Rating: 
Summary: awesome movie yet mediocre dvd
Review: MAGNOLIA is one amazing film. it is quite bizzare and you really have to pay attention. it has a great cast and was one of the best films i have seen in a long time. for me i am tired of cliche hollywood movies with happy ending and such. i like differnet films. i like art films which is what i consider this movie.
it is the story of about nine people(i think , it is hard to keep track of all the people) and each of their stories intertwine this makes it hard to keep up but if you like something different, this is it. this movie deals with death, healing, forgiveness and many other subjects. it is not really one straight story form a-b with subplots. it is, like i said, about 9 people whose lives intersect.
the dvd has some bonus stuff including: tv spots, movie teaser & trailer and a "diary" as well as the aimee mann video "Save me" and some other stuff but i found the movie was good but the dvd was just ok. i was kind of bored through some of the diary. the other features were ok but the movie is the real prize.
Rating: 
Summary: To be enjoyed with kids' eyes and an open mind
Review: Don't be fooled by the flower-like name: this is not a weepy delicate movie. Nor is it an adrenaline-packed movie. It's more like a well orchestrated opera - or like a carefully crafted car: everything works so in sync that the final result is visually, mentally and spiritually enjoyable. The trick is to watch it with kid eyes: don't try to guess, watch CLOSELY - and allow yourself to be surprised. Magnolia is a movie with amazing characters, a well crafted plot, dark-comedy moments, some surprising twists and a lot of provoking visual metaphors. No moral lessons here, just a fantastic portrait of our world on the stories of these persons and the (casual?) convergence of their obsessive quests- making them so similar in the end - all united under the fantastic music of Aimee Mann. Three sequences for posterity: Tom Cruise teaching his magistral class on what is a man.. the Save Me sequence.. and the rain, the rain that pours..
Rating:
Summary: One of the better movies out there
Review: Magnolia is a great movie, I can't say much more except that it tells some of the greatest tragedies in the daily world and how they end not so horribly! It definately is an uplifting movie that I recommend to anyone who wants to see something more than your average movie!
Rating: 
Summary: Am I stupid?
Review: I rented this film only the other night - I had no idea as to what it was about, but I figured 'hey the cast looks okay, might be good!'. For the first hour I was riveted, not because anything particularly...riveting happened! But simply because I was intrigued as to how all of these bizarre, dark and sinister plot lines would all converge later on in the film. Only they never did (not to my mind anyway). Yes there were readily identifiable moral 'themes' that linked the various sub plots - namely forgiveness, truth, faith, co-incidence and fate. Which is nice, but hardly worthy of the 3 hours I spent waiting for that one all mighty scene or line that just summed the whole film up and made you say 'yeah I get it!'. Perhaps there was nothing to get? And the ending left me quite frankly scratching my head. Clearly some reference to acts of God, miracles, yadayada. But it seemed a half baked way of bringing it all together at best, especially seeing as references to religion were few and far between throughout the main body of the film, and the various lifestyles we were shown were on the whole godless and really just a bit twisted. So the '10 plagues' thing really didn't work for me. The acting was...okay. I was pleasantly surprised at times by Tom Cruise, although, if he was even half as bored making the film as I was watching it, then perhaps those intense tears of frustration were for real. Poor guy. Juliet Moore remains my least favourite of actresses - you'd think they could of splashed some lemon juice in her eyes to make it all a bit more convincing. The rest did an okay job, but were not given equal amounts of time throughout the film to allow us to identify with their character beyond the vague glimpses of their lives we were so graciously given from time to time. I don't know - I'm one of these people that would rather go see a painting of a house as opposed to a glass display cabinet containing half filled glasses of water that are meant to represent a house through 'deep' and 'meaningful' implicit artistic statements. Magnolia just struck me as 'wierd for wierds sake'. Film critics will inevitably de-construct a film such as this and bring out all these hidden meanings and messages, when actually they should just consider the likelyhood that there is no hidden meaning, there is no hidden message. It's just nonsensical wierdness. My two cents.
Rating:
Summary: Very Human
Review: Magnolia was a very human story - I like how the characters unknowingly interact and cause significant changes in each other's lives. It reminded me of another movie which is coming out in early 2003 called Baggage.
Rating:
Summary: What do I have in common with God
Review: What do I have in common with God? Apparently, in PT Anderson's world, a steel bond made of the ugliest chain one could ever see. I liked this movie and found it very interesting. I'm still unable to decide if the frog thing was a copout. Does anyone know if he intended to end the movie like that, or if he had the idea but was unsure how to bring it all together. It was interesting anyhow. Why, however, would God care for all these dispicable people who can only come to grip with reality when frogs fall from the sky. Can humans come together only if we know there is something watching us? Otherwise are we self loathing specimen? Is that the point?
Rating:
Summary: a long day in the life
Review: This movie tracks several people in California who, whether they know it or not, are linked to one another. None of them is having a good day. Earl Partridge is a TV mogul whose only son, a TV personality himself in infomercials for his dating seminars, will not have anything to do with him. As he lays dying, his nurse tries to reunite them. A substance-abusing woman eschews her own father and keeps falling for awful men, till she meets a sweet though bumbling cop. A former child prodigy lives a life of loneliness and penury, while a current child prodigy on a hit game show is stressed out from being a know-it-all perfectionist barely keeping his nearly-unhinged dad together. The whole movie is rather dark (especially since there is a thunderstorm threatening through most of the 3-hour film) but it still has spots of humor and light. There are almost too many characters and plot twists and, rather inexplicably, frogs. But it is a good analysis of what can happen in a day and that the people who seem the simplest are much more complex than you know. There is a lot of tragedy but also a lot of hope, and you feel like you have run an emotional marathon when it ends.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Artistic Film
Review: Magnolia is one of the few movies I have ever seen that can be classfied as pure art. The movie quickly introduces you to a group of people. It takes you through there lives in skits. You will begin to notice that all their lives intertwine in an excellent climax. Even if the plot does not attract your attention this film is an original and is worth a look. I gave the movie four because of the ending. I like for endings to tell me nothing at all or tell me everything. The ending in this film answers some things and others it leaves unsolved.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, Gut-Wrenching and Powerful
Review: Despite its length (3 hours+), despite its complex web of characters and despite the pressure of trying to release another film on the heels of the artistic success of "Boogie Nights", Magnolia is quite simply a brilliant masterpiece of modern cinema. Paul Thomas Anderson presents us with a powerful drama that becomes (among other things) a meditation upon the long-term consequences of the choices and decisions that we make in our lives and the effect that it has upon those we know and love. Experiencing the raw emotional honesty of the characters (such as the grown-up child celebrity professing his unrequited love to a young male bartender, or the successful infomercial guru expressing his pent-up rage to his dying father) is a truly gut-wrenching experience. I've rarely seen such powerful and emotionally vulnerable performances. The cast is truly remarkable. At yet a more abstract level, Magnolia is more than an interesting character study. It depicts the intricate nature of human relationships and the way in which relationships weave their way into the fabric of our individual existences. Please experience this film....anyone who has lived long enough to have made significant choices that have changed the course of their life will find this film to be a powerful journey.
Rating:
Summary: oh yes please
Review: stunning movie, three hours of luxurious movie pleasure. make sure you watch hard eight as well, it aint as flashy but it's just as good
| 
