Magnolia, some thoughts

[Frank TJ Mackey]

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.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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

[Frank TJ Mackey]

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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.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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

[CharlieDontSurf]

still a good performance but not his best at all.

[Frank TJ Mackey]

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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.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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)

[DrewDevil]

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.

[HLMencken]

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.

[HLMencken]

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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.