Boogie Nights

As the blurb says "In 1970, sex was safe, pleasure was business and business was booming. But in 1980, the party was over". Director Paul Thomas Anderson has condensed seven years of the porn industry into two and a half hours of screen time telling us the story of Dirk Diggler, very loosley based on the life of porns most legendary Knight, John Holmes.

Eddie Adams (Mark Whalberg) is you typical 17 year old working as a bus boy in a fancy night club trying to become a star. Sounds like something we've seen before in 54? Not quite, because his talent is found between his legs. When he meets up with Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), Dirk Diggler is born and a hot new kid in porn is revealed to the work. Eddie/Dirk has become a star.

Now enters the other side of the adult film industry, a side that will inevitably destroy those who don't change with the times. Drugs wreak havoc on the performance of even the biggest stars and the cheaper VHS product is taking over the high quality production of 16mm film. When Dirks popularity has reached its peak, a new kid on the block is found and thus begins the downhill fall of the Diggler.

Boogie Nights also features an all star cast with the likes of Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Philip Hoffman and William H. Macy to name a few. All have their own unique and interesting characteristics.

Yet another brilliant transfer from Village Roadshow. Granted, they have access to the masters produce from New Line which I personally feel are the best coming out of the US.

What I like most about these transfers is the black level. They are truly black and give a higher contrast ratio to the image which produces a very filmlike print. Most of the movie is at night yet the daytime images still produce the deep blacks present in the other scenes.

The sharpness is very high with the usual aliasing trade off becoming apparent. Detail in the image, both foreground and background, is abundant. Colors are very rich, even in the dullest of scenes, and the saturation levels capture the 70's and 80's style beautifully. One problem with the saturation is that some scenes toward the end suffer from chroma noise as colors get too rich.

What a cool, hip soundtrack. It always nice to watch a movie that uses the original songs from the 70's and 80's rather than 90's remakes that are used to sell soundtrack albums.

The music takes on the role of supplying the bass for the soundtrack. The surrounds also open up during the musical pieces and that's all.

The rest of the movie is dialogue based which comes through just fine. It's not demo material, but it is an excellent compliment to the movie.

A good collection of extras here:

• Audio Commentary - Director Paul Anderson provides a great commentary on all aspects of the movie. He provides some interesting tidbits that I didn't know before such as Leonardo Di Caprio giving up the role of Dirk Diggler to star in Titanic.
• Deleted scenes - A nice collection of extras in here that were properly omitted. You can view them on their own or with the directors commentary. I prefered the commentary as Paul gives us his reasons for why he likes the scenes and why he took them out.
• Theatrical Trailer - standard fare here.
• Cast Crew Biographies - pages of info about the main folk involved.
• Interviews - Cast and crew are asked about their characters and the movie.

Boogie Nights is not for everyone. If you haven't seen a few adult titles in your time then the movie won't appeal to you. The whole movie is an excellent portrayal of what goes on behind the scenes in the adult film industry.

I wouldn't compare it to an epic like Casino but it sure does have that high quality feel to it which can only be attributed to the talent of director, Paul Thomas Anderson. Great movie.