by Cláudio Alves

Paul Thomas Anderson turns 50 today, making this a good time to remember how his film career began. Weirdly enough, despite being a longtime fan of the director, I had never seen his first feature, a little indie by the name of Hard Eight, which hit Sundance and Cannes in 1996 but would only get a commercial release the next year. That made 1997 quite the occasion for Anderson. In February, he opened Hard Eight to good reviews and, in October, Boogie Nights made him one of the most critically acclaimed directors of the moment. The latter movie went on to conquer him his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. What's fascinating and what most surprised me about the pair is how distinct they are, showing two very different sides of their director's craft…