'Boogie Nights' 4K UHD Has Some Nice Swing
The 4K UHD of Boogie Nights is a big, bright, shining star. From fair color correction to pristine audio, this is the definitive way to view the film from home. Often, 4K restorations of films from the 90s to today don’t deliver the best visual or audio quality. The colors are often crushed together, baking reds, greens, oranges, and blues into a palette that looks more like something AI scrubbed over than expertly handcrafted by a professional correctionist. Boogie Nights has a wonderful dynamic range. Even for someone who owns a 1080p 60 Hz TV without HDR (High Dynamic Range), the color separation is extremely faithful to the source material. I should know. I’ve seen the movie in theaters on film (from a re-release), plus, I still own the 2-disc DVD.
If there’s one huge benefit to owning the dusty DVD over the Blu-ray, it’s for the color bars special feature, which offers a, um, let’s call it a large easter egg. Plus interactive menus. Something that Blu-rays oddly don’t have. Come to think of it, physical media peaked at DVD. Yes, Blu-rays have better picture and sound quality, plus they can store more data than a DVD disc, but the special features don’t have the level of dedication they did back in the DVD days.
There are no motion graphic menus that would make your movie come to life before it even starts. You don’t get to see the scenes move in real time with the scene selection you used to get in some DVD menus. It’s a real shame, since the tech is there, but companies want to invest more money in printing fewer discs with less bells and whistles just so films can disappear from streaming platforms faster than a racecar.
Thankfully, there are occasions when the studio doesn’t just have someone who looks like the World of Warcraft guy run the film print through the color correction and sound mixing process while he wolfs down a bag of Cheetos. I’m sure the process isn’t that lazy. Is it? Because those Blu-rays of the “original” Star Wars trilogy look like something George Lucas had some guy at ILM make while his computer was in sleep mode. If most Blu-rays crush their colors because humans are just barely touching the color wheel, maybe they’re losing their jobs to A.I. for a good reason.
Thankfully, men like Paul Thomas Anderson care more about the physical process of movie-making than the digital one. I’m looking at you, James Cameron. The 2025 re-release looks like a brand-new print of the film, while retaining the grainy charm of the original. To help punctuate the film’s updated visuals, if you’re watching the film on a 4K-enabled HDTV, unlike my 10-year-old 1080p display, you’ll enjoy the added benefit of High Dynamic Range, which delivers even more vibrancy without compromising contrast ratio or losing visual detail.
That big, beautiful 4K projection wouldn’t be as dynamic as it is without great audio. Being the fossel I am, I own a grandfathered-in Harmon Kardon AVR310 receiver with 5 cubed Bose speakers, plus the subwoofer. With Optical cables being replaced by HDMI, the need for an Optical connection is a thing of the past for modern receivers. If you live partially in the past when it comes to technology, as I do, you’ll be pleased to hear that not only does the movie seamlessly switch its DTS-HD 5.1 to my receiver, but it also delivers a nice, hefty output. You can hear your favorite 70s-80s tracks with more quads than Buck’s TK421. There are countless Blu-rays and streaming options (cough, cough, Netflix) that do an awful job of outputting audio, forcing me to crank the volume when the consumer shouldn’t be making sound adjustments. Each channel comes out in gorgeous, lossless audio, with the integrity of the original audio source only slightly compressed for the home audience.
For the final compliment, all features (except the color bars outtakes) are preserved. These range from audio commentaries with the cast and crew to deleted scenes (with optional commentary) and much more. The added bonuses aren’t output to HD, except for the PTA American Cinematheque Q&A panels. But at least they still exist in their original resolution and aren’t mysteriously missing. I wish I could say that the majority of modern 4K re-releases retain all the old extra features, but they don’t, so hold onto those DVDs for dear life. If you happened to lose your two-disc DVD of Boogie Nights, then PTA has you covered with one of the best re-releases I’ve seen in the last two years.
Extra Features
Commentaries
-Paul Thomas Anderson Commentary
-Cast commentary from Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore, William H Macy, and Heather Graham
American Cinematheque Panels
-Paul, Thomas Anderson, and Johnny Riley
-Just with Paul Thomas Anderson
Additional Footage: The John C Reilly Files
Deleted Scenes
-Deleted Scenes with PTA’s commentary
Music Videos
-Try by Michael Penn
-Try by Michael Penn with PTA’s commentary
Specs
-Video Output: 3840x2160pm UHD
-Audio Output: Lossless DTS HD 5.1
