"Magnolia" discussion : 6/23/02 - 6/29/02

[Morticia]

This is a thread to discuss the technical and/or thematic merits of "Magnolia."

The purpose being to foster intelligent discussion of films without resorting to "It's a piece of crap." or "It's the greatest film ever." (And so that we all can gain a bit of a film education from everyone.)

We'll discuss a new film each week. Either slade or I will post the film in this forum in advance, and lock the topic until the first day of discussion.

Thanks everyone. We are excited and we hope this works (we're open to any ideas of how to make it better).

****SPOILER WARNING**** of course this entire thread is going to be full of spoilers.

[Darksim]

I loved this movie....
the performances were great, the highlights being the boy genius,
tom cruise's character, and the cokehead cop-dater. (not good with names, sorry)
i like how the movie was like buncha different movies in one, split in episodes, and how they all tie in together at the end, for they all get impacted by a bizarre metaphorical storm of biblical proportions. FROGS! it was pretty weird too, because i found an easter egg, during the gameshow scene. an audience member
was holding a sign that said exodus something (i forgot the verse) but i looked it up, and the scripture said "if u do not let my people go, i will plague u with frogs" strangely enough another hour or so into the movie and here come the frogs!! really good movie. however i would not buy it, becuase the movie is simply WAAAYYY too long! i think it's like 3 somethin hours long!
good movie though....

[MrSoze]

Greetings!

Oh boy. Let's get it on. Most of what follows is my original movie review of Magnolia, updated after multiple viewings on DVD. This post may be as long as the movie, I should warn you.

"Overlong, pretentious, boring, self-important, meandering......brilliant."

You can find the above words in any review of Magnolia. And you know what? They're all correct. The film is flawed, too long, overwritten, and too dense. It has too many characters, it has too many breakdowns, too much for the audience to react to. It is, in a word, the type of cinematic excess that a lot of filmmakers loathe and despise, and that audiences can't stand.

All of that is the reason that Magnolia is a brilliant film, one of the best you'll ever see. There's more emotion, more heart, and more pure soul in this film than in any other you'll see. It's by far and away PT Anderson's most ambitious project, one that holds nothing back in terms of scope and vision, and one that naturally must falter in some spots.

But let me tell you, I'll take ambition any day over the pedantic nonsense of 90% of Hollywood. So, let's begin.

Where can you even start with this movie?

It has Tom Cruise's best performance, certainly since Risky Business, maybe his best ever. His performance is just unbelievable, and that includes a few caveats-

*He's playing so against type, that I think his performance would have been good regardless of the results here.

*His part is so well-written, that I think he could have read from the script while he was acting, and it would have gone well.

*A lot of actors could have played the part pretty well, maybe even better.

None of that changes the fact that Cruise's character is as much equally loathsome and sympathetic- I'm as moved as I've ever been when he hatefully spits words at Jason Robards while breaking down into tears. While he is slime, we can see where the monster was born, and that makes it all the worse to see what he'd become, and to root for the change to take effect at the end of the movie.

John Reilly = amazing. I think that I had a tendency to write off Reilly after Hard Eight and Boogie Nights had him playing similar dim bulb characters. There's so much hidden pain in those sunglasses, so much need that Reilly conveys, and he rises to the occasion as an actor. You know, this is actually the most underwritten part in the movie, and it relies alot on Reilly for it to sell to the audience. He's the character, the one that you truly root for, throughout the entire mess. He's the moral center and anchor of the entire film. His falling for Claudia is more about his own loneliness than about her, which may not bode well for their future, but makes for a hell of a great story.

Phillip Baker Hall is especially despicable, because PTA allows him to be. He has to be the truest evil in the picture, with his own sense of being unwilling to take responsibility for his actions. That is what makes him who he is, and that's why he doesn't get the easy way out with a simple suicide at the end. And he seems to really enjoy playing the character, as he just goes balls to the walls about it, with enough wretched excess, between the drinking, the sex, and the incest combined. His antithesis is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who is the closest thing to an angel in the movie, whose only motives are pure and good. If Reilly is the character you're rooting for, I think that Hoffman is the character that you feel the most empathy for.

More to the point, the movie is just long, long, long, and I love it. I FUCKING LOVE IT!!! I like amibition. I like scope. I like a filmmaker who says I'm going to keep you here, I'm going to tell you a story, I'm going to make you sit there until I'm done. It may not turn out well, it may. What can I say?

But, the flaws are huge, and I think everybody has different ones. Here's what I don't like about the movie:

Bill Macy's character is just pathetic, and you can't even work up enough emotion to pity him at all. Plus, his prescence in the bar gives birth to PTA's most annoying creation, the guy who speaks only in riddles. I don't hate him in the way I'm supposed to, I loathe his very appearance on the screen. It drives me crazy, like a dog hearing a whistle and wanting to kill.

Also, the father of Stanley Spector is so one-dimensional, it's frightening. I mean, in a story where there are a ton of characters who have multiple layers, there's a guy who exists only to put forth the idea that stage fathers are just evil. He's vile and disgusting, but not in a 3-dimensional way. There's so many thematic elements you can discuss relating to the father/son relationship in the movie, it's a damn shame that he manages to blow it on this end. There's so much hate here from PTA, it seems like he was unable to focus it properly. I wonder why that is.

I have never and will never dig Jason Robards' tireless monologues that take up a good portion of the movie. What a waste of a great actor- Robards is good, but the material is way too long, and it dilutes the message so much, that I wish he had cut down those speeches a bunch.

I think that the women in this movie are kind of given the short shaft. Julianne Moore gets a ton of screen time in the beginning, and then seems to just kind of disappear later. Melora Walters has a frantic performance, but it feels tired, like we've all seen it before, you know? It doesn't break much new ground for me, and it falls to Reilly to hold their scenes together, since she plays it so far over the top. I think that so much of the movie is so focused on the father/son aspect, that the room just isn't there. But there should be enough room in a 3 hour movie.

Magnolia is the cinematic equal of an opera. It is long, and tiring to watch. But, it can reward you in certain spots, and madden you in others. I love it. It's what movies are all about. I go through every emotion watching it. Could it have been better with more judicious editing and a tighter script? Absolutely. But so could 95% of the stuff, good or bad, coming out of Hollywood these days. Magnolia takes chances where others don't, and for that, I can only respect it that much more.

This is only the beginning of what I have to say about the movie. I hope we get some good followups, so I can hop back on.

Yours in the Force,
:jawa:Rick Poehling:jawa:

[LeonardShelby]

I enjoyed reading your comments on this film. I particularly like the fact that you fail to mention "the frogs" in your synopsis of this film. I think everyone gets hooked into thinking too much about what the "frog sequence" means, and in turn fail to mention some of the greatest acting performances of that year!

I agree with you about Cruise's performance. This is without a doubt the best performance I have seen him give and actually felt bad when he did not win an Oscar for it.

Reilly is superb in this film, but I think Melora Walters holds her own in their scenes together. How badly do you feel when Reilly is outside her condo looking for his lost gun in a panic? Great, great scene!

Phillip Baker Hall is good, but I enjoyed him much more in Hard Eight. ("HARD EIGHT" SPOILER) He was actually a dispicable character in that film as well, except that is not truly revealed until later in the film. (/"HARD EIGHT" SPOILER)

Phillip Seymour Hoffman - without a doubt my favorite character and performance in this film. I don't doubt that many home nursing aids go through exactly what he goes through in this film....including their emotional attachment to their patients.

We definitely viewed this film the same way...because I felt that it played like an Opera as well... particularly at the end of the film. The music is getting louder and more intense in a very subtle way as each of the characters faces their criticial moment. Just brilliant pacing and editing at the end of this film!

All in all, this is a complex and difficult film and definitely not for everyone. I felt drained when I left the theater after seeing this for the first time. Similar to how I felt after seeing Saving Private Ryan in the theater. Same kind of emotional experience (for different reasons, of course). But it is an emotional workout, with greatly written characters, a nicely done interweaving plot and some great, great acting!

Certainly not the feel good hit of the year, but a rewarding experience!

[BsK]

Thoughtful, interesting and good comments so far. I won't spend as much time elaborating on certain points of the film other than to mainly chime in that I really enjoyed this movie. It does have incredible performances, mentioned in other posts, (I was really disappointed that Cruise got the Oscar shaft after winning the G.Globe award for Supporting Actor). True, there are flaws to the film. But as mentioned above, with ambition comes risk and with risk, a chance for greater reward...we are rewarded for the most part here.
As a note to the film...does anybody know what the little black rapper was telling JCReilly's character? Did he really offer any clue as to something that happened later in the film? Still can;t seem to figure that one out, and if not...there is an example of overwriting right there.
Overall an enjoyable flick...long yes, but very engaging. One of my favorites of that year without question and one I still am looking to own on DVD at some point.

[MrTony]

Originally posted by BsK

As a note to the film...does anybody know what the little black rapper was telling JCReilly's character? Did he really offer any clue as to something that happened later in the film? Still can;t seem to figure that one out, and if not...there is an example of overwriting right there.

I believe there was a fairly major storyline involving Dixon (the kid) and the woman in the apartment with the dead body (Marcy?), but much of it was cut. On the excellent documentary on the DVD, there is footage of a scene that was shot but cut with Dixon, Stanley, and a man who may be Dixon's dad. Amazon has a book on the movie which includes the shooting script, I believe: it might have more on this storyline.

Great movie, but I need to watch it again before commenting extensively on it.

[BsK]

Originally posted by MrTony


I believe there was a fairly major storyline involving Dixon (the kid) and the woman in the apartment with the dead body (Marcy?), but much of it was cut. On the excellent documentary on the DVD, there is footage of a scene that was shot but cut with Dixon, Stanley, and a man who may be Dixon's dad.

I just purchased the DVD and watched the documentary. I believe in Dixon's rap he mentions "the worm"...who I think is his older brother or something. But what I might have to do if nobody can help, is watch it with subtitles to analyze it further and see if what the kid is saying makes any sense in terms of solving the crime...which I guess was largely cut even with a 3:15 runtime.

[Coral]

Magnolia is a masterpiece !

One important aspect of the film that people usually ignore is the original score.

Jon Brion's beautiful score gets played throughout this film.

PTA had alot to do with the score as it meshes so well with the events of the film and the reactions of the characters.

The misery and anguish that these characters experience just keeps building and building and Brion's score goes along with it.

The score finally gets a little more cheerful after the point of meltdown (ie. frogs).

To those who love this film, I highly recommend puchasing not only the soundtrack of Aimee Mann songs, but also Jon Brion's Original Score. Simply beautiful.

[TwistedByDesign]

I only just watched it today, and woah! Overload! This movie is just so...i don't know really, it'll take some time to process and a second viewing!

One thing I am surprised about however, is that no one gave their interpretation of what they thought the frogs meant? Before seeing this movie I heard ALOT of talk about the frogs. People were saying it was one of the most confusing things they'd ever seen. My main intention in looking for this thread was hoping for some thoughts on the frogs!

Much like Boogie Nights, i was pleased to see John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and William H. Macy. 3 of my fav actors, as well as Luis Guzman! PTA sure knows who to make friends with.

To be honest, I was so into this movie that it really didn't seem too long to me.

there was something weird though, every here and there, i'd see a certain shot, or edit and think "hmm...Aronofsky." I'm pretty sure no one else thought that though!

[3DMan]

Originally posted by TwistedByDesign
there was something weird though, every here and there, i'd see a certain shot, or edit and think "hmm...Aronofsky." I'm pretty sure no one else thought that though!

It's funny you mention Arronofsky, because the quick edit snort/drink shot/pupils dilate looked kind of familiar when I saw Requiem for a Dream, and sure enough, I watched Boogie Nights and it's one of the first things Juliane Moore does in the movie! So maybe the theft/homage is reversed.

[MiddleEarthGirl]

another idea about the frongs:maybe it was something along the lines of the bible verse or global warming

[georgep]

in fact the biblical reference to frogs falling from the sky is mentioned by Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, I believe, earlier in the film. Plus, I live in the desert, and the only time I ever see frogs is when they wind up in our pool right after a rainstorm. So along biblical or natural lines, the "frogstorm" phenomenon seemed plausible...

One complaint I would have would be against Henry Gibson's character. Granted, I haven't seen this film in its entirety since it was first released, but I remember being totally drawn out of the movie every time Gibson had a line of dialogue. He seemed to be inserted almost at random, just to give a "dark side" to the game show, if I remember right. All I could ever think of when he came on screen was the Blues Brothers Nazi. A wasted part.

But on the plus side, Cruise does his best acting here, and how about a little props to Philip Baker Hall ("Bookman" from "Seinfeld")? The guy is a solid, paternal character actor who gives an added gravity to every scene he seems to have dialogue in. Who cares if he's part of P.T. Anderson's "company"...he is ROCK solid, even in vulnerable moments.

Overall, the movie holds up well, but Anderson still has yet to equal the simple honesty and dramatic intensity of Hard Eight and Boogie Nights . Rest in peace, Robert Ridgely.