329 – Boogie Nights (1997)

We are less than a month away from the release of Inherent Vice and I am only on the second film in my Paul Thomas Anderson retrospective. My prospects for completing the project are not looking great, but I shall continue on anyway. The good news is that Boogie Nights is the last PTA movie that I had not seen previously, so I have now watched each of his films at least once. Boogie Nights was released only one year after Hard Eight, Anderson’s debut, but his artistic progression is so great that you might be forgiven for guessing something more like ten years had passed.

180 – Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

On this, the 180th day of the year, we are very close to the midpoint of this particular trip around the sun. It just so happens to coincide with the midpoint of summer movie season. Which, further coincidentally I’m sure, also marks the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction. Transformers: AoE (that’s what the kids call it) is full of explosions, CGI monsters, and beautiful people (Stanley Tucci, yowza!) – it’s kind of the perfect example of a summer blockbuster, down to the 2014-best opening weekend box office it inexplicably earned.