Choice: Film: Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights, on general release

It was the bad hair decade. Everyone who'd made a statement by refusing the scissors in the Sixties got bored, so come the Seventies, half of them had it permed. (Some even went the whole hog and wore Petula Clark's bubble cut for longer than was strictly necessary, but they were usually footballers.) The rest rushed to the hairdressers for one of those oh- so-attractive feather cuts. Now call me a cynic, but despite everyone rushing around exclaiming "Darling, the Seventies are so zeitgeist!", I don't see many people apeing the tonsorial tastes of these days of yore. Risking my neck on the chopping block of cultural criticism, I venture to suggest that all the thirty- and fortysomething filmmakers currently investigating the Seventies are just reliving their childhood: homesickness manifesting itself as historical analysis. Anyone too young to know, too old to remember or anxious for a nostalgic wallow need look no further.