The subject matter was still too skeevy to draw mainstream or even art-house audiences, yet not nearly explicit enough to draw the trench coat crowd. "Most people don't share my moral sense," writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson explained in 1999, "which is, 'I'll masturbate, but I have to clean it up very quickly afterwards.'" No wonder "Boogie Nights" wasn't exactly a hit.
Nonetheless, it earned three Oscar nominations, made a serious leading man out of Mark Wahlberg, gave Burt Reynolds his best role of the last 35 years, put Anderson on the map, and gave early career boosts to Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, and Thomas Jane.
These days, "Boogie Nights" evokes double nostalgia, both for the disco 1970s, lovingly recreated in the movie's costumes and soundtrack, and for the 1990s, when Hollywood studios still nurtured indie directors and let them realize their visions instead of plucking them fresh from Sundance and assigning them to direct CGI blockbuster franchise sequels.
