It's very hard to pick out the best performance from such a great and on form ensemble, but I guess Cruise's character has the best lines and opportunity to really give it a go and he doesn't disappoint a all. You can call Cruise a hell of a lot of thing, but one things he is not is a bad actor.
The child actor who plays Stanley does well for being...urm, a child actor.
I recall buying the 2 disc special edition of this from a guy on Ebay, only to descover it had a disc missing! Bad feedback for that *******.
Anyways, really interesting movie. I love the way the increasing severity of the weather is symbolic of what the characters are going through, and the rain of frogs climax is incredible.
It's one of those movies you need to watch at least three times to fully appreciate. I still need to give it a few more viewings just to get the full experience.
Shame it starts with that completely untrue story about the man falling off the building. That fact that no coincidence like that has ever happened kinda undermines the premise a little.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
It's not imagination, they thought it was true. It's an oft-reported myth, one of those thinga that it meant to prove how such amazing things sometimes happen.
The very fact that it was entirely made up does undermine the message fundamentally.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
I was obviously referring to the viewer, not Paul Thomas Anderson and lackeys. I have no quarrel accepting it as a truth for the purposes of the melodrama, it serves as a humurous and intriguing introduction to what is a very long, but also very watchable film.
It almost keeps you interested for the whole 3 hours, and for a contemporary melodrama that is an achievment in itself.
Gender: Male Location: Why, in my pants of course!
Haha, William H. Macy gets a frog in the teeth. This movie was pretty cool, though the message was given in a somewhat abstract way. I didn't get the frog scene or what it meant. I like the blooper where John C. Reilly is singing on the bed with his pants down.
Well, then by accepting a lie as truth you are rather missing the message of the movie. If the movie is based around how coincidence works in life, but their main example of that is made up, its power is greatly reduced.
It is a much, MUCH stronger statement if the coincidences it outlines are genuine ones.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Hell, you'd be lost with anything art-house wouldn't you?
To presume that one has to acknowledge the moral of a story to enjoy it is a particuarly superficial way of looking at things. It may undermine the premise of chance, in your eyes, but none the less the merits of the film far exceed any criticism your judgement lies on it. Magnolia isn't your usual Hollywood film. It needs no sentimental message to connect with the masses. The strong performances, involving script and acute direction invalidate any silly criticisms like that.
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Jun 20th, 2006 03:31 AM
