CinemaClown Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough feature is an impeccably produced homage to the 'Golden Age of Porn' that captures the style & ethos of its era with remarkable accuracy, offers an insight into the pornography business like nothing before, and also makes up for a fascinating character study. Masterly directed, deftly scripted, ingeniously photographed, finely edited & strongly performed, Boogie Nights remains one of Anderson's finest directorial efforts, and is one of the best all-round films of its decade.

emilywes56 Paul Thomas Anderson directed his second feature film called Boogie Nights, at twenty seven years old. This is really something, because from a technical point of view, everything is well-put together. The photography, scenery and lead actors are all great. Even though, the film's running time is almost three hours, the deep development of the characters and the clever plot gives more and more tension to the viewer. The editing of the movie but the story as well, is a mature look on a world which is unacceptable and offensive for many people. You can decide to not judge the strange family of Dirk Diggler but familiarize with them, even like them and maybe, try to understand them. This film refers to the 70s and 80s when the industry of porn was still evolving fast, when film was replaced from videotapes and when people used to watch soft porn movies in public theaters. Even if the last half of the movie is more violent and dramatic, the movie keeps a balance between the possibility of drama and the option of acceptance and conscience.

pretentiousanderson Having grown up on watching movies and having no reason for making them other than to ape his idols, Anderson lifts the template from Scorsese's Goodfellas in this adolescent ripoff. Tell me - Which film am I describing here? Narrative structure: Set primarily over the course of the mid-1970s through the 80s, a young high-schooler has troubles at home and has to live with abusive family members. He feels trapped in this environment, and to help him escape, he grows attached to a surrogate family whose activities revolve around moral and societal vice. He finds that he excels in this environment and rises quickly in this new family hierarchy, earning both respect and riches from it. He eventually becomes fully initiated into this new family when he passes a test that demonstrates his commitment and talent to the vices that they support, and he is then rewarded by this new family with a celebration. At near mid-point, a "retro reel" involving 8mm or 16mm home movies and photos are used in a montage to express the passage of time and the deepening relationship between our protagonist and the other members of his new family. Things are going swimmingly until, at what is supposed to be a fun social occasion among friends, violence unexpectedly breaks out, resulting in murder and death. This scene mid-way through the plot tells the viewer that not all is well within this "fun" social structure, and that its very mores helped to contribute to the mindset that would lead someone to murder. But our protagonist tries to brush aside this violent event as a mere aberration, not wanting to question social world he has embraced. After eventually reaching a pinnacle of success, cultural shifts along with an infusion of drug abuse drag our protagonist down to the point where the same elements stemming from the vice and the surrogate family he joined now work against him until he hits rock bottom. When he hits rock bottom, he has a falling out with his surrogate "father figure" who turns against him for his betrayals and now uncontrollable drug use. All of this nearly kills him - but he still manages to survive rock bottom (unlike some of his friends around him). He is eventually able to pull himself up from rock bottom and settle into a less-than-ideal but by no means awful life, wistfully thinking back on the good times and how they are likely gone forever. Stylistic elements: Wall-to-wall music to help set tone, establish the time setting and occasionally provide an additional commentary on the action itself. Swish-pans, rapid editing sequences to convey frenetic energy, punctuated by extensive dolly and tracking shots to convey more leisurely times of our characters and cover the spaces of the lively nightclubs that they frequent. Title cards placed late in the film in order to subtly tell the viewer that the upcoming scene, times or sequences will be especially significant to the lives of the characters, followed by a shift in editing style to highlight the stresses that the protagonist has gotten himself into - which systematically builds the dramatic tension in the sequence until it results in a conclusive tipping point in his life. Which movie am I describing here? Boogie Nights? Or Goodfellas? Which one came first again? The final scene where our protagonist talks to himself in the mirror and looks back on his experiences is obviously ripped off from Raging Bull rather than Goodfellas, but that is still another Scorsese work.Anderson has nothing to say other than he wants to be thought of as a great director, but he needs to ape the true pioneers that came before him to make that happen. He just needed to make sure he adapted Scorsese's work into the porn world in order to appeal to his adolescent male fan base that eats up anything that helps mainstream their sexual fantasies. Don't fall for the hype. This is an extremely derivative, mediocre work.

Anssi Vartiainen Young Eddie Adams, played by then relatively unknown Mark Wahlberg, is a dishwasher and a all-around dropout, who gets noticed by movie director and invited to shoot films with him. The movies just happen to be of the pornographic nature, which doesn't seem to faze Eddie all that much. He promptly changes his name to Dirk Diggler and the film follows his and his associates' career through the late 70s and early 80s. All the way from the golden age of porn right to the onset of video tape.For a film unabashedly about adult entertainment, the film is surprisingly non-raunchy in nature. Sure it's rated R, but there are very few sex scenes and it's more about the things that happen between the shoots. About the business itself and the kind of people it takes to undress in front of the cameras and do the naughty, as it were. It also has a great style and a lot of talent behind the camera. The soundtrack is well-crafted and contains a pleasingly huge amount of hits from those two decades. The costuming, the camera-work and the colours all harken right back to the 70s and it is one of the better period pieces about the decade I've yet seen.The acting is also superb. This is one of Wahlberg's earliest films and definitely one of the ones that put him on the map as someone with great acting chops. But the real star of the show has to be Burt Reynolds as the director Jack Horner, a man anguishing with the changes in his chosen medium, struggling to have his films seen as something worthwhile, perhaps even art.I'm sure this film has its critics solely because of its subject matter. But if you can get beyond that or if it doesn't bother you in the first place, Boogie Nights is a great film. Superbly crafted, well-acted and with a style of its own.