Rating: 
Summary: Magnum Opus!..
Review: You'll feel bewildered, amazed, devastated, puzzled, lost & found, washed away by a sea of emotions, guided, enriched, fulfilled, illuminated and much much much more. Anderson's brilliant, multiple-layered storytelling is only matched by the film's dazzling finale which really can be compared to a catharsis. The music, the colors, the words, the gestures will pluck some unnoticed strings of your heart which will live with you forever. This breathless journey is indeed a feast for your eyes, an abundant, pleasurable experience for your mind and an unforgettable kaleidoscope for your "cuore" which -eternally- changes its colors everytime you "touch" it.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece; P.T. Anderson's Genius Shines Through
Review: One reviewer said that, in this film, Tom Cruise gives the best performance of his career, and yet there may be at least a dozen better performances by other actors. Performances aside, P.T. Anderson has put everything he has on the canvas that is this epic film. Whatever sticks to the canvas is about life, love, maturing, aging, dying, California, America, the world at the end of the 20th century, God and history, how parents treat their children, how one generation treats its progeny, how corporations treat individuals. All of that in a three hour film that feels like 45 minutes; that seems, if anything, too short yet too wondrous to describe in any short review. Please read the shooting script, listen to Aimee Mann's music (available on the Magnolia CD), buy the film when it is available in VHS and DVD. Don't be surprised when Magnolia becomes required viewing for film students for years to come. Magnolia is more than a street in the Valley; it is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Best Picture of 1999
Review: I know American Beauty won best pic, it was good, but this beats it. I think this film didn't get the credit it deserved, I've watched the film several times, and read the script several times, this beats out the rest.
Rating:
Summary: Dogs, Cats, and Other Assorted Species
Review: In life, the things we hold dearest to us often fall apart-- our dreams, our health, our ambition, and people look up. And when it rains, it pours. So says the tagline of Magnolia, a film that spans twenty-four hours in the lives of a collection of wonderfully illustrated characters in Los Angeles (and we often get a flash of the weather forecast as well). Their lives seem to weave in and out of intersection in such a manner that makes us abrubtly shift our attention to all of their different problems and situations, one after another. One cannot help but mesh them all together into one, as the film (3 hours in length) pushes forward.But this is precisely what director Paul Thomas Anderson wants us to do--associate these lives as a whole. One of his most important messages in this film is that as different as people are, we all share in common basic needs and wants. We all at one point have loved, have driven towards something that we wanted, and most of all, we all must come to terms with death. Never before have I seen such a display of well defined motives for so many characters at once. My directing professor once told me that the primary job of a director is to "create a world." Anderson has displayed this flawlessly. With the help of a brilliant ensemble cast, each person maintains their specific motives--the reason why they move and talk onscreen, and their premotives--the strong desire of a lack of something. Jason Robards plays a television producer dying of cancer, wishing to see his alienated son before his time comes. He produces a game show hosted by Phillip Baker Hall, also dying of cancer, who wants to make good with a daughter, but she wants nothing to do with him. Hall's wife, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman's nurse care for these two respectively, and love them unconditionally. A super-brained kid on Hall's gameshow is in desperate need of unconditional love and understanding from his tyrannical and money-hungry father. William H. Macy is a nerdy ex-gameshow whiz kid, all grown up now and without any of his money, who just wants to find someone who can return the immeasurable amount of love he has to give. At one point he runs into trouble with the law, but befriends John C. Reilly--a conservative cop who falls in love with gameshow host Hall's estranged daughter. And the circle continues to tangle itself up until we feel a connection between all of these people--and some of them do connect during, and after an event that cannot have been foreseen by the most perceptive of viewers--something so big that we cannot help but think that maybe there is some method to the madness in the random order of nature and life. The people we see every day, bump into on the street or happen to knock on their door--sometimes they are more like you than you think. And all it takes is a little (or maybe a lot of) coincidence for us to realize it. Many of the people in Magnolia's paths cross, and discover what they have in common with each other. Many of them do not. Some people who rush to a harsh judgment of this film may dismiss it as meandering, and not having a point. If this is so, it is because they are failing to see how this randomness and "imperfection," is precisely the point of the film. Not everything ties exactly together at the end. Not everyone goes home happy. But such is how life goes, and death as well. Many of Anderson's characters cannot achieve what they want in their lives, in Cruise's case, because the past is unchangeable, and in Hall and Robards' case because the future is not completely controllable for them either, and sadly, cancer wins more times than not. Life often tends to be random because sometimes we cannot all find good fortune, and sometimes good fortune, a chance encounter, or a coincidental meeting finds us as if all of a sudden something so unexpected can change everything. All of a sudden our "luck" has turned into something that may have been meant to be. Anderson's simultaneous plot lines are continually interrupted by each other, but one must remember that nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Life is interrupted by life, and life is also interrupted by death. Fate, as well as other things, can fall down from the sky at any moment to tell us that things can happen this way for a reason, and when it rains, it pours. All of us, and in particular Anderson's cop, his nurse, his game show host, his boy genius, his overbearing father, his drug addict, his inspirational guru, his pathetic ex-whiz kid, are participants in a sometimes difficult but sweet game of luck and chance--perhaps at times predicted, but often unable to be prepared for. Kind of like the weather.
Rating:
Summary: Magnolia An Emotional Rollercoaster
Review: I was rather hesitant to watch the movie when I discovered thatthe movie was more than 3 hours long. Surprisingly, I was kept awakeby the non-stop emotional rollercoaster rides in the entire movie. From the excellent introduction of the movie, to the multiple themes in the film, and to the end where mysterious things do happen, Magnolia did not disappoint. In addtion, the cast did a commendable job, the film tecniques are great, and Aimee Mann's music is simply nothing less than brilliant. I was never a fan of Tom Cruise but I changed my mind after this movie. And Julianne Moore in the pharmacy scene simply rocks. Tip: Do not miss the beginning of the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A truly unique experience
Review: After I saw "Magnolia" in the theatre, I was pretty confused as to what to think of. Some parts were pretentious and totally over the top. Other parts were intoxicating and absolutely unforgettable. In the end, though, I decided it was a film of enormous ambition and audacity, one that doesn't always reach it's aims, but ultimately leaves a great impression. It is a story of lost souls in the San Fernando Valley who are all intertwined with each other somehow. "Magnolia" explores these character's shared emotions of remorse and despair, all of them struggling in some way or another to find some redemption in their lives. It's clear Paul Thomas Anderson doesn't care about the unwritten rules of movie-making, he tells a story with bottomless passion and bravery, and should of respected for taking such a giant leap. The performances in this film are excellent, especially Tom Cruise, who should of won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. "Magnolia" is movie that has broaden so many horizons, a vision that sacrafices logic and plausbility to create things with a sense of all-out heart and soul, no matter how unconventional it is (The climax will probaly become a classic sequence). "Magnolia", even with it's flaws, should be seen, it is one of the most striking films of 1999.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST MOVIE................EVER!
Review: I saw this movie four months ago, and I still can not stop raving about it. It is simply one of the most touching, awe-inspiring, compelling, hilarious, suspenseful, wonderful pieces of art ever created for the cinema. PT Anderson is a true cinematic genius in every sense of the word. Tom Cruise finally shows how important of an actor he is with this movie. Julianne Moore, as always, walks away with your heart, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the best up and coming actors we have. Aimee Mann's soundtrack is a perfect narration for the film, turning myself into a huge fan of all her music. Anderson has such a way of hooking you into numerous stories at one time, that I felt breathless for the entire movie. He had the same exact effect in Boogie Nights. In todays crop of filmakers, only he has the courage to hook you into a musical number, and pull it off amazingly. And that ending......well you just have to see for yourself. Do so IMMEDIATLY. Easily the best movie I have ever seen. And the fact that it is three hours long only means that there is more to love
Rating:
Summary: A movie filled with fertilizer...
Review: Ever since I saw this movie back in January, I have been unable to get it out of my mind. Very few movies can do this, and I've seen entirely too many. Magnolia is amazing. I rented Short Cuts because people compared the two and Magnolia is the victor by a mile. It is lengthy, but so what. If you really want to see a good movie that you can get involved, doesn't it have to be long? People who complain about its length are too used to seeing 'popcorn' movies filled with explosions and poor acting. Following Magnolia isn't hard either. I loved all the characters who are portrayed perfectly by every actor in the movie. Anderson is a master, simply put. I was mad that it didn't get nominated for more Oscars. I am really getting tired of Oscar hype and find myself disagreeing more and more with the "winners." I think Anderson deserves directing kudos and Cruise should have won. And even though I liked American Beauty which wasn't a great movie (let's be honest), this is a much better, more original film. It is beautiful and complex. It is dramatic and has an ending I will NEVER forget. I remember sitting in the theater entranced and shocked, too amazed to speak or react. I have never sat totally in awe of a movie in my life like I did then. You know you either love a movie or hate a movie that can do this to you...and I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING! ........just be prepared for the time.
Review: An incredible movie from one of the true geniuses of our time. If there is one director that gets the most out of his cast it is P.T. Anderson. If there is one screenwriter that examines all aspects of his character, it is Anderson. See, rent, buy this movie. Although he has been deprived of the awards he deserves, the least he can recieve is your viewership.
Rating:
Summary: MAGNOLIA: BEST FILM OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Review: With a rocket like beginning, slipping and sliding along like a roller coaster does twists, MAGNOLIA, the new three-hour opus of Paul Thomas Anderson, begins into a brilliant duration. The most moving, affecting, honest, brutal and heartbreaking movie ever made, MAGNOLIA is funny and witty and just sad enough to make you cry. It gets the best out of its actors and writer-director Anderson tops his porn epic BOOGIE NIGHTS and critically acclaimed but hardly seen debut HARD EIGHT with a wonderful Altman-esque tribute to the San Fernando Valley and the strangest things you could ever imagine. And you thought Soderbergh's ERIN BROCKOVICH was mean to frogs.
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