Little Big Screen: Say goodbye to Hy-Vee’s Wahlburgers with ‘Boogie Nights’ and other Marky movies streaming this month

Still from Boogie Nights. — courtesy of New Line Cinema.

Just two short years ago, the Wahlburgers franchise had 109 locations, and for some reason, 79 of them were attached to Hy-Vee grocery stores. On Feb. 4, Hy-Vee lopped off the last of these Boston-green growths. The split could mean Mark Wahlberg, the youngest of the three brother-founders, has sheltered in his last West Des Moines basement and signed his last tequila bottle at Wall to Wall Wine & Spirits.

To fill such a beefy cavity in Iowa’s landscape, Little Big Screen has four Mark Wahlberg movies to stream this month.

Boogie Nights (1997)

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

The key to understanding the Hy-Vee/Wahlburgers deal belongs not to a bump but to a 1978 Dodge Tradesman. In the back, Dirk Diggler (Wahlburg) and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) are pitching a new adult film franchise. Their idea, which amounts to a karate-kicking, dong-hanging James Bond, sells itself — to both the viewer and Burt Reynolds’ porn auteur, who responds with the realest of rich-people laughs. We’ll never know if the former CEO of Hy-Vee saw himself as more of a Reilly or a Reynolds, but either way, the celebrity burger business idea was no Brock Landers VII: Oral Majesty.

Rent it on Apple TV and Prime Video.

Pain & Gain (2013)

Directed by Michael Bay

In 2017, Wahlberg asked God to forgive him for his role in Boogie Nights. Sure. Fine. What about Pain & Gain? This mostly true story about the big arms, big dreams and big crimes of three Florida men (Wahlberg, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Anthony Mackie) is the far filthier and more vulgar of the two films. But the ungodly blend of Fargo, Goodfellas, too many egg yolks and too few brain cells makes for a Vitamixed masterpiece.

Stream it on Paramount+. Rent it on Apple TV and Prime Video.

We Own the Night (2007)

Directed by James Gray

As far as cops and robbers and Wahlberg go, We Own the Night is right up there with The Departed. He and Joaquin Phoenix star as brothers on either side of a 1980s crime story. (You can probably guess who’s the butthead in blue and who’s the black sheep.) But it’s Robert Duvall, as their dad, who gives away The Godfather-ly ambitions — and achievements — of the film. The climactic car chase, gushing with rain and gunfire, is more than worth the two hours of your life.

Rent it on Apple TV and Prime Video.

Four Brothers (2005)

Directed by John Singleton

This loose remake of a John Wayne revenge western takes place in Ben Wallace’s Detroit. Each of Four Brothers’ four brothers (Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, André 3000, Garrett Hedlund) seems to be modeled on a different mid-aughts mall store, showing what Fossil, Foot Locker, Gap and Hot Topic shoppers could have achieved by banding together during the George W. Bush administration.

Stream it on Tubi. Rent it on Apple TV and Prime Video.