okay, jim--i'm interested. i know this wasn't a film for everyone, or even most people, but it struck a chord with me. did you find *anything* about it redeeming, or were you like the 3 guys who came out of the movie behind me exclaiming "i want my three hours back!"?
I thought Tom Cruise was terrific. I hated his character, and yet I was drawn into seeing where they were going with him. And they pulled it together beautifully with the deathbed scene.
But he was probably only in the movie for 45 minutes at the most, so really I only want my 2:15 back. :)
What follows is more rant than spoiler (although there are some), but I still thought I'd give you the option of skipping it.
As for what I didn't like, I absolutely hated the "singalong" scene, and don't know what the deal with the frogs was. I kinda liked the "all those weird things happen" theme when the weird things were at least somewhat plausible, so why throw in obvious divine intervention. And shouldn't a divine (I assume) plague of frogs be some kind of portent? "It rains frogs. Life goes on."
And why didn't the gameshow host's wife ask "that question" 14 years ago? Or if she didn't know, what prompted her to ask then?
Didn't care for William H. Macy, who I usually enjoy. I was highly conscious of Julianne Moore's Performance, and thought it completely obscured her character.
Unless I missed it, what was the point of the body that John C. Reilly finds? And were we really supposed to derive the answer to that mystery from the rap, or did I completely miss that too? If the point is that JCR doesn't listen, and that he realizes he needs to learn to listen (as he tells us later), then shouldn't we catch what he missed? Or was that scene designed to make me feel stupid (or hard of hearing - I only caught every 3rd word).
Oh well. Maybe you can tell me why you liked it? If I can find a few more redeeming features, maybe I can reclaim some of that 2:15.
Right after seeing "Magnolia", Jim, I immediately recalled that you didn't like it and set out to read why. So allow me to respond to this 2.5-year-old post:
You do make some good points in your rant. I don't know why you hated the singing scene, I thought it was pretty cool. As for the frogs, that actually has been known to happen before. When a tornado goes through a swamp that is heavily populated with frogs, oftentimes the frogs get dropped from the sky. Since there was a storm throughout the movie, I think it's entirely possible that that's what they were going for. A frog storm is unlikely, but hey, a major theme of the movie is that weird coincidences happen.
As for the frogs not being accepted as an omen, perhaps this is supposed to parallel the Bible - the frogs were (I believe) the 2nd plague, and it took the Egyptians till plague #10 before they saw it as an omen. So, yes: frogs rain, but life goes on.
As for Jimmy Gator's wife and her question, I think we are supposed to think that perhaps she has tried to ask him before, but it was too painful for him to answer in the past. Now that he has two months to live, he wants to tie up the loose ends of his life, so he finally brings himself to tell her.
I really liked William H. Macy, but I do agree that Julianne Moore was a little annoying. Still, I didn't think she was that bad.
I do agree with you that the first part with John C. Reilly was kinda random. I thought these scenes were interesting, though.
:-) Thanks for hunting me down AJ! Unfortunately I can't assemble a coherent response after 2.5 years. I have a hard enough time discussing movies I love after 2.5 years (part of the reason I started writing them all down).
But you do raise good points, particularly regarding the frogs. I think somebody elsewhere on this site made a similar response.
I wish I had more to say on this movie, but it has faded into a vague impressions of fake emotion and pretention in my memory. Maybe in 2.5 years I'll see it again, resurrect this thread, and come back at ya with fresh ammo. :-)
The scene with the kid rapping were going to be resolved later on in the movie. Unfortunately, these scenes were deleted. Orlando Jones (playing a character called "The Worm") was originally in the movie as the killer of the man in the closet. The rapping kid was the son of The Worm. The Worm is also the person who steals JCR's gun. You may not remember this, but when we see JCR looking for his gun, we also see a man with a hooded sweatshirt running for no apparent reason. That was Orlando Jones.
But these scenes were deleted, and thus, the rap has no resolution. Why the rap was left in the movie in the first place is beyond me.
If you're interested, I found the original shooting script of "Magnolia", with these scenes still in it. It is available here:
Fixed! And thanks for the info! At least now I know it wasn't a complete oversight. It sounds like those would have been good scenes to leave in. Perhaps PT was pressured to shorten it (probably a good thing, for most scenes ;-).
okay, jim--i'm interested. i know this wasn't a film for everyone, or even most people, but it struck a chord with me. did you find *anything* about it redeeming, or were you like the 3 guys who came out of the movie behind me exclaiming "i want my three hours back!"?
I thought Tom Cruise was terrific. I hated his character, and yet I was drawn into seeing where they were going with him. And they pulled it together beautifully with the deathbed scene.
But he was probably only in the movie for 45 minutes at the most, so really I only want my 2:15 back. :)
What follows is more rant than spoiler (although there are some), but I still thought I'd give you the option of skipping it.
As for what I didn't like, I absolutely hated the "singalong" scene, and don't know what the deal with the frogs was. I kinda liked the "all those weird things happen" theme when the weird things were at least somewhat plausible, so why throw in obvious divine intervention. And shouldn't a divine (I assume) plague of frogs be some kind of portent? "It rains frogs. Life goes on."
And why didn't the gameshow host's wife ask "that question" 14 years ago? Or if she didn't know, what prompted her to ask then?
Didn't care for William H. Macy, who I usually enjoy. I was highly conscious of Julianne Moore's Performance, and thought it completely obscured her character.
Unless I missed it, what was the point of the body that John C. Reilly finds? And were we really supposed to derive the answer to that mystery from the rap, or did I completely miss that too? If the point is that JCR doesn't listen, and that he realizes he needs to learn to listen (as he tells us later), then shouldn't we catch what he missed? Or was that scene designed to make me feel stupid (or hard of hearing - I only caught every 3rd word).
Oh well. Maybe you can tell me why you liked it? If I can find a few more redeeming features, maybe I can reclaim some of that 2:15.
Right after seeing "Magnolia", Jim, I immediately recalled that you didn't like it and set out to read why. So allow me to respond to this 2.5-year-old post:
You do make some good points in your rant. I don't know why you hated the singing scene, I thought it was pretty cool. As for the frogs, that actually has been known to happen before. When a tornado goes through a swamp that is heavily populated with frogs, oftentimes the frogs get dropped from the sky. Since there was a storm throughout the movie, I think it's entirely possible that that's what they were going for. A frog storm is unlikely, but hey, a major theme of the movie is that weird coincidences happen.
As for the frogs not being accepted as an omen, perhaps this is supposed to parallel the Bible - the frogs were (I believe) the 2nd plague, and it took the Egyptians till plague #10 before they saw it as an omen. So, yes: frogs rain, but life goes on.
As for Jimmy Gator's wife and her question, I think we are supposed to think that perhaps she has tried to ask him before, but it was too painful for him to answer in the past. Now that he has two months to live, he wants to tie up the loose ends of his life, so he finally brings himself to tell her.
I really liked William H. Macy, but I do agree that Julianne Moore was a little annoying. Still, I didn't think she was that bad.
I do agree with you that the first part with John C. Reilly was kinda random. I thought these scenes were interesting, though.
:-) Thanks for hunting me down AJ! Unfortunately I can't assemble a coherent response after 2.5 years. I have a hard enough time discussing movies I love after 2.5 years (part of the reason I started writing them all down).
But you do raise good points, particularly regarding the frogs. I think somebody elsewhere on this site made a similar response.
I wish I had more to say on this movie, but it has faded into a vague impressions of fake emotion and pretention in my memory. Maybe in 2.5 years I'll see it again, resurrect this thread, and come back at ya with fresh ammo. :-)
I did a little research, and here's what I found:
The scene with the kid rapping were going to be resolved later on in the movie. Unfortunately, these scenes were deleted. Orlando Jones (playing a character called "The Worm") was originally in the movie as the killer of the man in the closet. The rapping kid was the son of The Worm. The Worm is also the person who steals JCR's gun. You may not remember this, but when we see JCR looking for his gun, we also see a man with a hooded sweatshirt running for no apparent reason. That was Orlando Jones.
But these scenes were deleted, and thus, the rap has no resolution. Why the rap was left in the movie in the first place is beyond me.
If you're interested, I found the original shooting script of "Magnolia", with these scenes still in it. It is available here:
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/magnolia.html
Whoops. I forgot to end the spoiler tag. Could you fix that for me, Jim?
Fixed! And thanks for the info! At least now I know it wasn't a complete oversight. It sounds like those would have been good scenes to leave in. Perhaps PT was pressured to shorten it (probably a good thing, for most scenes ;-).