Boogie Nights DVD

 Excess at it's best
Boogie Nights is one of those few movies that really makes you think about what you saw after it's over.The movie delivers a powerful message about suffering the consequences of your own actions.It features some memorable performances from Mark Wahlberg and Julianne Moore.
Submitted by Blake (Brandon,MS)
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 Always One of My Favourite Movies
This is a fantastic movie with an outstanding ensemble cast. To watch this movie now, it is interesting to see where some of these actors are today and what they have accomplished to date. A great collector's item.
Submitted by Kathe (Toronto, Canada)
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 An Amazing Film! The "American Graffiti" Of The '70s!
Spanning the height of the disco era, 1977-84, "Boogie Nights" (1997) offers a visually stunning exploration of the adult entertainment industry, centering on a hard-core movie outfit whose members form a close-knit extended family no doubt established writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson as one of the hottest filmmakers of today. When he was 17, a high-school kid in Van Nuys, Calif., he got a video camera and made a half-hour movie called "The Dirk Diggler Story", partly inspired by the sad tale of the late legendary porn star John Holmes, partly inspired by his curiosity about what was going on behind the walls of the anonymous porno studio warehouses he'd seen growing up in the San Fernando Valley. There was never any doubt he was meant to make movies. The intense, slightly built Anderson was too impatient to get to work to linger in school. He spent two semesters as an English major at Emerson College, and two days at NYU film school. A short film led to an invitation to the Sundance Lab, where he developed the script for his first feature, "Hard Eight" (1997), It was a striking debut (starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall), but few people saw it. Hollywood, however, was not blind to his talent. When he approached New Line with his script about the porn industry, it jumped aboard. A deal was cut: New Line would let Anderson make a 2½ hour movie, but it had to get an R, not an NC-17, rating. Getting his R took months of back-and-forth negotiations with the MPAA ratings board. The board let him know it loved the movie-indeed; it told him it wanted it to be an NC-17, to restore class to a category it felt had been sullied by "Showgirls" (1995). His striking command of technique, bravura film-making and passionate exploration of the possibilities of a new kind of storytelling recall the young Martin Scorsese of "Mean Streets" (1973). The link to Scorsese has other foundations as well. In its approach to the porn industry as a unique social milieu, with its own heroes, players and norms, "Boogie Nights" resembles "GoodFellas" (1990), Scorsese's chronicle of organized crime, and to a certain extent, Robert Altman's cynical take on studio politics in "The Player" (1992). All three movies document subcultures considered exotic by the mainstream, highlighting their complex duality of values: the seamy, sordid elements in combination with more humanistic and familial ones. In 1977, when the story opens, porn movies are shot on film and play in theaters, and a director can dream of making one so good that the audience members would want to stay in the theater even after they had achieved what they came for. By 1983, when the story closes, porn has shifted to video and most of the movies are basically just gynecological loops. There is hope, at the outset, that a porno movie could be "artistic" and less hope towards the end of the film. In this wide but precise narrative, there's Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), a small-talent pornographer who fancies his screwing stories are real movies; Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), an ambitious kid whose self-esteem has been pounded into the ground by a crazed mother; Reed (John C. Reilly), a dumbbell whose minimal talents don't carve out a living in the real world; and Rollergirl (Heather Graham), a high school failure who yearns for an authority figure to give her direction. They all come together as "artists," grinding out smutty movies and, alas, giving each other the encouragement and emotional support they have never received elsewhere in their lives. With his shrewd eye for character and setting, writer-director Anderson has crafted a psychological parody of the San Fernando Valley that is Fellini-esquire in its horrifying imagery and its cacophonous craziness. "Boogie Nights" gets all the details right, nailing down the styles and the music. More impressive, it captures the decade's distinct, decadent glamour. It conveys the rush of walking into a thumping nightclub on a Saturday night, the feel of sex and electricity in the air. Along the way, the film also succeeds at something very difficult: re-creating the culture and mentality of an era. The '70s were a time when people believed in the possibility of their own perfection. They wanted to heal the self, preserve the self, enrich the self, express the self. The idea of sex as the ultimate form of self-expression was something assumed so deeply that few thought to question it. People didn't just want to have sex--they believed in it, like a religion. Anderson presents the porno industry as the ultimate expression of those ideals. He shows why they were corrupt and why they were alluring, while never losing sight of the heartaches and concerns of individual characters. [filmfactsman]
Submitted by filmfactsman (Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
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 PORN with a story!
I can't believe no one has reviewed this movie yet? This is one of a kind. This was a great...well, basically porno with a great story!! I loved Burt Reynolds and all the porn stars in this one too, too funny! Mark Whalberg does a FANTASTIC job, so does Juiliann Moore and Heather Gramm. If you want some good story plot and to laugh, buy this movie!
Submitted by Stacey (Mnateca, CA)
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