Magnolia point please

T

Ty Fancher

Active member
I'm guessing most of you guys have seen magnolia, it came out like 10 years ago. i just got around to watching it and i could not figure out what the point was. And the frogs? Really? Frogs?
 
I believe the structure was that all the story lines mirrored each other in a way, i.e. issue with parents, dependancies, and eventual resolution of those issues via chance happenings (such as the frogs). There is a constant number used throughout the film (I think 83 or 81) that refernces a passage in the bible that refers to the frogs and its relevance to the story. Also, the beginning of the film with the 3 odd tales set the mood of the film, i.e. life has many moments that appear to be coincidences or chance but may not actually be.

You can dig into this film alot more but I have to run to a meeting. My brother hated, I loved it. I guess it's one of those films.

Oh, also all the stories with in the film are supposed to take place within a 1 mile radius of each other; around Magnolia Boulevard I believe although this is not explained clearly in the film.
 
It barely rains water in Los Angeles, let alone frogs. I think Magnolia is a self-indulgent, weepy mess of a film.
 
Basically, it's about miserable people doing miserable things to make their miserable lives even more miserable. Oh, and they use copious amounts of profanity while getting there.

Why any of us should care in the least -- that's the BIG mystery.
 
I thought all of the characters were interesting in the film. I really enjoyed it.

I didn't like the "sing-along" thing though.
 
I love the mood of the film most of all; the temperature rises slowly until it is boiling.
It's like an opera.

Everytime I watch it I get a different take or insight.

The performances are incredible and very moving. Frank T.J. Mackey is Tom Cruise's best role. I also love the soundtrack (Jon Brion, SuperTramp, and Aimee Mann) and how it is woven into the movie.

I also love how, like other Anderson films, it feels very broad while it is so detail orientated at the same time.
 
I'm surprised there are people that didn't like this film. It's in my top 50 films of all time, seriously, I thought it was a groundbreaking piece of cinema. I only wish the similar, "Happiness" got the same hype, as it came out around the same time and is equally as brilliant for this type of film. Is succeeded where "Short Cuts" failed, another film with the same scope but missing pace and punch, released earlier. I remember thinking when Short Cuts came out, wow, if someone can actually execute this idea it would be awesome. Along came Anderson.
 
The Wikipedia article explains the frogs to great detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_(film)

IMO it's like how mjjason explained it. The first 3 stories were examples of how "strange things happen all the time" and at the very end they use another one of those "strange things" (the raining frogs urban legend) to complete the story.
 
PK Gillock said:
The Wikipedia article explains the frogs to great detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_(film)

IMO it's like how mjjason explained it. The first 3 stories were examples of how "strange things happen all the time" and at the very end they use another one of those "strange things" (the raining frogs urban legend) to complete the story.
Click to expand...

This was my biggest beef with the film. Those first three stories were all about bizarre synchronicities, a bunch of odd coincidental events converging at the same moment in time. All through the movie I was waiting for all these characters to converge at one point in time in a bizarre coincidence, but it never came. It just rained frogs, which is strange but not the same as the stories that opened the film. By front-loading the film with those stories he set up an expectation he never met...I will say I love the Tom Cruises monologues, they are priceless. And if you stayed up late when the film was in release you may have seen this in the wee hours of the morning--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRcuDz1ZZhw
 
For along time I disliked this film; the frogs ....

But like most things I dislike, I thought more and more about it and long ago turned my opinion around.

An interesting Yahoo article reads:

In Exodus 8:1-15, a shower of frogs is cast down by God on the Egyptians for their refusal to set the Israelites free: "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs." All the characters in Magnolia seem to be struggling for some kind of freedom. Maybe there's a connection there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_(film)

The Wiki page has a lot more than I thought about before ! Good read.
 
At first viewing, i found the movie to be boring. Upon consequent viewings i found the acting and the directing to be top notch. I guess it's slow at first, but you must look deeper to see it's intricacies.
 
i forgot about this earlier, but the dead guy in the closet? did they ever explain it? i remember the kid rapping about it to John C Reilly (who i couldn't stop picturing as Dewey Cox) but i don't remember getting any closure on that. i may just have to watch it again. all 3 hours of it...
 
Ty Fancher said:
i forgot about this earlier, but the dead guy in the closet? did they ever explain it? i remember the kid rapping about it to John C Reilly (who i couldn't stop picturing as Dewey Cox) but i don't remember getting any closure on that. i may just have to watch it again. all 3 hours of it...
Click to expand...
No, that story is not closed. It's on the cutting room floor. That wiki page posted above does a great job of explaining the film.
 
Just saw it today the first time.
I wonder why nobody mentioned the extraordinary good lighting and wonderful photography.
Also I wonder how they managed to get that quality on a DVD - looked better than some BluRays.

Frank
 
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