Boogie Nights

So...I just watched Boogie Nights. Yeah, I know, I can't really tell anyone about it. I was really surprised by it. I'm kind of a movie buff, and I like movies that cause controversy so I had to see it. I remember how much buzz it created when it first came out but never got the chance to see it.

So here's what struck me about the movie: (may contain spoilers)
1) The reality of it. I would expect a movie from Hollywood about the porn industry to be all glamour and glitz, the porn industry is great, no body gets hurt, it's just all great. What I found was a different message, a message that porn really can destroy your life. It's not all parties and naked people. There's pain, there's loneliness, there's some heavy situations that come with the territory. The lives of the main characters where massively negatively impacted by the choices they made. It reminds me of the verse in Galatians 5: 19It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; 20trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; 21the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

2) God reminded me of his overwhelming love for hurting people throughout the film. The girl whose classmate recognizes her in the limo and reminds her that her name is Brandy, not RollerGirl. Dirk as he's being beat up in the parking lot. Jessie (I think that's her name) and Buck with their child. Even the Colonel as he was abused in jail God still has this passionate, crazy, unexplainable love for him and for all of the characters. When we're at the bottom of the bottom of our lives, when we're in the middle of our sinful existance God's supernatural love claws through all of that like children digging through hay looking for coins. It's as if we're coins hidden in a field of hay, mud, and cow crap. But God sent Jesus to wade through all of that to rescue us. No matter how much mud and cow crap we pile on ourselves, Christ can and does find us.

3) We should strive to make wise decisions at every turn of our life. A lot of the characters in the movie made poor decisions that led them to some pretty sorry circumstances. I guess that's why it's so important to try to make the wise decisions. What would have happened if RollerGirl would have stayed in school? What would have happened if Dirk would have gotten a job closer to home? I guess everything turned out ok in the end, but they could have saved themselves a lot of pain and heartache if they would have asked themselves if they were putting themselves in wise places.

I was kind of saddened (not surprised) that in the end they all seemed to find redemption and salvation in the very place where they started, the place that set them on the path of pain and heartache. I guess I couldn't have expected a more positive message, but it would have been nice.