Magnolia (1999)

JPV852 July 16, 2022

★ 8/10

Been a long time since I last watched this but even though this was 3 hours long, never felt the length and I was pretty much captivated throughout (although I did pause a few times to get refill on my drink or grab a snack). The performances all around were great, most notably Tom Cruise, Melora Walters, John C. Reilly and the young Jeremy Blackman (Stanley). It does get heavy-handed and while I "get" the raining frogs scene, that took me out a bit (albeit it was towards the end). **4.0/5** As a side, the other two kids (Julia and Richard) were hacks, counting on Stanley to carry them. Something that irked me the first time I saw this, lol.

GenerationofSwine January 11, 2023

★ 1/10

I remember seeing this in the theater with one of my friends, during our first year in college. We had all found our way back to town and... given we lived in the sticks... we ended up going to the movies out of habit and for lack of anything else to do. And I'll be honest, at the time, I walked out of the theater kind of blown away. I hadn't really seen a movie like that before. I mean, the closest thing that came to it was American Beauty, and we had only seen that a few months prior... and that had more of a plot. At the time, I'll admit, I thought it was pretty good.... and then I returned to it and now, honestly, I just think it's pretentious. Pretentious really is the best way to describe it. When you first see it, it hits you one way because it's an odd movie that you really haven't seen before. And then, when go back to it, knowing a little more about it, you reali…

Dharunn April 19, 2023

★ 10/10

Julianne Moore at her's Peak & and also all of em. **What the Frogs!**

badelf February 12, 2026

★ 10/10

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson I'm not sure if this entire film was built around Aimee Mann's "Wise Up," or if Magnolia is really a love letter to Aimee Mann herself. What's clear is that Paul Thomas Anderson wrote his sprawling, three-hour epic with her music as the foundation. Nine original songs from Mann comprise the soundtrack, her dark, sardonic style meshing perfectly with Anderson's vision of damaged people struggling through one terrible day in the San Fernando Valley. In the soundtrack liner notes, Anderson writes that all the stories branched off from one character inspired by Mann's music, adding, "You can look at the movie as the perfect memento to remember the songs that Aimee has made" (Tastemakers Music Magazine). Either way, the soundtrack is beautiful, essential, inseparable from what makes the film work. Watching all these characters descend into their own pri…

CinemaSerf July 12, 2026

★ 7/10

This isn't so much a piece of cinema as a cinematographic exercise is crochet-work! There are nine folks central to it's plots - for there are at least three - yet as we progress we realise that there is a degree of integration between the characters that becomes less tangential as the stories unravel. "Jimmy" (Philip Baker Hall) has hosted a quiz series for thirty-odd years that showcases the precocious wisdom of the children of America. It's current champion is the astonishingly bright "Stanley" (Jeremy Blackman) but as their team achievements edge ever close to record-breaking territory, he becomes uncharacteristically nervous! Meantime, grown-up daughter "Claudia" (Melora Walters) has a penchant for the white powder and lives in a grubby apartment living a life that is only going to lead her in one direction. The there's "Frank" (Tom Cruise) who is the epitome of evangelising motivat…