This is not to Blake in particular, but to everyone concerning the blooming
Magnolia thread...
I should probably not let my film geek side show in public, but I can't help
it.
I love watching boogie nights and I've seen it half a dozen times, and I
have seen Magnolia
twice and was not at all bored during it's 3 hour running time....
HOWEVER, I think Paul Thomas Anderson is a big, overrated, hack!
When Boogie Nights came out, Ent. Weekly and Premier and all these other
mags kept saying..
"Move over Tarantino AND Scorsese..." and then I see Boogie Nights and I
can't believe how much
this movie is just a conglomeration of Scorsese and Tarantinoesque things
wrapped up in a story
about Porn. The last scene is pure Raging Bull except there was a dong.
Granted, that's a great thing to have a story about, but his whole style to
me is so much aped from QT, Scorsese, and Robert Altman. People say the
same about QT for taking so much from other directors, but he spreads it
around to dozens of films from all time periods, not just make such a clear
take on Scorsese films... PTA has violence, and blood splatter, and long
takes, and dialogue..so Scorsese it puts me off. Again, I like watching his
films.. the performances are so good and the actors he uses are the best
around.. the stories are fun... and he can tell a good story.. but I guess
the film geek in me just can't take it when he tries to go toe to toe with
QT or Scorsese because he comes up short and his films, while entertaining,
are no Mean Streets, Taxi Drivers, Raging Bulls, Reservoir Dogs or Pulp
Fictions.
Oh yeah, on Magnolia.. some things I didn't like were the stories at the
begining... as far as I know, 2 or 3 of those are urban legends, although I
think I read the one about the kid jumping off the building was actually the
true one. Anyways, I expected the actual movie to have some sort of bizzare
tie in also, but in the end the story only has loose connections in the same
style as Short Cuts or
Nashville. I was expecting the stories to have some cause and effect like
the short tales at the begining would have you think would happen. It was
like PTA touched me in the morning and walked away.
I think the movie would have been as good or better without the little
stories, as good as they were. Save them for the DVD. And the numbers..
the numbers are the bible versus that tell about the frogs and what not and
you can see them here and there in the movie.. however, they are just there
and fun to look for. There is no deep symbolism to be read in to it all...
nothing compared to Pulp Fiction which has so much heaped on in so many
layers.
Good things - the musical number in Magnolia was very ballsy and original..
I liked it. Soundtrack
by aimee mann is great. I love, uhm, what's his name, John C. Riley.. he's
the average guy that you don't see in films much anymore.. he's so good..
him losing his gun is my favorite part of Magnolia.
I went and saw Perfect Storm because A. it was at the Mann Chinese, and B.
he was in it. I regret that now, but I still like John C. Riley. Check out
Hard Eight, PTA's first film as it's damned good and doesn't rub me the
wrong way like his other movies when he became the newest 'genious' on the
block.
Oh yeah, PTA does write really strong female characters which is really rare
these days. So props
to him for that. I say really strong, maybe just strong. Hal Hartley and
John Sayles write them stronger (if we are talking about men writing female
characters).
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From: "Blake" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [MMouse]: magnolia
if you liked magnolia, check out the movie that magnolia ripped off. its
called "short cuts" and if you watch it...you will totally notice the
blatent simalarities. dont get me wrong, i loved magnolia, but its a rip
off of 1992's "short cuts". also highly recomended.
