians gathered around director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), who dreams of bringing artistic legitimacy to his chosen profession.
This group includes characters played by Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, John C Reilly and Heather Graham, among an expansive ensemble cast, and the film perfectly captures a community caught between sexual liberation, commercial ambition and the approaching end of an era.