Boogie Nights (1997)

"A stunning and powerful film.  Desson Howe, Washingtopn Post
"Four stars!  Jack Matthews, NewsDay
"...shockingly funny and thrillingly original...  Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
"...a sprawling masterpiece of a movie.  Rogert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"...well crafted, well acted...  Shlomo Schwartzberg, Box Ofice Magazine

Editor's Note It's Los Angeles, 1977, and adult film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) meets Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a well-endowed dishwasher in a nightclub. Jack recruits Eddie to be his newest star and Eddie, hungry for fame, quickly agrees, changing his name to Dirk Diggler. Soon Dirk is the hottest star in the porn industry, alongside Rollergirl (Heather Graham), a high school dropout who never removes her roller skates, and Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), the veteran star who pines for the son she's not allowed to visit. On the fringes, Little Bill (William H. Macy) fumes while his wife cheats on him in public, and Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) tries to escape the stigma of being a porn actor. The good times roll, but before long Dirk falls victim to the pressures of stardom and a drug habit that ruins his career while Jack struggles with porn's conversion from film to cheaper videotapes. Director Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough film is an exhilarating ride along the underbelly of the 1970s inspired by the films of Altman and Scorsese, featuring colorful camera work, a dynamic soundtrack, and excellent performances from the entire cast, most notably Reynolds in an Oscar-nominated comeback role.

	Burt Reynolds
	Don Cheadle
	Heather Graham
	John C. Reilly
	Julianne Moore
	Mark Wahlberg
	Philip Seymour Hoffman
	William H. Macy
	Dylan Tichenor - Editor
	Lawrence Gordon - Executive Producer
	Michael Penn - Original Music By
	Paul Thomas Anderson - Producer
	Paul Thomas Anderson - Director
	Paul Thomas Anderson - Writer
	Robert Elswit - Cinematographer
	Ted Berner - Art Director

Director Paul Thomas Anderson's second film is a sprawling, polyphonous drama set in the seedy greater L.A. porn scene during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"I've got a feeling that behind those jeans is something wonderful just waiting to get out."----Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), upon first meeting Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg)

"Aren't you gonna take your skates off?"----Dirk Diggler to Rollergirl (Heather Graham)|"I never take my skates off."----Rollergirl

"You're not the boss of me, Jack! You're not the king of Dirk! I'm the boss of me! I'm the king of me. I'm Dirk Diggler! I'm the star!"----Dirk Diggler to Jack Horner

"That's not an MP, that's a YP----your problem. Come up with the money or forget about it."----Record producer to Dirk Diggler and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly)

"I am a star. I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star. I'm a big, bright, shining star."----Dirk Diggler (the last lines of the film)

Entertainment Weekly
Ranked #2 in Entertainment Weekly's "10 Favorite Films of the '90s" - "...Bravura....An ecstatic act of filmmaking..." 04/01/2000 p.159

Sight and Sound
"...A hilariously engaging and at times bleakly disturbing chronicle..." 01/01/1998 o,36-7

USA Today
"...With its ceaseless music, large canvas, shrewd casting, flawless ensemble acting and the dexterity of its whiplashing mood switches, the movie recalls Robert Altman's NASHVILLE..." -- 4 out of 4 stars 10/10/1997 p.1D

Entertainment Weekly
"...[A] wild, virtuosic, ecstatically outrageous epic....Mark Wahlberg comes through with his first full-scale performance: ingenuous, sultry, starmaking..." 09/26/1997 p.52-4

Chicago Sun-Times
"...The kind of grimy, intense, passionate film we identify more with the 1970s than with today's slick productions..." 09/12/1997 p.43

Chicago Sun-Times
"...BOOGIE NIGHTS has the quality of many great films, in that it always seems alive..." 10/17/1997 p.35

ReelViews 9 of 10
In his new film, Boogie Nights, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson takes us back to the disco era, and, by following a small group of characters, recreates the rise and fall of "artistic porn" and those who participated in it...With Boogie Nights, Anderson has realized the potential he showed in his previous feature, Hard 8 (which featured John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall, two members of this movie's ensemble cast). Boogie Nights is a dramatically rich and visually arresting motion picture that has earned (and is deserving of) comparisons to the films of Robert Altman. Anderson takes risks with this movie, few of which fall short. (One of these is the pointed and sure-to-be controversial final shot -- a perfectly conceived and framed statement about the de-humanizing effects of the porn industry.) The result is a memorably penetrating motion picture. - James Berardinelli

Reel.com 10 of 10
Boogie Nights is not only an amusing and moving film about a group of actors, producers, and directors making pornography in the '70s and early '80s, it's also a sublime and intelligent microcosmic representation of the changes that took place during that time...Though Anderson doesn't directly refer to any of these factors in his film, Boogie Nights superbly conveys how these inevitable societal shifts play out for his characters. Though the young director (he made the film when he was 27) has a fondness for going over the top with the tragic moments (a significant flaw of his subsequent film, Magnolia), the film's flair and knowingness more than make up for this small weakness...One of Anderson's greatest gifts is how well he works with his actors. Every single performance is excellent, almost as if each performer were inspired by the caliber of the others to reach for something even greater. If there has ever been a finer filmic ensemble, I am hard-pressed to remember it. - Rod Armstrong