Now for the DVD fan, this is important, if you already have the single disc release, there is no need to buy the double disc set, because they are the same, oh..but wait the single disc has more. Don't be dooped by New Line's marketing strategies. You get the same extra features, but on 2 discs instead of one and a nifty new packaging, which is what you are paying for. In fact the single disc release has one extra feature that the 2 disc set doesn't, the "song jump" feature, which alows you to skip to selected songs throughout the film.

It's the oblique nature of "Boogie Nights" that makes it so special. It's not a film that will give you pat answers; rather, it'll challenge you in a way few films do. What other movie in recent memory was able to take an explicit sex scene and make it sexually unexciting? "Boogie Nights" has just such a scene, and it serves one purpose: to de-glamorize the world of porno and portray it for what it doubtless is: a business where people do nothing but try to make a living.

"Boogie Nights" centers around the life and times (the late 1970's and early 1980's) of Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg, who's dynamite), who is discovered by porno impresario Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds, in another dynamite performance) and soon changes his name to Dirk Diggler and becomes a porno star.

Dirk's story is intertwined with the stories of others who share his world: coked-up porn queen Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), who plays surrogate mother to Dirk because she is legally barred from seeing her own child; Reed Rothschild (John C. Reilly), his best buddy and co-star; Rollergirl (Heather Graham), a porn performer who insists on "acting" with her rollerskates on; Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), a black porn bit player who dresses like Gene Autry and dreams of owning a stereo store; and Little Bill (William H. Macy), Horner's quietly enraged right hand man, whose wife literally does it with everyone and anyone and doesn't care if her husband sees her doing it.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson tells the characters' stories vignette-style, much as Robert Altman would.

In particular, Dirk's rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story is alternately funny, horrifying, sad and uplifting. In particular, there is a scene in which a strung-out Dirk tries to make a drug deal with a crackhead dealer. Problem is, the cocaine he's trying to sell is fake, the dealer's house is full of armed thugs, and his friend keeps lighting firecrackers as the whacked-out dealer listens to Night Ranger's "Sister Christian". Anderson directs this scene so beautifully that the tension and fear is absolutely unbearable after a while, but the whole setup is so bizarre that you can't help but smirk your way through it. That's great directing, folks.

The performances are all standouts, but Reynolds' and Moore's are especially fine. In addition, the period feel (down to the Cheryl Tiegs poster on Dirk's bedroom wall) and music is right on target.

This is a brilliant film, and though it's too in love with its own brilliance from time to time, the flaws are greatly outweighed by the film's tremendous energy and superb performances.