Rating: 
Summary: amazing
Review: i wish i could give more than five stars
Rating:
Summary: my kind of romance film
Review: I work at one of the few theaters which had the opportunity to play the new film by writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson: Magnolia. When selling tickets and people ask me, "what is this Magnolia movie about?" I reply, "It's a story of chance and coincidence in the San Fernando Valley with a romance at its heart." This is rather vague and broad, but it is intriguing to the moviegoers. I do warn them that Tom Cruise's character, Frank T.J. Mackey, has some very graphic and harsh dialogue, and that the running time is long, but I would say that ninety percent of the audience walks out happy having seen such a beautiful film.The film follows eleven characters through one rainy day which culminates in a sequence so forceful that you feel just as physically and mentally drained as those inside the celluloid. The eleven characters all branch off from an old man dying of cancer named Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) who lays in a bed through the whole movie. He is married to Linda (Julianne Moore) and is looked after by nurse Phil Parma (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Earl's last wish is to speak with his son, Frank (Cruise). Earl is also the executive producer of "the longest running quiz show on television: What Do Kids Know?" The TV game show is at an exciting point in its run for a new group of "Kids" led by Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) is close to breaking the record for consecutive wins held by former quiz kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy). Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall) is the host who is also dying of cancer. He has a wife, Rose (Melinda Dillon), and an estranged daughter of his own: Claudia (Melora Walters). Claudia is addicted to cocaine and listens to her music way too loud. Her neighbors call the cops and Officer Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly) is sent to her door and they subsequently flirt which leads to a date. It is their romance which I feel is central to the film. The eleventh character does not have nearly as much screen time as the previous ten, but is the most important character of all. He is Dixon (Emmanuel Johnson), the candy selling, ten year old "rapper" who drops clues as to what might happen in an early freestyle flow. What does happen is a painfully brilliant and heartbreaking story of love, coincidence and redemption. There are many double stories like in King Lear: the two dying fathers with estranged children; both fathers have people who work for them who love them even more than their own family; we also see the young and old versions of a child genius showing how the present parental mistreating will affect him in the future; and there is a set of designated caregivers (the cop and the nurse), who echos Lear's fool. The whole film is told through constant cross cutting between stories and interactions. For the first two thirds of the film there is always some form of music the pictures are set to, be it the score or rock songs. The director has learned a lot of his show-offy technique from Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman; he has Scorsese's eye and ear for mood setting music and Altman's grand scope and vision-a great foundation for a director. In his previous film, Boogie Nights, the director just seemed to be quoting those two, but in this present film, he has found his own style and rhythm. His ear for dialogue is great, he elicits great performances from his actors and knows how to make every minute count. A running time of 180 minutes is pretty steep but it flew right by. And if asked, I would not know where to cut the film. Paul Thomas Anderson is completely enamored with everything in this film-his story, his actors and his own filmmaking (the camera in particular). Roger Ebert refers to the movie as "operatic." I can see where he is coming from, its ambition and length are operatic and there is the incessant use of music in the background, sometimes drowning out the dialogue so we only hear phrases and have to read lips. I would refer to the film as rhapsodic, ecstatic in the act of filmmaking and storytelling, coming to peaks just short enough not to peak too early and eventually reaching the ultimate climax like a great jazz song. All this to tell us you can't really plan ahead because you don't know what will happen. It also reminds us that sometimes plans work out and you should just go with it like when Claudia kisses Jim upon returning from the bathroom and said, "I'm glad I did that, I needed to do that." I'm glad Mr. Anderson make this film. It showed me that I should remember the small things, that love isn't as hard as it may seem to find, and that I need to know somebody loves me back and I should accept their love. This may sound like the lovelorn teenager in me, but I feel it to be true. This is my kind of romance film.
Rating:
Summary: Magnolia
Review: Magnolia is the all-time best movie of the 90's. It's definitely the best movie that I have ever seen and I've seen a lot of movies. This movie was so emotional and moving. The wonderful actors and actresses in this movie made you believe that they were not acting, but that it was real and that is very hard to do. I really loved how the director (Paul Thomas Anderson) made it so that there were like 10 main characters and all of them had essential and important parts. Parts so important that if one of them were not in the movie, the movie would fall apart. I loved this movie and you should go see it.
Rating:
Summary: A Movie That Grew On Me
Review: Magnolia slowly became my favorite film of last year. In the theater, I was transfixed - barely taking my eyes of the screen, and, despite the length, never looking at my watch. The characters are not particularly likable, most had serious flaws that would make them difficult to actually know in life but by the end of the film it becomes more clear where these flaws came from. Aimee Mann's music is the perfect backdrop to the film; her lyrics fit beautifully. As I left the theater, I could not decide about Magnolia. I was completely caught up in the movie. Anderson handles all of his many characters deftly. The action moves seamlessly from one to another. And I simply could not get this movie out of my mind after seeing it. I thought about the images, the characters, the songs for days. And I decided that isn't that what a good movie should do, draw us in and make us think? Magnolia does not make us feel good, but it does make us feel and that's something.
Rating:
Summary: Unlogical beginning but dramatic realistic Ending 2Thumbs up
Review: "Has it started allready?"thats what you are going to ask when you are sitting in the cinema! The beginning has nothing to do with the movie so dont be scared but it is quit funny!Its the story of sick Earl whos married to 30 years younger "Juliane Moore" he lies in bed allday and taks wih his friend who cares for him. Earl want to see his son Frank "Tom Cruise, in his best role!" before he dies while Earls friend tries to reach Frank, a policeman fells in love with a drugged girl called Claudia which is the dauther of the Quizmaster on TV who haves only 1 day to live,oh and there is that little boy who playes in the quizshow and fights for his daddys love while the ex-Quizstar Donni became a total idiot! In the end theres a nice "realistic" Frograin who brings everything back to normal! Thats one of the best films yet, which you can talk about for a long time, and includes a wonderful Soundtrack by Aimee Man! A must see!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful.
Review: While this movie isn't "action-packed" or spoon-feeding a clean and simple ending to you, it is simply gorgeous and honest. Movies often fail at portraying more than one side of a character's personality and this movie does so realisticly. This movie is subtle at times, and there's no doubt that it's long, but if you possess any attention span, watch it.
Rating: 
Summary: they make you give it at least 1 star
Review: Magnolia has been hailed as wonderful and groundbreaking when instead, people should be looking at Paul Thomas Anderson and see him for what he is...a ripoff. The film is just Scorcese, Altman and Woody Allen all mixed into one. Anderson spent three hours building up these great characters and then couldn't go anywhere with them. The film was just self-indulgience on the part of Anderson and for all those people complaining that Gus Van Sant's, shot for shot Psycho remake was pointless, just wait till you see Anderson's shot for shot remake of Short Cuts. At least Van Sant had the decency to give credit to Hitchcock, as opposed to Anderson giving credit to himself. I watched this film three times to really try and figure out what everyone was so crazy about and still...nothing. You want a well made film about different characters? Go watch The Thin Red Line. Go watch The Celebration. Go watch Gummo. Go watch anything. Just please don't waste your money on someone who has made his living off figuring out how to remake other director's films while getting around copywrite laws.
Rating:
Summary: I hope that's the last carte blanche for PT.
Review: I've liked Boogie Nights - the DVD is one of the favorites in my collection. Taking home the second of the year's floral offerings - the first being American Beauty rose - I was preparing myself for something very rewarding. For the first half an hour I was intrigued by the 3 accidents - they looked like a prelude to something meaningful. Then the familiar faces appeared, a Beatlesque music poured in - good, good. An hour later I was staring at the screen where all the faces combined in some kind of hysterical hydra, writhing and shrieking: - You! You a-hole! Motherfker! Shut up! F-k off! You shut up! - I sat back and thought - Why don't YOU shut up?- Sat through the film till the end - my attention span exceeds the movie's length by couple hours. Then I did some Internet research - read PT's interviews. Had a sense of deja vu - the guy sounds so much like Eric Cartman: - I fking don't let fking nobody to fking edit my fking films! - The fking genius. Could not find PT's biography - it seems he does not have one yet. That explains a lot. That's not the first time a kid with sheltered childhood in a safe neighbourhood gets obsessed with the life's dark side. Everyone beams at you when you grow up among the decent people, baseball glove replaces a teddy bear, you get your first car at the right age... When the transitional age comes everything is so complicated, nice people just pretend to be nice, your body changes and demands it's due, you get nasty, you flare up. You see junkie in a street, glimpse loose ladies in a bar, people die in a hospital - the testimony to the world's vile imperfection. Later we mature, become more balanced, see things in a perspective, acquire stoicism and understanding, the will to carry on. But that's not the case with PT Anderson. Ambitious and undereducated "genius" wants to show us the way life is, the adult life, the life that provided him with so few meaningful experiences. His girlfriend Fiona Apple was denied a right to pee-pee in time during some show (see Rolling Stone interview) - and her touching narrative is transformed into the nerve-wrecking tragedy - one of the central to the film. The much more serious occassion - PT was present when his father was dying of cancer - also has to be used to the full. Someone have to die of cancer. No, no, make it two! Yeah...right...exactly...Two men dying of cancer, please! And one female dopehead is not enough - make it double too! Dos por uno. The film is twice the normal size - so these doubles come very helpful. And two quiz kids. What relevance to the poor guy's infatuation has the fact that William H.Macy's character is a former quiz kid? He could be any other kind of loser - it would not have the slightest impact to the story. The acting is exaggerated. What is that - an advent of The New Sentimentalism or pure cheesiness? I particularly hated Julianne Moore's roaming and raving, gulping pills by a handfull, confronting people with these shrill: - You dunno understand, just dunno understand! You a-hole motherfker! I've married him for money and now I love him! A-hole! You dunno understand! - Yes, yes, calm down, lady. We understand. You have married him for money and now you love him. Yes, it happens all the time - specially if your brain is totally screwed. Calm down. Have another handful. The ridiculous acting had to be topped by someting even more ridiculous - to tie it all up. Yes, the finale is unexpected. Who could expect such stupidity from a major release? If you are looking for the meaning in that film long enough you'll find somehing. But that would be entirely your fault. Why it is called Magnolia? What the flower has to do with the movie? Is there any symbolism? The DVD's cover tries to answer that putting the faces on a different petals - the plotlines stem from one source. How inventive. In fact Magnolia is just the name of the street in San Fernando Valley where the director grew up. It had to be used somehow. The inside of PT's upper scull is a narrow space. No things to be wasted.
Rating:
Summary: An art film of deep emotional complexity
Review: I have to admit, I didn't realize this film was actually close to (or slightly more than) three hours long until I read some of the other reviews of it! I was so completely taken in by the strange depth and profound troubles of the characters that unfolded more and more through the film, along with the slowly revealed motivations for their actions and their unexpected connections to each other simultaneously, that time flew by without my awareness. And Mr. Tom Cruise's Academy award nomination was no accident or publicity stunt; few times was I more impressed with an actor's work. The depth of this movie doesn't border on the spiritual; you will see Exodus 8:2 as a leit motif dance through this picture- it IS spiritual, in ways that will both blow your mind, and break your heart. I would give it four and half stars if it were possible because of a scene that devolves into a music video that didn't work for me at all. But the movie as a whole is still closer to five star excellence than four. And as far as the screen play is concerned, the recurring line about the past in this movie is one that should become a part of cinematic history. Worth seeing more than once.
Rating:
Summary: An overly long, bloated piece of self-indulgence.
Review: Magnolia is an interesting film. It is littered with colorful characters, and each has a story to tell. The problem with this movie is just that: it tells all of these stories. As I said to a friend, Magnolia would be wonderful if it was cut in half and made into two seperate films. This film is just too long, with too many plots to keep in your head. The biggest problem this movie has is pacing. The first climax of the film occurs halfway through the movie, and the second occurs 15 minutes before the movie ends. Considering this movie is 3 hours and 18 minutes long, that is an awful long time to have to wait for something to happen. P.T. Anderson simply went overboard on this one. While no one scene was bad, put in context it just turns into one big mess, and no one character or actor has enough consecutive screentime to pull the movie above its bloated excesses. And believe me, this movie has many strong characters and actors. But just as you start to connect with a character, you're snatched away to another one. When you come back to the previous one, the connection has been severed and must be made again, thus making whatever happens seem trifling. The only character I could connect with was Tom Cruise's, because Cruise gave easily the best performance of his career. Other characters, such as Julianne Moore's, were downright annoying. So, take the advice, P.T., keep writing these interesting characters but please please keep the time to two hours or less. The extended time did not give the characters time to develop, it gave me reason to leave the theater unsatisfied and wanting my [money] back. Skip this one and go do something worthwhile.
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