Previews made it look like a ‘Boogie Nights’ rip off. And of course ‘Boogie Nights’ was something of a Goodfellas rip off...
I don’t see Boogie Nights as being a ripoff of Goodfellas. It certainly wasn’t a gangster movie (although we’ve seen other movies with a story arc of rise to power, fall from grace and then redemption). The only problem is that Boogie had a happy ending, whereas some of us know full well the real-life people did not (Dirk Diggler would’ve been reduced to doing gay pornos before succumbing to AIDS before the ‘80s was out).
Boogie Nights is way weirder than a Goodfellas ripoff. Good movie too. American Hustle is excellent, it is a Scorsese imitation, but it’s a form he’d abandoned for a while (before of course returning for Wolf released a week later). It’s more fun than Scorsese though, the characters are actually likable misfits more than conniving scumbags.