Great Film overall

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

~The first film that ever forced me to look at cinematography... ~

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.

PTA's Magnolia is one of my favorite movies so I naturally watched Boogie Nights after seeing Magnolia. Boogie Nights is a sex-negative morality play that teaches, like a Catholic nun, that sex is bad. PTA doesn't even include a monogamous married couple to portray the many blessings that are rained down upon a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman. But you'll quickly see that seems to be one of the takeaways from the conclusion of the film - and the more sexually active the person, the more likely that they will not be able to continue relationships with their biological families.Stereotyping porn actors is just weak. The two youngest, Dirk (Wahlberg) and Rollergirl (Graham) are high school dropouts and not very bright. No one is very bright in the movie with the exception, maybe, of Reynolds' Jack Horner character but even he's out of touch with good taste as he naively calls one of his porn flicks a 'real movie' that will preserve his memory.The first lesson we learn is that a marriage that is not monogamous can only end in murder-suicide. Little Bill (Macy - does the little moniker mean that he has a small organ unlike those in the porn films?) is shamed by his sexually active wife (played by real-life porn star Nina Hartley - a pro-porn defender and long involved with a man and another woman in an alternative relationship) so he naturally murders his wife and her lover and then commits suicide. Because, you know, that's what cuckolds do, right? Little Bill is involved in the porn industry and although Hartley is never seen as an actress in Horner's films, she's a serial adulteress and she gets her just reward.Dirk learns his lesson when he thinks that his success is a result of his smarts as much as his organ size just when his organ is failing him because of drug use. He separates from Horner, taking a couple of his buddies with him but they leave him before he falls upon hard times. Hard times, we're to assume, means being picked up by men who want to watch him handle his organ as they handle their own. We just have to assume this as the only scene that indicates some experience in these matters is a single scene in which he is pummeled by guys in trucks who are just out for a night of gay bashing. Lesson? You might be gifted with a large organ but you'll never be smart.Third and final lesson. This one is tricky - even those who are successful outside of the porn industry (by luck, theft, whatever) have been forever marked by their association and the artificial families that they have created are the only ones that they can depend upon. In the end they are all united under Jack Horner's wing to continue in the porn industry.It's been 20 years since Boogie Nights' release. Pornography on the internet has become almost respectable with the 'amateur' streaming clips being popular and men by the millions having (to me, completely twisted) cuckold fantasies. Twenty years on anyone can be a porn star and hold a PhD in sociology. The aforementioned Nina Hartley began her porn career in 1984 and graduated from nursing school in 1985. In the little research that I've done it simply doesn't seem that the nascent porn film industry was filled with stupid high school drop-outs. Revisiting some of the most successful films of the time you may find more eroticism than in the 10-20 minute videos of today. And you might alternately find that there are very well educated men and women actually enjoying non-monogamous and non-traditional sex.Boogie Nights just doesn't stand up to scrutiny or scholarship. It doesn't even present much in the way of the times when people had public hair.One final note. The cuckold fantasy is one of those 'be careful what you wish for' fantasies. A real woman has fantasies of her own and - surprise! - they may not include you. Your fantasy may be just what she needs to have relations with another guy... as 10 other guys watch. Encourage a woman's lesbian fantasies and she might leave you for another woman. Each person is sexually unique - like a fingerprint - and before becoming involved with anyone in a sexual relationship you need to know a few things up front. Even if the person is fulfilling your sex with a stranger fantasy you need to know a few things. You won't learn much about sex watching Boogie Nights. The only history that you may learn is that when porn came out of the film theaters and onto home video, there was an explosion in sales and proliferation in product. Did the transition mean less artistic products? I don't think so... not every film of the time was a 'Behind the Green Door.'

Boogie Nights is a very good drama about the porn industry. Paul Thomas Anderson did a very good job directing and writing. It is very well shot, particularly the costumes and music. It is fast moving the story never lags. It has wonderful script. It uses multiple characters with different personalities and motivations. It shows the industry from many points of view. I like that he didn't hold back on the drug and sex scenes it gave it a raw authentic look. It has excellent performances by Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, and Julianne Moore. It also has a wonderful supporting cast with wonderful performances by John C Reilly, William H Macy, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and many others. Boogie Nights is not a movie for everyone do to the rough nature and content. However it is one of Paul Thomas Andersons best movies, and one of the best dramas from the 1990's. I have seen it several times over the years, and I enjoy it and get more impressed with it each time. It is very good.