Magnolia, some thoughts
 

There are a few older OOT threads on this film but they didn't appear to amount to much.

I just saw this for the first time last week (guess I had been deterred by the 3:10 running time).

Overall I thought it was excellent. I haven't seen Punch Drunk Love (which I have been recommended), but I thought Boogie Nights, while not a great movie, had some very interesting film-type stuff going on that PTA incorporated. Magnolia seems to have it all.

I have some mixed feelings on the first opening sequence, where 3 incidents of "chance" are introduced in rapid fashion. I find the narrator's voice to be boring and a turn-off, but it's a very good way to begin a film like this on the whole. Gets the viewer thinking and whatnot. The cuts are well done, especially in the diver tale; PTA's flashes from the water to the casino to the hotel room are great.

After that, Aimee Mann's cover of "One" clicks in and the movie explodes, with the song continuing throughout the entire introductory piece. This really gripped me, again w/ some expert cutting away, nearly all of the chief plotlines were introduced in concise, yet understandable, fashion.

The actors in the film were fabulous. Baker Hall was excellent and of course Cruise was probably at the best he's ever been. I was not a huge fan of Jason Robards (Partridge), but PSH made up for any downpoints in those scenes. Melora Walters was AWESOME. Each scene she was in with John C. Reilly was really great stuff.

The score and the soundtrack are both topnotch. The film is almost like a musical or an opera at many points. The joint singing of "Wise Up" near the end seems a bit cliche when you first see it, but I think it is one of the best parts. Magnolia has a few sweeping crescendo-type orchestral backgrounds that litter its scenes; there is one moment where Stanley is getting indignant at the game show and it cuts to Cruise shaking furiously in front of his father that is excellently complemented by the score. I'm a huge fan of the slowish ending as well, w/ Melora Walters staring at John C. Reilly for a few minutes as Aimee Mann's "Save Me" gets heavier and more layered, until she finally looks and smiles at the camera, guitars thrash, and the credits role.

One other thing I noted here is the evil (dark) light under which the game show is portrayed, similar to the one in Requiem for a Dream. Interesting.

The small rapping black child could've easily been excluded, however. I don't think he added anything.

My favorite scenes in the film are the following:

- Julianne Moore's building anger in the pharmacy. Her look and the camera's switching back and forth between her eyes, the clerk, and the pharamacist are both great. The inevitable explosion is amusing.

- William H. Macy's entrance into the bar and the subsequent time at the table, with Supertramp pumping in from the beginning. The camera angle on Macy at the table, and the awkward homosexuality of the whole thing is something I haven't really seen filmed in that way before.

- From the time when John C. Reilly exits his car in the rain until he asks Walters out is all great. Granted, it's split up and probably takes about an hour to conclude, but the pauses in the dialogue and her innocence is really something to behold.

Overall, amazing film. I could understand how it turns some people away, but to me there were so many things going for it. PTA's "DePalma-esque" (is this right? haven't seen a DePalma movie in awhile) way of panning the camera from one story to another is really amazing.

4.7/5 if I had to grade it.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

You lost me when you said you didn't find the narrator's (Ricky Jay) voice interesting.

He has one of the most distinctive voices in Hollywood. His sleight of hand act is also fantastic.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I find PTA's films to be well-made and original, but terribly depressing. I was more depressed after Boogie Nights and Magnolia than I was after Leaving Las Vegas or Dead Man Walking.

I can see that PTA is a fine director, and I can see that the acting performances are excellent. But I get way too depressed to enjoy these films very much.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Just because it's distinctive (it is) doesn't mean it is appealing. I found it very unappealing, but, again, just my opinion.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

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Just because it's distinctive (it is) doesn't mean it is appealing. I found it very unappealing, but, again, just my opinion.

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This is my feeling about 3/4ths of this movie. Just didn't do it for me.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I watched this movie with great anticipation as Boogie Nights is one of my favorites, and I had heard good things. Except for the Tom Cruise character, which is absolutely incredible, none of the other stuff did anything for me. Jason Robards laying on his death bed saying, "the regret, the regret...". Come on, no one would actually say that. All the other little story lines just seemed like some contrived melodrama over nothing. I don't even remember much except some kid wetting his pants and another kid finding a gun. Somehow this movie even manages to make Phillip Seymour Hoffman boring, which I didn't think was possible.

But I realize the movie could have been a victim off too much buildup for me. Few movies can survive that dreaded fate. Also most people who saw the movie in the theater seemed to come away with a more positive take. I saw it at home. It could be one of those movies that just doesn't pull you in w/o the help of the big screen. But like I said, I still think it's almost worth seeing for "Respect the [censored]!" alone.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I saw this a while ago amongst the kind of crowd who were 1: surprised I hadn't seen it and 2: thought for sure I would love it.

I didn't like it. It didn't suck me in and I felt the ending was bizarre and completely contrived. Maybe it created some emotional resonance with others, but it took me right out of the whole movie and I still kind of hold it up as an example of overwrought cinema.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I agree with suzzer and Triumph, and the last time this came around I/we were in the minority in doing so.

Maybe coming off of Boogie Nights - one of my five favorite movies ever - there was no way it could meet my expectations. But I found it way too long (incredibly bad call IMO giving PTA final cut) and as mentioned above contrived in some places. Big disappointment, aside from "respect the cock!"

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

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All the other little story lines just seemed like some contrived melodrama over nothing.

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From: Movie Pet Peeves thread

Movie Pet Peeves:

Magnolia. All of it.

I was actually livid at the end of the film that I had watched the whole thing. The "mosaic of intersecting characters" was so contrived and completely lacking in irony, the story was obviously and pretentiously written.

The raining frogs almost saved it since it was so unintentionally hilarious.

I think this is the only film I have watched that made me angry for watching it.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I'm a big PTA fan..even saw his short....I'd rank Magnolia as a much more ambitious film that has more flaws then Boogie Nights but equally as great.

BN is fantastic but given it is a much more simplistic film compared to Magnolia I regard them as equals.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Of the people who dis/didn't like this movie--did you see it on the big screen first? Like I said most of the people I know who really like it saw it at the theaters first.

Supposedly Lost in Translation is great on the big screen, slow and boring on a TV (according to an Ebert and Roeper theory anyway). I've never seen it, so I can't say either way.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

suzzer,

Yes I saw it in the theater first. With great anticipation. The great anticipation was probably the problem.

Contrast this with a similar situation, "The Big Lebowski". Coming off of "Fargo" and always having been a huge fan of Coen Bros. films, I went into that one with massive expectations. However, I was initially disappointed because it was so off-the-wall. However, like movies such as "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Swingers" it gets better with every viewing, and is now one of my all-time favorites. Repeated viewings of "Magnolia" just didn't do that for me.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I prefer Mag on a small screen...
Lebowski was a work of pure brilliance..it was superb on both large and small screens.

I'm still waiting for Lebowski in 3D

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Can someone explain the ending of Magnolia to me? I had no idea what was going on. Liked it up until then, though.

My fave PTA movie is Punch Drunk Love. Not quite sure why. I've seen it a few times now and I always like it more in retrospect than in viewing it, strange as that sounds. Its the complete opposite with Boogie Nights, which is very stylish and completely compelling, but somehow doesn't amount to all that much IMO.

I think PTA has some amazing films in him, though, once he refines his style and gets the right material to work with.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Cruise at his absolute, manic best. He seems to find some deep well of talent, if harnessed properly, and isn't gigastaring it for revenue (Magnolia, Collateral).

PTA did apologize for the raining frogs scene sometime afterwards. Apparently it was a "it seemed like a good idea at the time" bit.

He's filming "There will be Blood" currently, release '07. Apparently Daniel Day-Lewis and a no-namer female lead, turn of century early oil boom Texas, it's an Upton Clair novel. (IMDB barebones source) Should at least be interesting.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I've always founds films that bite off more than they can chew very enjoyable and worthwhile, and Magnolia is defintely one of those. Give the guy credit for trying to say something and doing it a different way. Personally, I loved this film, raining frogs and all.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Everytime I watch Magnolia I'm really conflicted. It's impossible for me to deny the talent of PTA when I watch it, but at the same time, I keep getting the feeling that PTA is constantly reminding me how talented he is. My biggest problem with the film is that it is just so unbearably heavy-handed. I couldn't figure out how exactly to put into words my feeling towards the film until I read Roger Ebert's review of "Death For Smoochy," where he said, "Only enormously talented people could have made 'Death to Smoochy.' Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience." While Magnolia wasn't that bad, it takes a lot of ambition to make a film that is bad in the way that this film was.

Giving Anderson final cut of the film may have been the fatal error. The middle two hours of the film just has this sense of an inevitable build to nothing. The raining frogs, the entire cast singing 'Wise Up'-- I just couldn't get behind it.

I didn't hate the movie, I was just very frustrated by it. There's a great movie in there somewhere, and a great talent finding his voice, but seeing movies that are so close to being great (He Got Game is another film that falls into this category for me-- that movie is about 15 degrees off being a masterpiece, but it's ultimately just not very good) just ends up frustrating me and makes me focus on the negative more than I probably should.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I don't really ask a ton from a movie. Boogie Nights to me isn't so much a masterpiece, but has a collection of absolutley incredible scenes. Like maybe 10. That's enough for me to put it at the top of my list. Magnolia has 2 - Tom Cruise on stage and Cruise in his underwear.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Just a difference we'll have to remain disagreed upon then. I think there are 4 or 5 scenes in Magnolia that are better than every single one in Boogie Nights, save maybe the coke dealer scene. Also, almost every actor that is in both films does a better job in Magnolia than in BN.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Here are my favorties from BN:

Firecracker scene

Scene with Heather Graham and Julianne Moore manically doing coke

Scene where Hoffman tries to kiss Marky Mark and bawls his head off

"Feel feel feel feel my heat."

Opening scene/shot

There have to be a couple more I can't remember.

What are yours from Magnolia?


Also hope this isn't too much of a hijack but I found this pretty interesing:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118749/trivia

Leonardo DiCaprio was originally offered the role of Dirk Diggler, he liked the screenplay, but turned it down because he had already signed on to do Titanic (1997). But he suggested Mark Wahlberg for the role.

Gwyneth Paltrow was originally offered the role of Rollergirl but turned it down.

Warren Beatty was originally offered the role of Jack Horner

Yuck. Talk about a different movie.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Some of my favorites from Magnolia are listed above.

I think the group singing of "Wise Up" is fabulous.
The scene w/ Reilly and Walters in the apartment as well.
Every scene Cruise is in.
Both the opening and closing scenes of the movie.

Regarding BN, yeah what a completely different movie that would've been. The thing about Mark Wahlberg is that I really hate him, and think he's bad at basically everything. However, he was strangely perfect for this role I thought.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

both julieanne moore's and william h macys performance are far better than cruises

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

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both julieanne moore's and william h macys performance are far better than cruises

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You're on crack. Julianne Moore isn't even close to Cruise here. Also she's in the movie for like 10 minutes.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Cruise as we can all tell now...just played an overhyped version of himself.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

still a good performance but not his best at all.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

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still a good performance but not his best at all.

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Cruise is not a great actor, this was a great performance imo. What else do you think is a better one? I thought Collateral was gay though so take that for what it's worth.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Rain Man...DH got all the love for playing the retard but not reacting is a lot easy than reacting which is what Cruise had to do through out the film and yet still stay in character.

Yeah I didnt want to get into a long argument...something tells me u might be slightly biased lol
I love magnolia and Cruise was great in it...but I didn't see his performance as mind blowing and thought it got slightly overhyped due to the subject matter.
Plus I think like I said as we have seen in the past year...Cruise played the character as a over hyped Tom Cruise(the persona..no idea what the real Tom Cruise is actually like)

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I think Cruise is a great actor, but I thought just about everyone in the movie was better than he was. I especially thought Julianne Moore and the drug addict girl were very good.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

One of my Top 5 films. I love this movie for its cinematic power.

I do often wonder, however, if the froggy ending could have been avoided and another ending inserted. I'm not saying it was a bad ending, but I wonder what effect a less supernatural ending would have had.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

[ QUOTE ]
I find PTA's films to be well-made and original, but terribly depressing. I was more depressed after Boogie Nights and Magnolia than I was after Leaving Las Vegas or Dead Man Walking.

I can see that PTA is a fine director, and I can see that the acting performances are excellent. But I get way too depressed to enjoy these films very much.

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I really don't see Magnolia as depressing at all. It's a very human film, which thus must include the human conditions of personal suffering, strife, etc., but I find the message extremely positive. Namely, we're alive, we feel, we hurt, we love, we fear... we are alone but we are all alone together.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

[ QUOTE ]
One of my Top 5 films. I love this movie for its cinematic power.

I do often wonder, however, if the froggy ending could have been avoided and another ending inserted. I'm not saying it was a bad ending, but I wonder what effect a less supernatural ending would have had.

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Frogs have rained from the sky's prior....he got all of the "acts of coincidence"
from several books he had been reading..that is what inspired the script.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

Magnolia was a tremendously complicated movie. The first time I watched it I wasn't really sure what was going on, although that may have been a product of the influences I was under at the time. After a few subsequent viewings, I must say I am a big fan of it. What really made me fall in love with the movie wasn't the outburst in the pharmacy (which was awesome), or the rant in the bar (also great). I think the interplay between the cop and the coke addict chick is just a plain tremendous scene. They both play the role convincingly... as they talk you can almost feel her nervousness and his niavetee drips off the screen.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
One of my Top 5 films. I love this movie for its cinematic power.

I do often wonder, however, if the froggy ending could have been avoided and another ending inserted. I'm not saying it was a bad ending, but I wonder what effect a less supernatural ending would have had.

[/ QUOTE ]

Frogs have rained from the sky's prior....he got all of the "acts of coincidence"
from several books he had been reading..that is what inspired the script.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand that... just don't think the movie was really about acts of coincidence, but more about 'we're all basically alone but somehow alone together, and still can reach out and make each other a little less lonely once in a while'. The frogs didn't do much along those lines, but didn't hurt it either... I liked the "wtf?" when I first saw that scene, but upon rewatching this film several times, I just wonder if it spoiled a possibly better unwritten ending. Just a thought.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

pta on frogs and the bible:
It truly came from a slightly gimmicky and exciting place. I'd read about rains of frogs in the works of Charles Fort (His "Book of the Damned" is the genesis for the rain of frogs), who was a turn of the century writer who wrote mainly about odd phenomena. So I just started writing it in to the script. It wasn't until after I got through with the writing that I began to discover what it might mean, which is this: you get to a point in your life, and [censored] is happening, and everything's out of your control, and suddenly, a rain of frogs just makes sense. You're staring at a doctor who is telling you something is wrong, and while we know what it is, we have no way of fixing it. And you just go: "So what you're telling me, basically, is that it's raining frogs from the sky." I'm not someone who's ever had a special fascination with UFO's or supernatural phenomena or anything but I guess I just found myself at a point in my life where I was going through some [censored] stuff, and I was ready for some sort of weird religious experience, or as close as I could get to one. So then I began to decipher things about frogs and history things like this notion that as far back as the Romans, people have been able to judge the health of a society by the health of its frogs: the health of a frog, the vibe of a frog, the texture of the frog, its looks, how much wetness is on it, everything. The frogs are a barometer for who we are as a people. We're polluting ourselves, we're killing ourselves, and the frogs are telling us so, because they're all getting sick and deformed. And I didn't even know it was in the bible until Henry Gibson gave me a copy of it, bookmarked to the appropriate frog passage.

an excerpt from exodus 8:2:
1 AND the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs.

it became a pasttime on set for paul and the crew of magnolia to hide as many references to the numbers 8 and 2 as they could in shots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_%28film%29

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I loved the movie. Def one of my top-5.

I loved the whole thing, frogs and all. To me, the frogs were an essential part of the movie. The movie, up until the end, is basically a melodrama ... You have these people whose lives (at least in their own minds) are spiraling out of control. To their way of thinking, everything bad in the world is happening to them, and everything that is happening is bad. It makes them remarkably self-centered; they can only think about how messed up they are and how wrong it is that they are because they thought they had it all figured out. The madness crescendos in an amazing 15 (or so) minute stretch culminating with Robards death, Moore's suicide (attempt), Jimmy Gator's admission and suicide (attempt), Cruise coming to grips with all that has happened to him over the last few hours, Macy's f'd up burglery, the kid's bladder problems etc, etc.

Then it rains frogs.

And they all have this stark, ice-water-to-the-face reality that it isn't all about them. It took something so ridiculous, so improbable (but certainly possible) to show them that EVERYTHING is possible.

Then it's the next morning. They all look dazed and confused and almost hung over. They're left to wonder wtf happened, and in the process they realize that the Sun doesn't rise or set around any of them and they are all left feeling kind of ridiculous for getting so lost in life's mundane insanities that for the first time they realize their own stupity and limitations.

That's what I got out of it, anyways.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I thought this movie was lackluster in just about every way.

The only movies in recent years that were worse are: Battlefield Earth and About Schmidt

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

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I thought this movie was lackluster in just about every way.

The only movies in recent years that were worse are: Battlefield Earth and About Schmidt

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somehow, based on the march of penguins thread, I don't find that statement surprising

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

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... just don't think the movie was really about acts of coincidence

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It was heavily promoted that way, though. I found it entirely non-coincidental, and completely manipulated.

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The frogs didn't do much along those lines, but didn't hurt it either... I liked the "wtf?" when I first saw that scene, but upon rewatching this film several times, I just wonder if it spoiled a possibly better unwritten ending.

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The frog ending made an annoying story into a joke. For me, anyway.

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

I'm bumping this because I've tried to start 2 or 3 magnolia threads in oot since I joined 2p2 2 years ago and they all died and I'm in the middle of my weekly viewing.

I love pta and in my book he can do nothing wrong. for those of you educated in literature, I think this is the movie version of the wasteland by eliot. its enjoyable on its own, but if you do the research and learn all the references, you realllly appreciate the brilliance. some people love smart movies/poems/stories. some people think works should stand on their own. it probably has to do with a level of pretension. but for me, I like something where I have to do more research to really understand what the artist is doing. if you want to be entertained watch mtv. my real art, from van gogh to dw griffith to keats, true art is only able to be apprecoated with the proper background.

which is why, even though his structure is mediocre, eliot is an amazing poet. same with alligheri. art that takes work is that much rewarding once you understand it, and magnolia takes some work to truly understand. luckily we have imdb to explain everything. much easier than looking up every line in the love song of j alfred prufrock (btw I did a project comparing that to rock bottom by eminem my senior year of high school... won many awards for it)

Re: Magnolia, some thoughts
 

The cast each singing their own bit of that song while alone in the rain is one of the finest bits of filmmaking I've ever seen in my life.

The idiots in advertising tried to market this as a "Tom Cruise Movie!!!". So I can imagine more than a few pissed off people in the theaters and more than a few people who would've liked the movie but never saw it because of what they thought it would be like.

It's my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film.