DOWN SINCE DAY ONE?

[modage]

so, how long has everybody been down with PTA?  like, is there anyone here who actually saw hard eight in the theatre during its first theatrical run?  boogie nights? etc.  and how many people discovered him on video for what film and worked backwards?   i'm sure there's been many screenings of these flicks at colleges or things like that, but as for the theatrical runs...

BOOGIE NIGHTS theatre 2x
MAGNOLIA theatre 3x (incl. opening day)
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE theatre 3x (incl. opening day in NYC)

edit: to add a little bit.  i remember reading about hard eight in premiere mag before it came out being some movie about gambling and gweneth paltrow was a whore and thinking "hmm... interesting".  and i didnt end up seeing it till video after i saw boogie nights.

[Cecil]

i saw boogie on video and became a fan. then saw magnolia and pdl in theatres. i found a copy of hard eight on video to rent the summer after magnolia

[Ghostboy]

I saw Boogie Nights when it was first released, and loved it. I knew about Hard Eight (it had been released in Dallas the previous April), but didn't know about the PTA connection until about eight months later, when I rented it and loved it even more than Boogie (still do). For a while, it was sort of like a secret little film that I would put on and surprise people with...

[bonanzataz]

my mom rented hard eight when it first came out on video and didn't really like it. i never had an interest in it until after i became pro-magnolia.

[ono]

Sydney is still probably PTA's best kept secret.  He referred to it as it being his bastard film for a while, but also said on the commentary that it's his, his first film, and he's proud of it as he very well should be.  (And I'm fresh off both Sydney commentaries, BTW, which are BRILLIANT, so yes.)

And me, unfortunately, I got to loving PTA's work rather late in the game, starting just last fall when Punch-Drunk Love came out.  I don't remember if I saw Magnolia on DVD before or after that, but they were both around the same time.  It was bliss.  Never did get to see Magnolia in a theatre.  That kinda sucks.  And I wonder if I ever will get to.  That's gotta be something.  On the bright side, I did see Punch-Drunk Love twice in a theatre and have seen it twice more since then.

[oakmanc234]

I was a fan pretty late as well.

*Discovered that Sandler was to do a film with the director of 'Boogie Nights'
*Watched 'Boogie Nights' on tape, loved it
*Visited official PTA site regularly
*Saw 'Magnolia' on tape a few weeks later
*Saw 'Hard Eight' on tape a few weeks after that
*Became a certified fan
*Anticipated his Sandler project even more
*Finally saw 'Punch-Drunk Love' in theatres (twice)
*and here I am.......

[Pubrick]

And me, unfortunately, I got to loving PTA's work rather late in the game

why do u call Hard Eight "Sydney"?

i first saw boogie nights on video, then on dvd, then magnolia in the theatre, then Hard Eight on video, then punchdrunk love on dvd, and in the theatre.

i guess i discovered him around early 98.

[MacGuffin]

I first heard about PTA when Siskel & Ebert raved about "Hard Eight". And I remember seeing the poster for it at a local theater, but I didn't actually see it (on video) until after I saw "Boogie Nights".

I saw "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" on their opening weekends. For "Magnolia", I was so sick with the flu, but I still drove miles away to see it (it opened in limited first) at the first showing of that Saturday. It was worth it and proved the best medicine. After that, when it opened wider, I saw it about a total of seven times in theaters. "Boogie" I saw about three times in theaters.

"PDL" I saw of the second weekend and only saw it once in theaters (family and personal matters prevented me from seeing it more).

I can't remember how I found the Cigarettes & Coffee site, but I was a frequent visitor even before Greg set up the message board.

[filmcritic]

Oh, man! That would have been such a dream come true to have seen "Hard Eight" in theatres.

[Duck Sauce]

I always liked BN since I saw it when it first came out to rent, but not a PTA fan till about a year ago when I really got into his movies

[Link]

*watched bits and pieces of Boogie on HBO (I was into my Disco phase)
*saw first 10 mins of Magnolia in theatres (my g/f and I had a little time to kill, so we snuck into that)
*read Boogie Nights online, digged it
*bought the Magnolia script and read it, loved it
*finally saw BN from start to finish
*finally got Magnolia and saw it (my dad didn't let me, so I did when he was out of town)
*Caught Hard Eight on IFC, dug it
*got my dad to pick me up from boarding school to take me to dallas to see PDL (7 hours each way), and loved it

[Ernie]

I rented Boogie Nights from blockbuster in the winter of my 15th year for the sole purpose of seeing Heather Graham naked...and well....I got that...plus a whole-fucking-lot-more. This is when I became a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. This is when I realized what movies really were and how far they could be taken. Before that it was all Spielberg, Burton, and The Farrelly Brothers. This moment is when my life changed.

I held off for A LONG TIME on seeing Magnolia out of fear that I would not understand it...it was in this time that PDL's hype began to arise, all of it stemming from its small section of the Cannes film festival's official web site. I watched the "trailer" (a collection of clips from the movie) and kept saying the catchiest title I have ever heard in my life over and over again in my head until I began my breakthrough towards obsession...not only with PDL and PTA...but with film itself. During what is now known as "PDL fever"...I gave in and rented Magnolia...I still can't describe that experience accurately so I won't try. After this, I even blind bought Hard Eight and watched it as much if not more than the aforementioned two, loving it more with each viewing. Long story short, I waited for PDL in an almost illness-inducing anticipation...this growing anticipation for one film paralleled (sp?) the permanent climax that is my current love for movies. The night I saw PDL was the night I discovered my passion.  

[Redlum]

I saw Magnolia on DVD late 2000 and there was a great feeling of discovery for both the film and just film in general. After watching That Moment, I sought out Gregs website.  Then I went back and found the others.

I actually read Boogie Nights before I saw it and I only ever saw PDL in the cinema.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

And me, unfortunately, I got to loving PTA's work rather late in the game

why do u call Hard Eight "Sydney"?

i first saw boogie nights on video, then on dvd, then magnolia in the theatre, then Hard Eight on video, then punchdrunk love on dvd, and in the theatre.

i guess i discovered him around early 98.

That was the title PTA intended it to be, but the studio insisted it needed a 'catchier' title.....

I saw Boogie Nights in theaters the day it came out, as well as Magnolia...then I heard about Sydney on the PTA website, and just had to own it--that's right, I blind bought it, and did not regret doing so either...  I've seen Punch Drunk five times, and now own it on DVD, so I have the entire collection and couldn't imagine my DVD library without them.

[SoNowThen]

Read an article during my "Reservoir Dogs everday" period, and it said this young guy who made Hard Eight was Tarantino and Scorsese rolled into one. That pissed me off initially, so I kinda ignored it when his new movie Boogie Nights came out. Then, one day at my friend's, I caught 10 min of Boogie on the movie channel, during the end of the 70's Party Sequence. Blew me away. I spent the next week watching Boogie over and over. Also rented Hard Eight and loved it. About that time, the dvd came out, and the same friend was the first to have a dvd player. We bought it, and I would go over there and play the commentary while he did other stuff around the house. PTA was saying shit that interested me so much on that dvd, stuff I had thought about, but never heard from filmmakers up until that point. Boogie became my new favorite film, and I watched it and the commentary religiously. Then I moved to Vancouver for film school. This guy from my class and I had to edit this other chick's (who we hated) documentary about DJ's. It was so boring, and we needed to take a break. This guy mentioned that he had got tickets to a preview of a new movie (it was late November, I believe), and it was done by that guy who did Boogie Nights, and since I always talked about it, he wanted to give me a ticket. So we headed out and saw a sneak preview of Magnolia. At each major sequence, we kept turning to each other in awe. Truly the best theatre experience I have ever had. We spent the rest of the night walking around the city, remembering each shot, just gushing over it. I saw Magnolia four more times when it finally got its full release. In my insane need to have Magnolia info in between the preview and the actual release, I went on the internet, and found the C&C site. Yay.