• 99 Luftballons
• Alcoholic
• Alfred Molina
• AllRovi
• Andrew Gold
• Boney M.
• Boogie Nights
• Boogie Nights (song)
• Box Office Mojo
• Burt Reynolds
• Cello
• Chevrolet Corvette
• Chicago Sun-Times
• Chico Hamilton
• Child pornography
• Cocaine
• Don Cheadle
• Drama film
• Drug addiction
• Dylan Tichenor
• Erection
• Gay
• Golden Age of Porn
• Hard Eight (film)
• Heather Graham
• Janet Maslin
• Jethro Tull (band)
• Joanna Gleason
• Joaquin Phoenix
• John C. Reilly
• John Doe (musician)
• Julianne Moore
• Kenneth Turan
• Laurel Holloman
• Lloyd Levin
• Los Angeles
• Los Angeles Times
• Lovelace (film)
• Luis Guzmán
• Magnolia (film)
• Mark Wahlberg
• Melora Walters
• Metacritic
• Methamphetamine
• Michael Jace
• Michael Penn
• Mick LaSalle
• Nashville (film)
• Nena
• New Line Cinema
• New Year's Eve
• Nicole Ari Parker
• Nightclub
• Nina Hartley
• Paul Thomas Anderson
• Peter Travers
• Philip Baker Hall
• Pornographic film
• Prostitution
• Pulp Fiction (film)
• Punch-Drunk Love
• Ricky Jay
• Robert Altman
• Robert Downey Sr.
• Robert Elswit
• Robert Ridgely
• Roberta Flack
• Rock and roll
• Roger Ebert
• Rolling Stone
• Rotten Tomatoes
• San Fernando Valley
• The New York Times
• The Player
• The Pornographer
• There Will Be Blood
• Thomas Jane
• Torrance, California
• Veronica Hart
• Watergate scandal
• Wikipedia Link rot
• William H. Macy
• 
  

• 
  Los Angeles
  Los Angeles (ⁱ/lɒs ˈændʒələs/ loss-AN-jə-ləs; Spanish: [los ˈaŋxeles], which is written Los Ángeles; British pronounciation /lɒs ˈændʒəliːz/ loss-AN-jə-leez) with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in the state of California, and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of 468.67 square miles (1,213.8 km²), and is located in Southern California. Often known by its initials L.A., the city is the focal point of the larger Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area and Greater Los Angeles Area region, which contain 12,828,837 and nearly 18 million people respectively as of 2010, making it one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in the United States. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States, while the entire Los Angeles area itself has been recognized as the most diverse of the nation's largest cities. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos".
  
  wn.com/Los_Angeles
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  San Fernando Valley
  The San Fernando Valley (locally known as "The Valley") is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it. Home to 1.76 million people, it lies north of the larger and more populous Los Angeles Basin.
  Nearly two thirds of the Valley's land area is part of the city of Los Angeles. The other incorporated cities in the valley are Burbank, Glendale, San Fernando, Hidden Hills and Calabasas.
  The San Fernando Valley is about 260 square miles (670 km²) bounded by the Santa Susana Mountains to the northwest, the Simi Hills to the west, the Santa Monica Mountains and Chalk Hills to the south, the Verdugo Mountains to the east, and the San Gabriel Mountains to the northeast. The northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, northwestern Topatopa Mountains, southern Santa Ana Mountains, and Downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers can be seen from higher neighborhoods, passes, and parks in the San Fernando Valley.
  
  wn.com/San_Fernando_Valley

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  Alfred Molina
  Alfred Molina (born Alfredo Molina; 24 May 1953) is an English actor. He is well known for his roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Prick Up Your Ears, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Spider-Man 2, Maverick, Species, Not Without My Daughter, Chocolat, Frida, Steamboy, The Hoax, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Da Vinci Code, Little Traitor, An Education and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
  He has recently starred as Detective Ricardo Morales on the NBC police/courtroom drama Law & Order: LA and as Roger opposite Dawn French in the BBC television sitcom Roger & Val Have Just Got In.
  Molina was born in Paddington, London; known to his friends as "Pepo". His mother, Giovanna (née Bonelli), was an Italian house-keeper who cleaned rooms in a hotel and worked as a cook. His father, Esteban Molina, was a Spanish immigrant from Madrid who worked as a waiter and chauffeur. Molina grew up in a working class district in Notting Hill that was inhabited by many other immigrant families. He decided to become an actor after seeing Spartacus at the age of nine, and attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
  
  wn.com/Alfred_Molina
• Andrew Gold
  Andrew Maurice Gold (August 2, 1951 – June 3, 2011) was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His works include the Top 10 single "Lonely Boy" (1977), as well as "Thank You for Being a Friend" (1978), and "Never Let Her Slip Away" (1978).
  Gold was a multi-instrumentalist, and he was also an artist, producer, film composer, session musician, actor, and painter.
  Gold was born in Burbank, California, and later joined a family business. His mother is singer Marni Nixon (who provided the singing voice for numerous actresses, notably Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady); his father was Ernest Gold, the Austrian-born, Academy Award-winning composer for the movie Exodus. He has two younger sisters. Gold began writing songs at the age of 13.
  By the early 1970s he was working as a musician, songwriter and record producer for many musicians. He was a member of the Los Angeles band Bryndle alongside Kenny Edwards, Wendy Waldman and Karla Bonoff. He played a major role as multi-instrumentalist and arranger for Linda Ronstadt's breakthrough album, 1974's Heart Like a Wheel, and her next four albums. Among other accomplishments, he played the majority of instruments on the album's first track, including the guitar work on "You're No Good," Ronstadt's first #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, and the same on "When Will I Be Loved", "Heatwave", and many others. He was in her band from 1973 until 1977, and then sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
  
  wn.com/Andrew_Gold
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  Burt Reynolds
  Burton Milo "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. (born February 11, 1936) is an American actor, director and voice artist. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its 2005 remake respectively, Billy Clyde Puckett in Semi-Tough, J.J. McClure in The Cannonball Run, the voice of Charlie B. Barkin in All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Jack Horner in Boogie Nights.
  Reynolds' parents were Burton Milo Reynolds, Sr. (1906–2002), who had Cherokee and Irish ancestry, and his wife, Fern H. (née Miller). Reynolds was born in Lansing, Michigan. He states in his autobiography that his family was living in Lansing, Michigan, when his father was drafted into the United States Army. Reynolds, his mother and his sister joined his father at Fort Leonard Wood, where they lived for two years. When Reynolds's father was sent to Europe, the family returned to Lansing. In 1946, Reynolds moved to Riviera Beach, Florida, with his parents. His father, Burt Sr., later became Chief of Police of Riviera Beach. Riviera Beach is the next town north of West Palm Beach.
  
  wn.com/Burt_Reynolds
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  Chico Hamilton
  Chico Hamilton (born Foreststorn Hamilton, September 20, 1921), is an American jazz drummer and bandleader.
  Hamilton was born in Los Angeles, California. He had a fast-track musical education in a band with Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso. Engagements with Lionel Hampton, Slim & Slam, T-Bone Walker, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan and six years with Lena Horne established him as a jazz drummer, and he struck out on his own as a bandleader in 1955.
  Hamilton appeared in the March Milastaire number in the film You'll Never Get Rich (1941) as part of the backing group supporting Fred Astaire, and performed on the soundtrack of the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope film Road to Bali.
  He recorded his first album as leader in 1955 with George Duvivier (double-bass) and Howard Roberts (jazz guitar) for Pacific Jazz. In same year Hamilton formed an unusual quintet in L.A. featuring cello, flute, guitar, bass and drums. The quintet has been described as one of the last important West Coast Jazz bands. The original personnel included flutist Buddy Collette, guitarist Jim Hall, cellist Fred Katz and bassist Jim Aton, who was later replaced by Carson Smith. Hamilton continued to tour, using different personnel, from 1957 to 1960. The group including flutist Paul Horn and John Pisano was featured in the film Sweet Smell of Success in 1957. The same group, this time including Nate Gershman and Eric Dolphy appeared in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day in 1960. He marked his first recordings with Eric Dolphy on With Strings Attached, Gongs East, The Three Faces of Chico, and That Hamilton Man.
  
  wn.com/Chico_Hamilton
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  Don Cheadle
  Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. (pronounced /ˈtʃiːdəl/; born November 29, 1964) is an American film actor and producer. Cheadle rose to prominence in the late 1990s and the early 2000s for his supporting roles in the Steven Soderbergh-directed films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven. In 2004, his lead role as Rwandan hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the genocide drama film Hotel Rwanda earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also campaigns for the end of genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and co-authored a book concerning the issue titled Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond. In 2010, Cheadle was named U.N. Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador. He currently stars on the Showtime sitcom House of Lies.
  Cheadle was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bettye (née North), a teacher, and Donald Frank Cheadle, Sr., a clinical psychologist. He has a sister, Dawn, and a brother, Colin. His family moved from city to city throughout his childhood. Cheadle graduated in 1982 from East High School in Denver, Colorado, and went on to the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a BFA in Acting.
  
  wn.com/Don_Cheadle
• Dylan Tichenor
  Dylan Mc Tichenor (born June 1968) is a film editor.
  As a child, he grew up watching movies with his father. He graduated from Philadelphia's Central High School in 1986.
  Tichenor worked as editor Geraldine Peroni's assistant on several films in the 1990s, including Robert Altman's film The Player (1992). His first credit as an editor was for Altman's Jazz '34 (1996). Following Peroni's death in 2004, Tichenor stepped in to finish his mentor's editing of Brokeback Mountain (directed by Ang Lee).
  Tichenor has had a notable collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson. Tichenor's first major editing credit was for Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997), for which he was nominated for a Satellite Award. Tichenor was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Anderson's 2007 film There Will Be Blood.
  Tichenor has been elected to membership in the American Cinema Editors.
  Tichenor was the primary editor on the following films, unless noted otherwise. The film directors are indicated in parenthesis.
  
  wn.com/Dylan_Tichenor
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  Heather Graham
  Heather Joan Graham (born January 29, 1970) is an American actress. Following early roles in License to Drive, Drugstore Cowboy and Twin Peaks, she won critical acclaim for her role as Rollergirl in 1997's Boogie Nights, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. She has since become known as a Hollywood sex symbol and has appeared in films such as Lost In Space, Bowfinger, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, From Hell, Anger Management, Bobby and Hangover, TheThe Hangover.
  Heather Graham was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the older of two children. Her family is of "three quarters Irish" descent, with her father's side from County Cork. Her younger sister, Aimee Graham, is also an actress and writer. Their mother, Joan (née Bransfield), is a teacher and author of children's books. Their father, James Graham, is a retired FBI agent. The girls were raised with traditional Catholic values. Her family relocated repeatedly before settling down in Agoura Hills, California when she was nine years old. She was introduced to acting during a school production of The Wizard of Oz. Graham graduated from Agoura High School in California in 1988.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Heather_Graham
• Janet Maslin
  Janet Maslin (born 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times' film critic from 1977–1999.
  Maslin graduated from the University of Rochester in 1970, with a B.A. degree and a major in mathematics. She began her career as a rock music critic for The Boston Phoenix and Rolling Stone.
  Maslin was the long-time film critic for The New York Times, serving from 1977–1999. Her film criticism career, including her embrace of American independent cinema, is discussed in the 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. In the film Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum recalls the excitement of having a woman as the lead reviewer at The New York Times.
  Maslin currently^[when?] reviews books for The New York Times.
  She was once^[when?] married to record producer Jon Landau. She is now^[when?] married to writer Benjamin Cheever, and lives with their two sons in Pleasantville, New York, where she serves as president of the board of the Jacob Burns Film Center.
  
  wn.com/Janet_Maslin
• Joanna Gleason
  Joanna Gleason (née Hall; born June 2, 1950) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is a Tony Award-winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles.
  Gleason was born in Toronto, Ontario as the daughter of Marilyn (née Plottel), a producer, writer, and actress; and television personality Monty Hall. At the time of her birth, her father was working at the Canadian Wheat Board and had changed his name from Halperin to Hall. He later started his TV career and went on to fame as host of Let's Make a Deal. Monty Hall's brother, Robert Halperin, also changed his name to Hall.^{[citation needed]}
  In May 1956, the Hall family moved to New York and, in the early 1960s, they again moved to Los Angeles, California. Gleason graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1968. While attending BHHS she was in the school's productions of The Music Man, The Mikado, The Grass Harp, and The Madwoman of Chaillot. In high school Gleason received acting instruction from John Ingle, the soap-opera star, who taught at BHHS from 1955 to 1985. She continued her education at UCLA, then Occidental College, from which she graduated. Gleason has been a teacher herself, holding classes and workshops all over the country.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Joanna_Gleason
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  Joaquin Phoenix
  Joaquin Rafael Phoenix ( /hwɑːˈkiːn ˈfiːnɪks/; born October 28, 1974), formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later. Phoenix is from a family of performers, including his older brother, the late River Phoenix.
  Phoenix has ventured behind the camera, directing music videos as well as producing movies and television shows, and has recorded an album, the soundtrack to Walk the Line. He is also known for his work as a social activist, particularly as an advocate for animal rights.
  Phoenix was born Joaquín Rafael Bottom in Río Piedras, located in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to American parents. He is the third of five children, including River (1970–1993), Rain (1972), Liberty (1976), and Summer (1978). He also has a half-sister named Jodean (1964) from a previous relationship of his father's.
  His father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California. His mother, Arlyn (née Dunetz), was born in The Bronx, New York to Jewish parents whose families emigrated from Russia and Hungary. In 1968, Arlyn left her family and moved to California, later meeting Phoenix's father while hitch-hiking. They married in 1969, then later joined the religious cult the Children of God. They began travelling throughout South America.
  
  wn.com/Joaquin_Phoenix
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  Julianne Moore
  Julianne Moore (born Julie Anne Smith on December 3, 1960) is a British-American actress and a children's book author. She has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards.
  Moore began her acting career in 1983 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the soap opera As the World Turns, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. She began to appear in supporting roles in films during the early 1990s, in films such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The Fugitive. Her performance in Short Cuts (1993) won her and the rest of the cast a Golden Globe for their ensemble performance, and her performance in Boogie Nights (1997) brought her widespread attention and nominations for several major acting awards.
  Her success continued with films such as The Big Lebowski (1998), The End of the Affair (1999) and Magnolia (1999). She received particular acclaim for her portrayal of a betrayed wife in Far from Heaven (2002), winning several critic awards as best actress of the year, in addition to several other nominations, including the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award. The same year, she was also nominated for several awards as best supporting actress for her work in The Hours. In 2010, Moore starred in the comedy drama The Kids Are All Right, for which she received a Golden Globe and BAFTA nomination.
  
  wn.com/Julianne_Moore
• Kenneth Turan
  Kenneth Turan ( /təˈræn/; born October 27, 1946) is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.
  Turan was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his B.S. in history from Swarthmore College in 1967 and M.S. from Columbia University in 1968. From 1969-1978 he was a sports writer and feature writer for the Washington Post. He also served as film critic for a number of publications including The Progressive, New West/California Magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly, and E!Entertainment.
  He has been a film critic for the Los Angeles Times since 1991 and the Director for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Los Angeles Times since 1993. He is the founding film critic for Arts Alive on KUSC-FM and www.kusc.org. He also provides regular reviews for Morning Edition on National Public Radio
  Kenneth Turan is featured in the documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism discussing his famous public quarrel with James Cameron, and recalling how Cameron e-mailed the LA Times’s editors calling for Turan’s firing after Turan wrote a negative review of Titanic.
  
  wn.com/Kenneth_Turan
• Laurel Holloman
  Laurel Holloman (born May 23, 1971) is an American actress, best known for her roles as Randy Dean in the 1995 indie film The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Justine Cooper on Angel, and Tina Kennard on the Showtime series The L Word.
  Laurel attended the University of North Carolina and appeared in numerous theater productions. After her freshman year, she moved to Chicago to work with the Piven Theatre Workshop. She studied with John Lynn in Los Angeles; was cast in David Orr's independent feature Blossom Time. She moved to New York City in early 1994 and appeared in stage productions such as Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie, Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter at Theatre for the New City. Holloman also performed off-Broadway in Julia Jordan's Night Swim at Playwright's Horizons.
  In 1995, she began her film career with her breakout role as baby butch Randy Dean in The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love for which she received critical acclaim. She has worked steadily in a variety of mostly independent film roles, such as The Myth of Fingerprints, Boogie Nights and Tumbleweeds.
  
  wn.com/Laurel_Holloman
• Lloyd Levin
  Lloyd Levin is an film producer.
  Levin is a native of Paramus, New Jersey, where he attended Paramus High School.
  He won the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture for his work on United 93. He was also nominated for a BAFTA for the same film. He received a nomination for a Golden Satellite Award for the film Boogie Nights. Levin will produce the film adaption of Warren Fahy's bestseller novel Fragment.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Lloyd_Levin
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  Luis Guzmán
  Luis Guzmán (born August 28, 1956) is a Puerto Rican-born American actor, who is known for his character work. For much of his Guzmán's career, he has played character roles largely as sidekicks, thugs, or policemen.
  He is a favorite of director Steven Soderbergh, who cast him in Out of Sight, The Limey, and Traffic, and Paul Thomas Anderson, who cast him in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love. He also voiced Ricardo Diaz in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. He recently starred in the HBO original series How to Make It in America.
  Guzmán was born in Cayey, Puerto Rico and was raised in New York City's Greenwich Village and the surrounding Lower East Side neighborhood. His mother, Rosa, was a hospital worker, and his stepfather, Benjamin Cardona, was a TV repairman. A graduate of City College of New York, he began his career not as an actor but as a social worker and moonlighted as an actor, eventually becoming heavily involved in street theater and independent films.
  
  wn.com/Luis_Guzmán
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  Mark Wahlberg
  Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971) is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1989 debut as frontman with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90's. Wahlberg is well known for his roles in films such as Boogie Nights (1997), Three Kings (1999), The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), Rock Star (2001), The Italian Job (2003), I Heart Huckabees (2004), Four Brothers (2005), The Departed (2006), Invincible (2006), Shooter (2007), and The Fighter (2010), Date Night (2010). He has also served as the executive producer of the TV series Entourage, Boardwalk Empire and How to Make It in America.
  Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children, with siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, Tracey, Michelle, Debbie (died in 2003 at age 44), and Donnie. His father was of half Swedish and half Irish ancestry, and his mother is of Irish, English, and French Canadian descent. Maternally, Wahlberg is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wahlberg's mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aide, and Wahlberg's father, Donald Edward Wahlberg, was a Teamster who worked as a delivery driver. His parents divorced in 1982. Wahlberg had a Roman Catholic upbringing and attended Copley Square High School (but never graduated) on Newbury Street in Boston.
  
  wn.com/Mark_Wahlberg
• Melora Walters
  Melora Walters (born October 21, 1959) is an American actress.
  Walters was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to American parents in 1960 (according to IMDB). She was partly raised there and in Holland. Walters attended high school at Lake Forest Academy-Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois. She is divorced from Nip/Tuck actor Dylan Walsh, with whom she has two children, Joanna and Thomas.
  Cast three times by Paul Thomas Anderson, Walters has appeared in Hard Eight, Boogie Nights (as Jessie St. Vincent), and Magnolia (as Claudia Wilson Gator). She has also appeared on such television shows as Roseanne, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue and CSI.
  In 2003, Walters portrayed Lila in Cold Mountain, and in 2004, played Andrea Treborn in the The Butterfly Effect. She guest-starred as Sylvia Greene on Desperate Housewives in 2007 and played the role of Wanda Hendrickson in the HBO drama Big Love.
  
  wn.com/Melora_Walters
• Michael Jace
  Michael Jace (born July 13, 1970) is an American actor. He starred in State of Play with Russell Crowe. He is best known for his role as Los Angeles Police Officer Julien Lowe a Christian who is conflicted about his sexuality, in the FX drama The Shield. He can be see in Marshall Cook's next movie, Division III: Football's Finest.
  He also has starred in the movies The Replacements; playing a prison inmate turned football player, Forrest Gump; playing a member of the Black Panthers, The Fan; playing an arrogant ticket scalper, as well as an array of TV appearances including the 1995 HBO TV movie Tyson (as boxer Mitch Green), Law & Order, and the 1999 Fox TV movie Michael Jordan: An American Hero (as Jordan).
  
  wn.com/Michael_Jace
• Michael Penn
  Michael Penn (born August 1, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter and composer. He is the eldest son of actor/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors Sean Penn and the late Chris Penn.
  Michael Penn is a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter and film composer. Prior to the release of his 1989 debut album March, Penn was a member of the Los Angeles band Doll Congress, and had appeared as an extra on a few television series, including St. Elsewhere.
  March, particularly the first single, "No Myth," brought Penn attention, as well as the 1990 MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. Penn's follow-up albums Free-for-All (1992), Resigned (1997) MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident (2000 ) Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (2005) and Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea (2007) weren't able to match the commercial success of March, although critics continued to praise his songcraft.
  It was with Free-for-All that Penn faced the specter of the one-hit wonder. The album, while praised by critics, was not as successful as Penn's debut, though it had more than its share of supporters. Rolling Stone called it "stunning" and CMJ wrote that the album "exhausts any doubts" about whether March was a fluke.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Penn
• Mick LaSalle
  Mick LaSalle (born May 7, 1959) is an American film critic and the author of two books on pre-Hays Code Hollywood. Up to March 2008, he had written inmore than 1550 reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle and he has been podcasting them since September 2005.
  LaSalle is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, a history/critical study of the actresses who worked in the film industry between 1929-1934. It was published by Thomas Dunne Books in 2000. In his review in The New York Times, Andy Webster called it "an overdue examination of a historic conflict between Hollywood and would-be monitors of morality" and added LaSalle "has an avuncular but informative style, and makes his points with a relaxed economy."
  The book served as the basis for the documentary film Complicated Women, directed by Hugh Munro Neely and narrated by Jane Fonda, which originally was broadcast by Turner Classic Movies in May 2003. LaSalle provided commentary for and was associate producer of the project.
  
  wn.com/Mick_LaSalle
• 
  Nena
  Gabriele Susanne Kerner (born 24 March 1960), better known by her stage name Nena, is a German singer and actress. She rose to international fame in 1983 with the New German Wave song "99 Luftballons". In 1984, she re-recorded this song in English as "99 Red Balloons".Nena was also the name of the band with whom she released the song. With the re-recording and subsequent release of some of her old songs, her career re-emerged in 2002. In 2007, she co-founded the school "Neue Schule Hamburg".
  Gabriele Susanne Kerner was born on 24 March 1960 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, while her family lived in the nearby town of Breckerfeld. She spent the earliest part of her childhood in Breckerfeld and later lived in Hagen. She acquired her nickname, based on the Spanish word "nena" (colloquial for "niña"), or "little girl", at the age of three, while on a vacation to Spain with her parents. In 1977 she left high school before graduation, and in the three following years she was trained as a goldsmith.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Nena
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  Nicole Ari Parker
  Nicole Ari Parker Kodjoe (born October 7, 1970), also known as Nikki Kodjoe, is an American actress and a former model. Parker is best known for her role as Becky Barnett in the 1997 film, Boogie Nights and as the attorney Teri Joseph on the Showtime series, Soul Food, which ran from 2000 to 2004.
  Parker was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the only child of her divorced parents, health care professional Susan Parker and dentist Donald Parker. Parker's ethnic background is African American and Cherokee. At the age of 17, she won best actress in the state of Maryland's high school competition and then moved to the Washington Ballet Company before applying to the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She graduated with an acting degree in 1993.
  Early in her career she appeared in several critically acclaimed independent films including The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Boogie Nights, 200 Cigarettes, and the 1999 Sundance Film Festival winner The Adventures of Sebastian Cole. She starred with her husband, model and actor Boris Kodjoe, in UPN's situation comedy Second Time Around.
  
  wn.com/Nicole_Ari_Parker
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  Nina Hartley
  Nina Hartley (born Marie Louise Hartman; March 11, 1959) is an American pornographic actress, pornographic film director, sex educator, feminist, and author.
  Hartley was born in Berkeley, California to a Lutheran father and a Jewish mother whose family was from Alabama. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the youngest of four children, with an older sister and two older brothers. Her parents converted to Buddhism when she was young. After graduating from high school in 1977, she attended San Francisco State University's undergraduate nursing school and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She is a registered nurse.
  In 1982, during her sophomore year of nursing school, she started working as a stripper at Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater. She made her foray into the world of pornographic movies during her junior year, in 1984. Her debut performance was in the film Educating Nina, which was produced and directed by the veteran porn star Juliet Anderson (better known as "Aunt Peg"), and this proved to be a massive hit.
  
  wn.com/Nina_Hartley
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  Paul Thomas Anderson
  Paul Thomas Anderson (born June 26, 1970), is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has written and directed feature films: Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), and The Master (2012). He has been nominated for five Academy Awards — There Will Be Blood for Best Achievement in Directing, Best Motion Picture of the Year, and Best Adapted Screenplay; Magnolia for Best Original Screenplay; and Boogie Nights for Best Original Screenplay.
  Anderson has been hailed as being "one of the most exciting talents to come along in years" and "among the supreme talents of today." After the release of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Anderson was praised as a wunderkind. In 2004, Anderson was ranked twenty-first on The Guardian's list of the forty best directors. In 2007, Total Film named him the twentieth greatest director of all time, while the American Film Institute regards him as "one of American film's modern masters." In 2011, Entertainment Weekly named him the tenth-greatest working director calling him "one of the most dynamic directors to emerge in the last twenty years."
  
  wn.com/Paul_Thomas_Anderson
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  Peter Travers
  Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.
  Travers joined Rolling Stone in 1989 after a four-year stint with People. He's best known for his basic writing style that eschews a more sophisticated analysis for an easy-to-read and often very opinionated form. According to efilmcritic.com, Travers is the nation's most blurbed film critic. Some of the contemporary directors he is most receptive to based on ratings and placement in top ten lists include Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Tim Burton, Clint Eastwood, Joel and Ethan Coen, and Ang Lee.^{[citation needed]} He has also shown a great deal of disdain for certain directors, most notably Michael Bay and his films.^{[citation needed]}
  Since 1989, Travers has reviewed for Rolling Stone 2465 movies up to July, 21 2011. On April 10, 2002, Travers began using intensively a star-rating system ranging from No star to Four Star. He used such system very seldom before, and not all reviews are rated.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Travers
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  Philip Baker Hall
  Philip Baker Hall (born September 10, 1931) is an American actor.
  Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor. He moved to New York, enjoying success in Off Broadway and Broadway productions.
  In 1975, Hall moved to Los Angeles to make a career in television. Since then, he has had over 200 guest roles on television shows.
  He starred in many films, including Robert Altman's Secret Honor in which he played the film's only role, Richard Nixon. Hall got his first high-profile film role when Paul Thomas Anderson wrote a role in his film Hard Eight, specifically for Hall. Hall went on to have roles in two of Anderson's subsequent films, Boogie Nights and Magnolia. He also had a minor role as Captain Diel in the Rush Hour trilogy (though his scenes were cut from the theatrical release of Rush Hour 2).
  
  wn.com/Philip_Baker_Hall
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  Ricky Jay
  Richard Jay Potash (born 1948), better known by the stage name Ricky Jay, is an American stage magician, actor, and writer. He is a sleight-of-hand expert and is notable for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter.
  Jay was born in Brooklyn, New York to a middle class Jewish family. His grandfather, Max Katz, was a well-to-do certified public accountant and amateur magician who introduced Jay to the profession.
  At least three of his one-man shows, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants, On the Stem, and A Rogue's Gallery were directed by David Mamet, who has also cast Jay in a number of his films. Jay has appeared in productions by other directors, notably Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, as well as Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.
  A collector and historian of note, he was a student and firm friend of the legendary Dai Vernon, who Jay states was: "the greatest living contributor to the magical art". An avid collector of rare books (he has spent over five thousand dollars on single books alone) and manuscripts, art, and other artifacts connected to the history of magic, gambling, unusual entertainments, and frauds and confidence games, he is also opposed to any public revelations of the techniques of magic.
  
  wn.com/Ricky_Jay
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  Robert Altman
  Robert Bernard Altman (February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.
  His films MASH (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), and Nashville (1975) have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
  Altman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Helen (née Matthews), a Mayflower descendant from Nebraska, and Bernard Clement Altman, a wealthy insurance salesman and amateur gambler, who came from an upper-class family. Altman's ancestry was German, English and Irish; his paternal grandfather, Frank Altman, Sr., anglicized the spelling of the family name from "Altmann" to "Altman". Altman had a Catholic upbringing, but he did not continue to practice as a Catholic as an adult, although he has been referred to as "a sort of Catholic" and a Catholic director. He was educated at Jesuit schools, including Rockhurst High School, in Kansas City. He graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri in 1943.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Altman
• Robert Elswit
  Robert Christopher Elswit, ASC (born April 22, 1950) is an American cinematographer. He has had multiple Oscar, BAFTA, and Independent Spirit nominations for several films, including There Will Be Blood. Elswit frequently works with director Paul Thomas Anderson.
  Elswit is a fierce defender of shooting with film, and whenever possible refuses to use digital cameras. Images shot digitally, he says, have "no texture, no grain."
  Elswit has also worked with director George Clooney several times. He shot Clooney's black and white, multiple-Oscar nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. Notably, Elswit shot the film in color, then converted the film into black and white in post production. According to Elswit, this technique preserved the subtlety of the colors (as complex shades of blacks and greys) and made the overall look much richer in the final film.
  Elswit received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography in 2006 for his work on the movie Good Night, and Good Luck. He lost that Oscar to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. Two years later, Elswit would again be nominated and this time win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, for his work on There Will Be Blood.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Elswit
• Robert Ridgely
  Robert Ridgely (December 24, 1931—February 8, 1997) was an American actor and vocal artist, known for both on-camera roles and extensive voice-over work.
  Ridgely started his television career with guest roles in such 1960s series as Maverick, Sea Hunt and Surfside 6. He landed a regular role as Lt. Kimbro in the short-lived World War II series The Gallant Men. After the series was cancelled he continued with guest appearances in shows like Bonanza, WKRP in Cincinnati, Night Court and Designing Women. He also appeared in many movies, especially Mel Brooks productions such as Blazing Saddles (1974), High Anxiety (1977), Life Stinks (1991), and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and also had roles in films such as Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and Boogie Nights (1997), and played Wally "Mr. Love" Williams, host of the fictional game show Easy Street in the 1980 movie Melvin and Howard. He was also the announcer of The Hollywood Television Showcase in the 1996 movie That Thing You Do.
  In the late 1960s Ridgely acted as co-host to talk show host Woody Woodbury. He also appeared in many commercials, including a classic McDonalds commercial, staged as a Broadway production number, where he sings "There is nothin' so clean - as my burger machine". The commercial is available on YouTube.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Ridgely
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  Roberta Flack
  Roberta Flack (born February 10, 1937) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music. Roberta Flack is best known for her Hot 100 #1 singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love", as well as "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of her many duets with Donny Hathaway. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won the 1973 Grammy Record of the Year and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" won the same award at the Grammy Awards of 1974. She and U2 are the only artists to win the award in consecutive years.
  Roberta Flack was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina and was raised in Arlington, Virginia. She first discovered the work of African American musical artists when she heard Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke sing in a predominantly African-American Baptist church.
  During her early teens, Flack so excelled at classical piano that Howard University awarded her a full music scholarship. She entered Howard University at the age of 15, making her one of the youngest students ever to enroll there. She eventually changed her major from piano to voice, and became an assistant conductor of the university choir. Her direction of a production of Aida received a standing ovation from the Howard University faculty. Flack is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and was made an honorary member of Tau Beta Sigma by the Eta Delta Chapter at Howard University for her outstanding work in promoting music education.
  
  wn.com/Roberta_Flack
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  Roger Ebert
  Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
  Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008, but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show. Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".
  
  wn.com/Roger_Ebert
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  Thomas Jane
  Thomas Jane (born Thomas Elliott III; February 22, 1969) is an American actor known for his roles in the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, the 2001 TV film 61*, the 2004 film The Punisher and the 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist. He also starred in the HBO comedy-drama series Hung.
  Jane was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Cynthia, an antiques dealer, and Michael Elliott, a biogenetic engineer. In 1987, he graduated from Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School in Montgomery County, Maryland.
  At age 18, Jane relocated to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. He was initially homeless and lived out of his car. Regarding his time as a busker, Jane has noted "I had two songs in my repertoire that I hammered to death — 'Hey Joe' and 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'....People used to pelt me with change just to shut me up."
  Jane began his acting career with the Telugu film Padamati Sandhya Ragam (1986), directed by Jandhyala, a renowned filmmaker in Telugu Cinema. His early roles included Zeph in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). He had supporting roles in several high profile films, including The Crow: City of Angels (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), The Thin Red Line (1998), Thursday (1998) and Magnolia (1999). After receiving critical acclaim as baseball player Mickey Mantle in 61*, Jane began receiving leading roles such as that of Andre Stander in the 2003 South African film, Stander for which he gained further critical acclaim.
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Jane
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  Veronica Hart
  Jane Esther Hamilton (born October 27, 1956) is an American former pornographic actress and current porn director who performed under the name Veronica Hart during the 1980s. She is sometimes credited as Jane Esther Hamilton, Jane Hamilton, V. Hart, Veronica Heart, Victoria Holt, Kathryn Stanleigh, Randee Styles or just Veronica. Hart is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame.
  Hart was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hart made adult movies from 1980 until 1984, and is best known for her performances in Amanda by Night, Wanda Whips Wall Street, Roommates and A Scent of Heather. Today, she directs, edits and produces adult films, while making occasional (non-sexual) cameos in both mainstream and adult productions.
  Events in her life were the inspiration for the custodial problems of character Amber Waves in Boogie Nights (1997), directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Veronica went on to play a judge in "Boogie Nights," appearing in the scene where Amber and her husband are arguing during a hearing about their son. Veronica would later appear in another Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Magnolia.
  
  wn.com/Veronica_Hart

Boogie Nights (1997)

Actors

• Mark Wahlberg
• Burt Reynolds
• Julianne Moore
• John C. Reilly
• Heather Graham
• Don Cheadle
• William H. Macy
• Luis Guzman
• Philip Baker-hall
• Thomas Jane
• Ricky Jay
• Alfred Molina
• Robert Ridgely
• Melora Walters
• Nina Hartley

Director

• Paul Thomas Anderson

• timeline:
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• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001