Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights Information

Boogie Nights is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher, Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, chronicling his rise in the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s through his fall during the excesses of the 1980s. The film also features cameos by porn actresses Nina Hartley (as Little Bill's promiscuous wife) and Veronica Hart (as the custody hearing judge for Amber Waves' court case). The film was an expansion of Anderson's short film The Dirk Diggler Story (1988).

Plot

In 1977, Eddie Adams is a high school dropout who lives with his father and alcoholic mother in Torrance, California. He works at a Los Angeles nightclub owned by Maurice Rodriguez, where he is discovered by porn director Jack Horner, who auditions him by watching him having sex with Rollergirl, a porn starlet who always wears skates. After a heated argument with his mother about his girlfriend and his sex life, Adams runs away from home and moves in with Horner at his San Fernando Valley home. After agreeing to enter the world of pornography, he gives himself the screen name "Dirk Diggler", and becomes a star because of his good looks, youthful charisma, and extraordinarily large penis. His success allows him to buy a new house, an extensive wardrobe, and a "competition orange" 1976 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. Dirk and his best friend/fellow star Reed Rothchild are featured in a series of successful action-themed porn films.

Assistant director Little Bill is married to a porn star who frequently embarrasses him by having sex with other men in public. At a New Year's Eve party at Jack's house marking the year 1980, he shoots both her and her lover, then turns the gun on himself.

Jack's porn empire struggles after his main source of funding, the Colonel, is imprisoned for possession of child pornography. His new financier, Floyd Gondolli, insists on cutting costs by shooting on videotape, a format that Jack detests. He is also unhappy with the lack of scripts and character development in the projects Gondolli expects him to churn out as quickly as possible. One of these projects involves him and Rollergirl, riding in a limousine searching for random men for her to have sex with while a crew tapes it. When a man recognizes Rollergirl as a former high school classmate, he insults both her and Jack. They beat him and leave him bleeding and half-conscious on the street.

Leading lady Amber Waves, who took Eddie under her wing when he joined Jack's stable of actors, finds herself in a custody battle with her former husband. The court determines she is an unfit mother due to her involvement in the porn industry, prior criminal record, and cocaine addiction.

Buck Swope marries fellow porn star Jessie St. Vincent, who shortly thereafter becomes pregnant. Because of his past, Buck is denied a bank loan to open a stereo equipment store. He stops at a donut shop and finds himself in the middle of a holdup. The clerk, the thief, and an armed customer are killed in the crossfire. Buck escapes with the money and uses it to finance his store.

Dirk becomes addicted to cocaine and methamphetamine; consequently, he finds it increasingly difficult to achieve an erection, and he falls into violent mood swings. After he has a falling out with Jack during a film shoot, he and Reed decide to pursue their dream of rock and roll stardom, a move supported by Scotty, a gay boom operator who is in love with Dirk. However, they squander their money, leaving themselves unable to pay the recording studio for the demo tapes. Desperate for money, Dirk resorts to prostitution, but he is assaulted and robbed by a gang of thugs. Dirk, Reed, and their friend Todd attempt to scam drug dealer Rahad Jackson by selling him a half-kilo of baking soda disguised as cocaine. The sale seems to have been executed smoothly, but Todd unexpectedly tries to rob Rahad, and is killed in the ensuing gunfight. Frightened by his brush with death, Dirk tearfully reconciles with Jack. By 1985, Maurice opens a new club while Amber, Rollergirl, Reed, who has his own magic-porn show, and Dirk, are now living in Jack's house and they prepare to shoot a film while Buck and Jessie are visiting with their new-born baby. Dirk reassures himself in front of the mirror by pulling out his impressive penis before leaving to start shooting.

Cast

Mark Wahlberg as Eddie Adams ("Dirk Diggler")
Julianne Moore as Maggie ("Amber Waves")
Burt Reynolds as Jack Horner
Don Cheadle as Buck Swope
John C. Reilly as Reed Rothchild
William H. Macy as "Little" Bill Thompson
Heather Graham as Brandi ("Rollergirl")
Luis Guzmán as Maurice Rodriguez
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Scotty J.
Philip Baker Hall as Floyd Gondolli
Alfred Molina as Rahad Jackson

Nicole Ari Parker as Becky Barnett
Nina Hartley as "Little" Bill's wife
Thomas Jane as Todd Parker
Melora Walters as Jessie St. Vincent
Robert Ridgely as The Colonel James
Michael Jace as Jerome
Ricky Jay as Kurt Longjohn
Joanna Gleason as Dirk's mother
Laurel Holloman as Sheryl Lynn
Michael Penn as Nick
Robert Downey Sr. as Burt
John Doe as Amber's ex-husband

Joaquin Phoenix was considered for the role of "Dirk Diggler".

Release and reception

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was shown at the New York Film Festival before opening on two screens in the U.S. on October 10, 1997. It grossed $50,168 on its opening weekend. Three weeks later, it expanded to 907 theaters and grossed $4,681,934, ranking #4 for the week. It eventually earned $26,400,640 in the U.S. and $16,700,954 in foreign markets for a worldwide box office total of $43,101,594.

Boogie Nights was met with very positive reviews. It currently has 92% positive reviews on film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with 59 of 64 counted reviews giving it a "fresh" rating and an average rating of 8.1 out of 10. On Metacritic, the film holds an average score of 85 out of 100, based on 28 reviews.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "Everything about Boogie Nights is interestingly unexpected," although "the film's extravagant 2-hour 32-minute length amounts to a slight tactical mistake ... [it] has no trouble holding interest ... but the length promises larger ideas than the film finally delivers." She praised Burt Reynolds for "his best and most suavely funny performance in many years" and added, "The movie's special gift happens to be Mark Wahlberg, who gives a terrifically appealing performance."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed, "Few films have been more matter-of-fact, even disenchanted, about sexuality. Adult films are a business here, not a dalliance or a pastime, and one of the charms of Boogie Nights is the way it shows the everyday backstage humdrum life of porno filmmaking ... The sweep and variety of the characters have brought the movie comparisons to Robert Altman's Nashville and The Player. There is also some of the same appeal as Pulp Fiction in scenes that balance precariously between comedy and violence ... Through all the characters and all the action, Anderson's screenplay centers on the human qualities of the players ... Boogie Nights has the quality of many great films, in that it always seems alive."

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle stated, "Boogie Nights is the first great film about the 1970s to come out since the '70s ... It gets all the details right, nailing down the styles and the music. More impressive, it captures the decade's distinct, decadent glamour ... [It] also succeeds at something very difficult: re-creating the ethos and mentality of an era ... Paul Thomas Anderson ... has pulled off a wonderful, sprawling, sophisticated film ... With Boogie Nights, we know we're not just watching episodes from disparate lives but a panorama of recent social history, rendered in bold, exuberant colors."

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it "a startling film, but not for the obvious reasons. Yes, its decision to focus on the pornography business in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s and 1980s is nerviness itself, but more impressive is the film's sureness of touch, its ability to be empathetic, nonjudgmental and gently satirical, to understand what is going on beneath the surface of this raunchy Nashville-esque universe and to deftly relate it to our own ... Perhaps the most exciting thing about Boogie Nights is the ease with which writer-director Anderson ... spins out this complex web. A true storyteller, able to easily mix and match moods in a playful and audacious manner, he is a filmmaker definitely worth watching, both now and in the future."

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, "[T]his chunk of movie dynamite is detonated by Mark Wahlberg ... who grabs a breakout role and runs with it ... Even when Boogie Nights flies off course as it tracks its bizarrely idealistic characters into the '80s ... you can sense the passionate commitment at the core of this hilarious and harrowing spectacle. For this, credit Paul Thomas Anderson ... who ... scores a personal triumph by finding glints of rude life in the ashes that remained after Watergate. For all the unbridled sex, what is significant, timely and, finally, hopeful about Boogie Nights is the way Anderson proves that a movie can be mercilessly honest and mercifully humane at the same time."

Soundtrack

Two Boogie Nights soundtracks were released, the first at the time of the film's initial release and the second the following year. Although the two albums encompass nearly every major song featured in the film, they did not include "99 Luftballons" by Nena, "Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold, "Compared to What" by Roberta Flack, "Fat Man" by Jethro Tull, "Sunny" by Boney M., and "The Sage," a cello piece by Chico Hamilton.

Awards and nominations

Organization	Category	Recipients and nominees
70th Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
	Best Supporting Actress	Julianne Moore
	Best Original Screenplay	Paul Thomas Anderson
55th Golden Globe Awards	Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture	Burt Reynolds
55th Golden Globe Awards	Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture	Julianne Moore
51st British Academy Film Awards	Best Actor in a Supporting Role	Burt Reynolds
51st British Academy Film Awards	Best Original Screenplay	Paul Thomas Anderson
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards 1997	Best New Filmmaker	Paul Thomas Anderson
British Independent Film Awards	Best Foreign Independent FilmEnglish Language
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards 1997	Best Cast
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actress	Julianne Moore
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
	Best Supporting Actress	Julianne Moore
	New Generation Award	Paul Thomas Anderson
National Society of Film Critics Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
National Society of Film Critics Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actress	Julianne Moore
1997 New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Supporting Actor	Burt Reynolds
Golden Satellite Awards 1997	Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture	Burt Reynolds
	Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture	Julianne Moore
	Best Cast - Motion Picture
	Best Film - Drama
	Best Director	Paul Thomas Anderson
	Original Screenplay	Paul Thomas Anderson
	Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama	Mark Wahlberg
	Best Editing
4th Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture	Burt Reynolds
	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture	Julianne Moore
Writers Guild of America Awards 1997	Best Original Screenplay