Boogie Nights (1997)

Boogie Nights Quote: “I got a feeling that behind those jeans is something wonderful just waiting to get out.” – Jack Horner


On paper, “Boogie Nights” looks destined to fail: A new, 27-year-old director Paul Thomas Anderson gambling on making a period drama about porn … starring Marky Mark and Burt Reynolds … based on a short film about a guy named “Dirk Diggler” that Anderson made when he was 18. 

But instead of a campy tits-and-ass disco disaster, “Boogie Nights” turned out to be a breakout film powered by picture-perfect camerawork, a mind-blowing soundtrack, a swirl of emotions, and a dynamite cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, and Don Cheadle. 

Seriously, all those people were in one movie that featured a prosthetic dong, crappy kung fu, and bell bottoms.

Ash, Dick, and Gene naturally swooned over this masterpiece of ’90s cinema, which brought up conversations about vintage porn, the darkness of the ’80s, drug PSAs, Thomas Jayne, and of course that time Ash commissioned Shat the Movies to cover “Magnolia.”

Plot Summary: “Boogie Nights” In the San Fernando Valley in 1977, teenage busboy Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) gets discovered by porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), who transforms him into adult-film sensation Dirk Diggler. Brought into a supportive circle of friends, including fellow actors Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), Rollergirl (Heather Graham), and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), Dirk fulfills all his ambitions, but a toxic combination of drugs and egotism threatens to take him back down.

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