Magnolia -- A Must See Movie

I don't know how Magnolia slipped under my radar back in 1999 (actually I do, it was a great year for movies (ala American Beauty, Cider House Rules, Sixth Sense,  The Talented Mr. Ripley, etc)...didn't have time to catch them all, plus the title sounds kinda chick-flickish...who knows), but I saw it for the first time recently.  Two words; blown away.  

Paul Thomas Anderson really out did himself on this one.  While I really enjoyed “Boogie Nights“ (another of his flicks), it was no where near as hard hitting as this one.  The only complaint I have (besides the 3+ hours runtime) was the sheer number of characters to keep up with.  I actually watched it again a day later and it made much more sense; a third viewing is probably in order.  Each actor delivered a great performance, the culminating one (IMO) being Earl Partridge's monologue roughly halfway through the movie (though Frank Mackey's bedside “manner” shortly thereafter was quite good as well).  Shortly thereafter is a great sequence shot of each character singing a verse to the well written "Wise Up" by Aimee Mann (more on her in a bit).  The first time around I thought this was a little...well, cheesy.  The second time around I realized the significance of this sequence; each verse seems to be custom tailored to each character during their individual denouement's...hard hitting indeed, especially with subtitles on to see exactly what they're all singing about.  There are quite a few subtleties mixed in this movie for good measure as well, mainly the presence of the numbers 8 and 2, no doubt in reference to the Exodus 8:2 sign taken away from one of the audience members during the introduction scene for "What Do Kids Know"; this verse ends up playing quite a major role towards the end (no spoilers for anyone not having seen it yet).  Next time you watch it, look for how many times these numbers appear (hell, make a drinking game out of it while you're at it...make sure to have plenty of booze on hand though).

I was equally impressed with the music score, most of the original (vocal) songs were written by Aimee Mann (of "'Til Tuesday" notoriety...remember the song "Voices Carry"?).  She has a great voice, and the end title track "Save Me" is one of the better female vocal tracks I've heard lately.  It was good enough to garnish her a nod for "Best Original Song" by the Academy, though the film didn't take home the Oscar for this nomination.  Composer Jon Brion handled the rest of the score with some pretty moving orchestral themes.  The soundtrack is on my wish list for x-mas (happy to supply my mailing address for any interested parties ).

And then there was Frank T.J. Mackey (ala Tom Cruise), quite arguable the most dynamic character in the movie (perhaps a tie with Linda).  Tom Cruise seems to be made for these types of roles; a character that's easy to hate, but even easier to sympathize with/relate to (side note:  His appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" dispelled many thoughts I had about him, he's so good at what he does that it's easy to confuse his characters with the actual person).  He was good enough to garner another Academy nomination for this picture, this time for best supporting actor, and again Magnolia didn't carry the Oscar home.  In a sense (due to the number of characters), everyone was a supporting actor, I'm hard pressed to say who the leads were...and perhaps that's why he didn't win; there were so many characters that developing any of them extensively simply didn't (have time to) happen.  Nonetheless, his performance was stellar.

This movie is almost like seeing several different movies at the same time; the substories (all somewhat different) all get tied together to bring home the underlying theme of "while you may be through with the past, the past is not through with you", a motif expressed many times throughout this picture, and in life as well.  All in all, an incredible movie.  If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it.