Touches You

Powerful

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Magnolia is a fantastic ensemble film by wunderkind Paul Thomas Anderson. Featuring a host of actors- all somehow interconnected in the vast brawl of Los Angeles . Featuring a top notch cast and an inspiration directly lifted from Robert Altman's many movies (especially perhaps shortcuts) Magnolia is an art film masquerading as a mainstream feature courtesy Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, William H Macy and a few others. This is a must watch for any cinema lover.

This is one of the absolute best movies I have ever seen.I walked into it knowing little about it-aside from Roger Ebert's review-which is on YouTube. (And by the way, he called it the year's 2nd best movie-behind Being John Malkovich-which I have not yet seen.) And the whole 188 minutes blew me away. The movie has 9 plots that seem to have nothing in common. What does a little boy pressured to win a game show have to do with a man who conducts seminars on seducing women? What does a woman with a wealthy husband dying of cancer have to do with an officer who falls in love with a drug addict(a fact unknown to him)? I didn't care when I watched it, though, I just stayed engrossed into the movie.Then a weird thing happens with frogs. (That's all I will say since I want this to be spoiler free.) What does THAT have to do anything? Eh,whatever.Then the movie ended. I was so enchanted by the movie that I was so bummed that it was over. Then I thought-what was that all about? Then I realized.All these characters had a struggle-to win a game, to dealing with a soon loss, to trying to date a person to numerous other situations. But the frog event made them worry no more, They had hope from this one event. All worries can end well if we have hope.That is the message I got out of it. Maybe you will look at it differently.And I think that was an intention in making the movie.Magnolia is a fantastic movie-and you should see and interpret it for yourself.

I'll tell you about strange things happening all the time, because I've experienced them. The very prior two movies I've seen and reviewed here on IMDb both featured a baby carriage scene in which an infant is carried away by a stroller down a long flight of stairs within sight of it's mother who is unable to help or give chase. One was the 1925 silent film "Battleship Potemkin", the other was 1987's "The Untouchables". I call these moments of cosmic serendipity, occurring completely at random, yet having a connection of sorts that were neither planned or expected. And now, here's a third film, "Magnolia", gloriously pointing out that these kinds of events happen all the time. One might ask 'What are the odds' in a seemingly moot way because who can explain it? As for the three vignettes that opened the story, at least two of them made the internet rounds some time ago - the scuba diver plucked out of the ocean to land in the middle of a forest fire, and the suicide attempt that was interrupted by negligent homicide. If memory serves, I think they were both outed as urban legends, but I can't be sure about that. Nor can one be sure about the unexplained coincidence that permeates this story with it's cast of unsympathetic characters. Though it's easier to explain in a film because that's the way the script was written, whereas real life is as random as it gets. As for all those frogs falling out of the sky, well, that's really happened a number of times throughout history with no apparent explanation. As to the sheer massive quantity and size of those amphibians, I think there was a little overkill employed to make a point. What the point was, I don't know.The person in the story I felt the most 'bad' about was the young quiz kid Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman). His life was careening down the same path as his predecessor Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), though in Stanley's case, I felt he had the potential to turn into a mass murderer. Recall when his father raged through the studio as Stanley wouldn't answer a question; the old man demanded to know what Stanley was doing 'to him'. Just a perfectly narcissistic parent attempting to cash in on his son's knowledge and initiative. The film offers a fine array of character performances with Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore and John C. Reilly leading the way. If there was a single twist in the story, my money rests on the fact that the game show was a Big Earl Partridge Production, while all the time thinking that Frank Mackey's (Cruise) claim his father was a former television executive a load of hogwash. Turns out he wasn't blowing smoke for a change.

Magnolia (1999)Plot In A Paragraph: 24 hours in the lives of 9 characters, whose lives are all connected in one way or another. Magnolia, admittedly not for everyone!! Like most Paul Thomas Anderson movies, it runs too long and what happens towards the end certainly divides people. There is not a single weak link in its amazing cast. Julianne Moore, Melora Walters, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Philip Baker Hall, Luis Guzman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Alfred Molina were all in Andersons Boogie Nights. Burt Reynolds was also asked to return, but he turned down the role of Tom Cruise's Dad, as he didn't like working with Anderson on Boogie Nights, and when they were on shows promoting the movie, he says Anderson was always interrupting him!! Cruise is riveting, its possibly the best performance of his career. He was nominated for his third academy award, and won his third (and to date last) golden globe. I think he can consider himself unlucky losing to Michel Caine that year. I think he should have won. The death bed scene is superb. It's the stuff of legend that Philip Seymour Hoffman was not meant to cry in that scene, but he was that "in the scene" Cruise made his cry. Anderson liked it, and kept it in. Magnolia grossed $22 million to end 2000 the 80th highest grossing movie of the year. The lowest performing Tom Cruise movie to date.