I don't really know what to think of Boogie Nights. In many ways it's a bad film, similar in respect to Showgirls in that it's softcore porn with at least some semblance of a plot. Yet, I can't help but like it because, once you get past the flesh, it's really about people, the choices they make, and that effect on their lives.
Boogie Nights is a parody of the porn industry while also being an in-depth and serious examination of it, focusing on much more than just how the movies are made. It puts a name, a face, and a history to the throbbing bodies, which is all we usually see (and care about for that matter).
Writer/director/producer Paul Thomas Anderson has done something quite unique with this story, he manages to introduce a good dozen characters and follow each and every one over about a 10 year span. We watch as each of the characters are brought together, their lives intertwining, then, even as they separate from each other, we still interact with all of them.
Of course, the main focus is on Mark Whalberg's character Eddie Adams -- later renaming himself Dirk Diggler -- and his rise from high-school-dropout/waiter to king of the porn industry, and then his subsequent downfall as his drug addicion and his ego ruin his life. In the mix are the stories of Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), the veteran porn actress who acts as mother to the younger actors, which we find out is to fill the void after losing her son in a custody battle; Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) who's only wish is to open his own stereo retail store, but finds his past hindering him at every turn; Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) who becomes Dirk's best friend and faithful sidekick; Little Bill (William H. Macey), the cameraman, whose wife is very open with her infidelity and is driving him mad; Rollergirl (Heather Graham) who's young, dense, and loving it; and, perhaps most importantly, Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), the director who brings these lives (and many others in the film) all together.
There is a lot of satire within each character -- from Dirk's many quotes that what he's doing isn't promoting promiscuity but is instead teaching husbands and wives how to love each other right, to Buck's insistance that he's an actor, not a pornographer, to Jack's dilusion that what he does is quality filmwork -- all of it reflecting the same idea; justifying the porn as a legitimate art form.
But aside from this reoccuring joke, there is a lot of heart in the film and the characters themselves, which takes away from the vulgarity of it all. That really translates well to the audience, which is what separates Boogie Nights from softcore porn.