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Just got done watching. Wow. After seeing this and Magnolia, I think I have a new favourite director.

I would arguably call Boogie Nights my favorite PT Anderson film, precariously balanced with There Will Be Blood. Boogie Nights had great character focus, and such nifty bits with a bizarre mix of absurdity and tension. The firecracker scene comes to mind. The film carries with it a feeling and message I get from many of PT Anderson's films, that it's characters can take themselves over the edge but somehow find some sort of peace and. In whatever way they can, they manage some way of picking up at least some of the pieces in their lives and find some purpose.

Not everybody appreciates his work. To each their own. I do, however.

I started a thread back in 2008 inspired by BOOGIE NIGHTS:  
http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,117738.0.html (http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,117738.0.html)

I think highly of this film and glad to see someone else starting a thread.  Here's what I had to say back then, and I still think the same:  

Inspired to start a particular thread by similar threads in the BAD MOVIES forum, I watched BOOGIE NIGHTS again tonight, a film just about nobody seems to like.  This was my third viewing and I think this flick gets better with repeated viewing.  The takes are all long, sometimes very long, and with the sad commentary the effect is, my guess, typically an ill-feeling for the viewer.   The long takes do afford actors of any talent the opportunity to express the characters, and there are many upsetting and poignant moments.  The impressive cast did not sign on to do "porn" or junk (though the dialogue is often "junk") and includes JULIANNE MOORE, BURT REYNOLDS, PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, MARK WAHLBERG, HEATHER GRAHAM, WILLIAM MACY, DON CHEADLE, ALFRED MOLINA, LUIS GUZMAN, THOMAS JANE, ROBERT RIDGELY... some very fine actors in that group... the candor of this film in dealing with its characters (largely performers and producers of pornography) disgusted, disturbed, or frightened many a filmgoer (***SPOILER***1980 is rung in with a murder/suicide)

I confess I immediately liked this film or should I say I admired it.  After feeling brutalized, we are nursed and lulled back into their dream world and treated to how human love makes a family.  I get this film which I initially found a major downer (and it's still a downer and yet not) but even the first time I still found it morbidly fascintating.  Like many films, particularly starting in the 1980s, this film has many great period recordings for a soundtrack, but unlike films like THE BIG CHILL, the fiber of this film does not come from its awesome soundtrack... it only helps to frame the era depicted.  The fiber is in the easily overlooked moments (like when MARK WAHLBERG as Eddie Adams as "Dirk Diggler" accepts his first adult film award, greets everyone at the table, perhaps 10 or 11 people and strides past his slave, PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, who is waiting to high-five but is once again ignored).  

Refused custody, refused a bank loan, the "pornographers" thrive in their twilight world of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, but struggle in the real world for any substantive attainment.  This film is more about how sex on film is equatible with violence on film, first as changing commentary within the story, and finally as brutal action by the pornographers and similar visited upon the self-prostituted.  DON CHEADLE has a Quentin Tarrantino moment in a Dunkin' Donuts... and we want it to happen...   :teddyr:

Though this film is loaded with glimpses of stark sexual activity, we are thoroughly reminded of the lens, suddenly as any scene becomes titillating, the eye of the camera reminds the viewer of the taking of the image.  

At the very end, in the mid 1980s, the filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson reverts to a 1960s BEACH BOYS tune, "God Only Knows" for the soundtrack which somehow is the perfect choice.  Maybe mostly because this film is from and about California.  Largely misunderstood, ultimately, this film is about finding family.  

Good stuff. Oddly, I find that the film has a strange sense of hope. I find it fascinating how the characters manage to go so far into dark territory and still manage to find their way back.

Whoa, I didn't know that there's a lot of people who don't like this film. Why is is so disliked?

So far, it's still Mangolia for me, although I really loved this one as well. I've been wanting to see There Will Be Blood for a long time but I can't seem to find a copy of the DVD...

I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Burt Reynolds was great!!!

Anyone notice real life porn star Nina Hartly as Bill Macy's wife?

Looking at the cast list-there are actually quite a few real pornstars in it!  :buggedout:

Get ready for a long movie that develops slowly, but then if you like Anderson's work you probably are. Daniel Day-Lewis absolutely dominates every scene. There is a rumor that Paul Dano replaced another actor who was originally cast in that part because the original actor was too intimidated by Lewis, who is known to stay in character when the cameras are not rolling. He is fascinating to watch.

Loved Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York, I'm sure he's as great everyone says he is. I watched it again this morning with PT Anderson's commentary

With all the great actors in here, people tend to overlook the performance of John C. Reilly. This and Punch Drunk Love are great.

John C. Reilly was a great bit of casting. I'm sad to see that he has gone the way of Christopher Walken and buried himself in Judd Apatow-type vehicles to the near abandonment of the interesting roles he once did. It's cool to mix in the comedy here and there, but sometimes these great actors just give up the meaningful roles entirely once they get in with the Apatow crowd.

Everyone was really great, but he didn't went overlooked, not for me anyways. Loved him in Magnolia as well  :thumbup:

I always thought this movie would have been more realistic if they gave Dirk Diggler a big penis instead of that small one he whips out at the end. 

:bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle:

Yeah...

*amen*
Me too.... That was so tiny...

There's this one soundtrack in the film, where they're all going through the rough patch (Eddie being beaten up). It's very repetitve and heavy, but great. But I can't find it, anyone know what's it called?

I hated it and honestly found it a repetitive bore that amps up the shock value. I just didn't like or care about any of the characters. I doubt I'll ever watch it again.

AHD covered a lot of my opinions.  I haven't watched the film recentely but it captures a certain something.  What that "something" is its hard to tell but its there.  This movie for me, much like The Big Lebowski, is a moment in time film where characters speak more than plot.

It's been awhile since I've seen it... why don't you check out the TWO soundtrack albums at Amazon which includes short samples of each song... maybe you'll find it, but if you do, let us know what it is: 

http://www.amazon.com/Boogie-Nights-Original-Motion-Picture/dp/B000002UKO/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1311819682&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Boogie-Nights-Original-Motion-Picture/dp/B000002UKO/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1311819682&sr=1-1)

http://www.amazon.com/Boogie-Nights-Original-Motion-Picture/dp/B000002UVH/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1311819682&sr=1-2 (http://www.amazon.com/Boogie-Nights-Original-Motion-Picture/dp/B000002UVH/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1311819682&sr=1-2)

I have to say though, he's incredibly great in those comedies as well.  I would like to see him do something a bit dramatic now, though.

Did you see him in Walk Hard?  Brilliant.

Nope, not on it.  :question: It's purely intrumental and very simplistic but worked very well as a dramatic effect.

Great movie.   :thumbup:

I always switch the first letters of the title and call it "Noogie Bights".

I love Rollergirl and I think of her whenever I hear the song "I got a brand new pair of roller skates...."

It also has the great Luis Guzman.

Saw Boogie Nights when it came out and thought it was great. It reminded me a bit of Pulp Fiction in terms of exciting, rock'n'roll film making. Bought the DVD recently and watched it again and still think it's a great film.

What I only recently found out is that it's loosely based on John Holmes and the "Wonderland" murders, which led me to seek out the film Wonderland with Val Kilmer which is directly baded on that, although I had to stop watching because I thought it was rubbish...

The Wonderland murders is an interesting and shocking story though. There's gruesome footage on youtube of the police videotape of the house after the murders with the bodies etc, which turned out to be the very first time that video evidence was utilised in a criminal trial.