I watched Magnolia last night for the first time, and I really just have to be honest and admit that I don't have any idea what the point of the movie was supposed to be. Sure, there were interesting characters who had some real issues to deal with, but why include all that crap at the beginning about coincidences if you're just going to drop frogs on us at the end? At least Crash (to which many compare Magnolia, though I can't imagine why) had a genuinely good plot that actually did intertwine the lives of its seemingly isolated characters. Having everyone involved in your film notice that frogs are falling from the sky at approximately the same time does not count as an amazing coincidence. I guess that's why Crash won the Oscar and Magnolia was only nominated.And I'm sorry, but just making a movie so you can sneak hundreds of references to Exodus 8:2 into the background is not a worthwhile reason for undertaking such a project. Reputedly, Paul T. Anderson, the film's writer and director, was inspired by the lyrics of some dumb, whiny song when he wrote the screenplay. As ABBA's Mamma Mia and The Beatles' Love have so recently taught us, it is not always a good idea to write a movie or play based on song lyrics. No wait, it's not ever a good idea to do that.
Does anyone out there understand this movie in some deep, profound way that I am totally missing? Did anyone else notice that the F-bomb was dropped a record 190 times for no other reason than to keep the audience awake for over 3 hours? Did anyone else cheer when Julianne Moore's character finally tried to kill herself? Help me out, people...
7 comments:
Sorry. Haven't seen it. But you are aware that weird = brilliant, right?
So does incredibly long and full of frogs, apparently.
Then how come The Great Muppet Caper never got nominated for anything?
Not near enough frogs.
I thought Magnolia was about Tom Cruise and magnolias.
I remember nothing about this movie, but any movie in which Julianne Moore offs herself is my kind of movie.
Tom Cruise makes an appearance every couple of minutes to grab himself inappropriately and spew obscenities, but the movie is really all about the frogs. I mean, they fall from the heavens at the climactic moment in the story-arch, so what else can we deduce?
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