The adult film industry of the 1970s and 80s gets sensitive treatment in Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, Boogie Nights.

Starring Burt Reynolds as Jack Horner, the patriarchal leader of a close knit band of pornographers, and Mark Wahlberg as Horner’s latest discovery Dirk Diggler, Boogie Nights treats a very serious subject with a smile. The movie swells from the beginning, pulling you into a disco club where you meet nearly the entire cast. For the next hour (circa the 1970s),the movie is sweet innocent fun with a bit of filmed sex thrown in for good measure. But, in Boogie Nights, the 1970s literally end with a bang and violence, along with cocaine, are added to the mix for the next hour of the movie which covers the next decade.

Thanks to Diggler’s prodigious talent (and we’re not talking about his acting here) he quickly rises to the top. Along the way, the family that Homer has gathered slowly disintegrates around him. Still, Horner carries himself with class and dignity. Even though there’s no real center to this film, Horner’s home is as close as any of these social misfits are going to get to a family. And Reynolds is great in this role!

There’s a lot to like in Boogie Nights, namely the soundtrack and the effortless performances by nearly everyone. Notably, John C. Reilly, as Diggler’s best buddy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Diggler’s wanna-be second-best buddy, and the late Robert Ridgely, who gives off some truly smarmy vibes as the Colonel, deserve special mention. Boogie Nights is, quite literally, one long dick movie from start to finish. And the final I Coulda Been a Contendah homage cycled through Raging Bull is priceless.

Everything about L.A. Confidential is crisp. The clothing. The dialogue. The editing. The acting. Everything. And, except for a minor mis-step near the end of the film, it’s almost perfect.

L.A. Confidential is a Technicolor film noir. Every image is fresh despite it being a period piece, each shot bathed in a golden 1950s patina. It evokes Chinatown without copying it, the deepest form of film flattery. Talk about propulsion: this film speeds you through a labyrinth of plot-lines with casual nonchalance while most other films these days struggle to tell one. It is Robert Altmanesque in its seamless continuity, moving from person to person with an assurance that we see the three-dimensionality of each of the characters.

And we do. Easily.

All of the action is perfectly staged, every angle is as smooth as a Tinseltown martini. The patchwork newsreel that opens Confidential is as light and airy as this film gets. From there, it’s all downhill in the best sense of the word. To be sure, the bodies stack up in this film like cord-wood during a cold winter, but the violence is subdued and oftentimes finished by the time we catch up with the action: It is the traces of lives that we find so tantalizing.

And all the odd-ball characters are working an angle-it’s all brains and broads and brass knuckles. The whole ensemble is acting on all cylinders. From Kevin Spacey’s silky smooth Hollywood detective to James Cromwell’s Patrolman Patty routine to Russel Crowe’s intense enforcer, the players are as vivid as any in recent memory. Even the people standing in the background, sometimes four-deep in a scene, are memorable here.

Director Curtis Hanson deserves kudos for his genius-this is fluid film-making at its finest. Beginning like a breeze and then coiling slowly into a tight spring that can only be released one way, the shots that ring out in the night are a blessing in relief

L.A. Confidential is a very smart thriller, indeed, one that leaves no loose ends untied.

You can say what you want about director Oliver Stone but one thing’s for sure, the guy’s not boring.

Stone’s latest, U-Turn, shows the remnants of Natural Born Killers with its distorted imagery and MTV edits, but it also keeps you watching just the same. Starring a beat-up Sean Penn in a yarn about a guy who just can’t get a break, U- Turn piles on the trouble with a trowel. There’s recent Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton wandering around in a field of useless automobiles talking smart-ass with the customer who’s never right; the sultry Jennifer Lopez heating things up with a sex kittenish tease routine; a decrepit-looking Nick Nolte in a kind of reheated Sterling Hayden role; and Jon Voight playing a blind Indian chief (or maybe just the spirit of the guy who came back to his homeland after being thrown up by the snake in Anaconda). If all of this sounds like quite the mish-mash that’s because it is. But, to his credit, Stone keeps kicking us in the seat of our pants making us look at the mayhem that he creates so lusciously on the big screen.

The New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC), a non-profit regional media arts center, will be awarding six non-linear editing training scholarships. Scholarship winners will be trained on an AVID editing machine at NOVAC between November 1997 and June 1998. Interested applicants must qualify by: Being (or becoming) a NOVAC member; Possess basic computer and linear editing skills; Show low to moderate income; and have a strong interest in a media career. Non-members will be allowed to join as part of the application process. Proof of experience with linear editing must be furnished with the application. A demo tape or copy of a previous work is sufficient. Format should be VHS, S-VHS, HI-8 or 3/4″. Low to moderate income is considered under $15,000 per year. Deadline for all entries is Friday, November 14. Applications are available at NOVAC, 913 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 or by calling (504) 524-8626.