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Looking back at BOOGIE NIGHTS, having seen it several times, over the years since it was released, what stands out in my mind remains the same impression I had after my first viewing; this is an entertaining production with an empty soul.

The movie remains entertaining after multiple viewings. The acting is never less than acceptable, and often quite good. I think some of the complaints about the acting, save for Wahlberg, whose performance is probably the weakest of the principals, may, perhaps, miss the nuances. I think almost everyone gets on the screen what they were trying to project. Wahlberg's performance is not bad. It's just not strong. He has less presence than most of the others, although I think it's fairly clear that his character was conceived as having quite a bit of nebbish in him, which hardly allows for much strong presence.

The casting is good. The appearance is good. The soundtrack is inspired. The soundtrack establishes the movie in time and place and that's important, because the story is deeply rooted in it's time, and, especially, it's place.

BOOGIE NIGHTS is a quintessential Los Angeles, movie industry film. It's a film *about* Hollywood in the 70s and 80s, and that, I think, is the key to understanding what the movie is about, and at least part of the key towards understanding why it seemed so popular among Hollywood people.

Pornography is the setting of the story, but, in a real sense, the pornographic film subset of the entertainment industry is almost a McGuffin in BOOGIE NIGHTS. The deepest theme of the film is something along the lines of "The show must go on" and that the real role of the people who make movies is to keep making movies. All the rest is detail or distraction. Success is making movies. Life outside making movies is just time spent between making movies. And, when, somehow, life outside making movies interferes with making movies, it's bad.

Nothing else is bad. Just things which interfere with making movies. Everything else is forgivable. If it helps make movies, it's not only forgivable, it's actually good.

I suggest reviewing BOOGIE NIGHTS with this thesis in mind.

The appeal of this idea to people in and around the movie industry ought, I think, be obvious. It provides them something like an ethos. A raison d'etre.

And, significantly, it makes for wonderful excuses for every mistake and failing in their lives. Nothing matters as long as movies get made. If you can keep going, you're a winner and you never, ever have to be sorry.

You may, perhaps, have to *say* you're sorry, sometime, as Wahlberg's character does when he begs Burt Reynold's character to take him back after a coke-fueled breakup. But, the point is that the apology was the way Diggler got back into making movies.

This is the underlying ethic of BOOGIE NIGHTS. And, it's a pretty sad and ugly ethic.

Terry Gilliam has made a career of trying to make films markedly different from the mainstream. That's a riskier career path than following the trails everyone else is using. It's neither more nor less commendable, although there are those who worship distinction for it's own stake.

A good movie is worth watching whether it's original or derivative and a bad movie is still a bad movie even if it's uniquely bad.

Gilliams record, apart from his Monty Python related work, includes the enjoyable TIME BANDITS, and BRAZIL, a masterpiece, IMO. BARON MUNCHHAUSEN is, perhaps, better left in the bin along with the careers of the executives who green-lighted the project.

TWELVE MONKEYS is, like BRAZIL, an essay in dystopia. Both movies revolve around malfunctioning societies. In the world of BRAZIL, we have a parallel universe which crosses 1930s-style fascism with an unmistakable Monty Pythonesque sensibility. In TWELVE MONKEYS, it's a future in which humanity is driven into a quasi-police state in a world dying from the results of bioterrorism.

Also like BRAZIL, TWELVE MONKEYS focuses on the efforts of an inhabitant of the dystopia to escape. In BRAZIL, the escape is retreat into a fantasy world. In TWELVE MONKEYS, a literal escape into the past is paralleled by an attempt by the protagonist, played by Bruce Willis, to destroy the dystopian future by preventing the event which causes it's creation.

In both films, the theme is that escape is impossible. But, TWELVE MONKEYS takes a very different tone from BRAZIL, where the fantasy interludes were at least partly light, if always ending in frustration. And, even though the world of BRAZIL was ugly, the film took such an offbeat look at it that there was humor relieving what ought, when all the decorations are stripped away, have been a depressing reaction. TWELVE MONKEYS is not funny. It's dystopia is offered up more or less straight, so the future world scenes set an ugly tone.

The present world scenes do not copy the light tone of the fantasy scenes of BRAZIL, either. They are more "realistic" then their future world counterparts, but not really lighter in feel.

As a result, whatever other merits TWELVE MONKEYS has, it tends to be a dark, dissonant piece.

As others have written, it attempts, in part, at least, to be an art film. And, it takes a relatively difficult plot concept, which is bound to alienate and lose some of the people who watch it. Essentially, it's a - fairly trivial - argument about predestination, and the absence of free will. The end is inevitable, despite the protagonist's best efforts to change it.

Alternatively, one might view the whole film as an exercise in solipsism, if the Bruce Willis character is seen as insane and hallucinating the entire plot.

Either way, frankly, there a bit of the air of a freshman dormitory in a liberal arts college to the piece. An impassioned argument over a philosophical issue by people who feel more deeply than they think.

However, the plot is well thought out and consistent.The outcome follows from the premises and the internal logic of the plot is, well, logical. The ending is not just grafted on. It's a - if not necessarily "the" - natural outcome of all which went before it. If one is attracted to the "coming full circle" aesthetic of story telling, there's not much to complain about.

The acting is good, especially both Bruce Willis, as the put-upon everyman, and Brad Pitt, in one of the most odd, yet compelling, roles of his career.

All in all, an interesting movie. Not one to come to looking for laughs. It requires some effort, and it's depressing. But, entertaining, to a degree.

The Winona Ryder character, from BEETLEJUICE, would love it.

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Christopher Guest's movies, like his performances, are generally subtle and always low-key. They are not for people who need laugh tracks to follow the humor and most of his work is so contextually-based that some knowledge of the subject he's dissecting is a definite asset. Guest, who was a performer in the very early SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, is, in many respects, the Anti-Belushi of modern American comedy.

Nevertheless, he shares with Belushi - and many of their contemporaries, who came from one or another branch of the Second City organization - a certain fondness for off-the-wall elements in his work; Guest's tend to be slipped in, quietly, while Belushi's popped out of exploding cakes.

A MIGHTY WIND is a spot-on satire of the American Folk Music movement of the early and mid-1960s. The narrative conceit is a memorial concert for a recently deceased impressario, organized by his son, which reunites three folk groups from the 60s.

The real elements of the film are the send-ups of a variety of tropes of the era, musical styles, personalities, and quite an array of music-business cliches. Remarkably, however, the songs are genuinely entertaining in themselves; both the writing and the performances. They're satirical, but so subtlely performed that it's easy to loose the thread of the lyrics and wind up mindlessly nodding heads and grooving along, which pretty neatly captures the popular music experience for the last several generations. Satire within satire.

The musical performances are excellent, recreating, almost frighteningly, the taste and texture of folk music of the era. And, bringing several real 60s folk acts to mind.

The acting is typical of Guest movies, such as SPINAL TAP and BEST IN SHOW; very quiet, restrained, low-key, with, apparently, a lot of dialogue improvised. The performers are mostly drawn from the same group Guest has used in the past: Eugene Levy (who co-wrote the script with Guest) and Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Ed Begley, Jr., and Guest, himself.

Comparisons with Guest's most popular picture, THIS IS SPINAL TAP are both interesting and tricky. Interesting because both movies were written and directed by the same man, and shared most of the same casts. Tricky, because while some seem to compare AMW unfavorably with TIST, a looking at these films, together, they have a lot in common. So much so, in fact, that it's reasonable to consider them a pair; very similar takes on two, distinct musical genres of a similar era. The writing, acting, tone, pacing of these two movies is very similar. The jokes are similar. The points of view are similar. The focus on both performers, and the behind-the-scenes people is similar. The real difference is the music.

This, in turn, tends to suggest that those who react very differently to these two films may be reacting more to the music, directly, and to the ambiance of the world around the particular musical genre more than anything else.

Guest's movies don't have many laugh-out-loud moments. Most of the humor is more the "big-smile", sometimes, the chuckle, kind. But, Ed Begley, Jr. has perhaps his best comic scene, ever, when he does a take as a Swedish-American public television producer dropping Yiddish into his conversation; one word per sentence. It's a totally dead-pan and very quiet performance which, like so much of Christopher Guest's humor, you will either get or not get. If you do, you may fall off your chair.

Eugene Levy, who co-wrote the script, with Guest, is also very good, having finally invented a second character after having spent something more than 30 years (since his Second City TV days) doing variations of one.

Who might enjoy A MIGHTY WIND? Anyone who remembers the era and the music, and anyone who enjoys show business insider takes. It's a more difficult call for those born later. And, if you have trouble keeping Janis Joplin and Joanie Mitchell distinct in your mind, you probably won't follow most of what's going on.