Magnolia

Hands-down the best movie of the year.

A quantum leap in ambition from "Hard Eight" and "Boogie Nights" and is, to my mind, much more interesting.

An exhilarating and at times operatic film.

Drunk and disorderly on the pure joy of making movies. A frantic, flawed, fascinating film that is both impressive and a bit out of control, often at the same time.

Exhausting at times, frustrating in others, Magnolia is mostly just exhilarating, the product of a raw, vibrant talent finding his footing in an adult world -- and unafraid to make mistakes.

None of the characters in Magnolia feel as vividly imagined as the porn stars and filmmakers and hangers-on of "Boogie Nights."

A three-hour-and-10-minute exercise in slight characterization, pointlessly showy editing and vapid plotting.

The length flies by. Great look at how we overcomplicate and **** up our lives over **** that doesn’t really matter — and how much better it would be if we could simplify our lives down to what truly counts.

Like each of writer / director Paul Thomas Anderson's other films, I found Magnolia excessively long, desperately wordy, hopelessly plodding and wholly hypnotic. Anderson has developed an innate talent for crafting versatile, flawed, joylessly realistic characters facing the end of their rope, and in that regard this might just be his finest work. While the deliberate pace is a hurdle, this allows Anderson to inimately explore his cast to a degree that's untouched by his contemporaries. His characters seem so resistant to forward momentum, in fact, that the eventual arrival of major plot developments often caught me completely by surprise, like being stabbed in the heart by a sloth. Though Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy deliver the most rewarding performances, this is really an ensemble piece that would fall flat without the presence of an equally potent supporting cast. A terrific exercise in characterization, it can be tragically narcoleptic.

A somewhat enjoyable and perhaps innovative movie for its time. I was sick of all the bad movies that have been released in the past decade or so and decided to check out a 90s film. Its halfway decent for a movie in today's world. There was no clear message, the acting was average, and the ending was incredibly stupid. Overall I would say don't expect a hidden gem but if you have 3 hours to kill and want some 90s nostalgia give it a shot.

Magnolia has some good performances, some good cinematography, was Oscar-nominated, but what about its **** some worthiness? If you enjoy a lot of actor abuse, verbal abuse (even professional child abuse) you could somehow like this movie. If you've ever wondered what a movie might be like that's written and directed by a self-confessed cocaine user, under-aged pornography addict, as well as being, Quote; “my favourite filmmaker copycat” - then this could be getting close to realising your dream (perhaps this might also sadly sum up Hollywood today and some audiences) Have tried to sit this through several times (only because of the cast and the hugely conflicting reviews!) but each time was left wanting to throw something at the screen or run screaming from the room. 'Over-everything' is one description that readily comes to mind but, other unprintable ones are first and foremost. Many others have neatly summed-up this tosh very well but few can ever do it the justice it deserves. Writer/director P.T. Anderson can’t even write a single paragraph that's not filled with vulgar language or unnecessary four-letter words and 90% of his characters are not worth caring for. Maybe this could be another example of the modern Academies short-sightedness spotlighting one of the reasons why so many patrons stopped going to the movies around this time, also why many movies of this ilk don't deliver the good returns expected. If your life is so uneventful that you can throw away over three (yes 3) laborious hours of visual splendour being wasted on a theme so repugnantly ugly - then you're welcome to this excruciatingly heavy-handed overindulgence. The movie plays out like several movies in one, with none of them much good or making much sense when edited together - mild interest soon gives way to boredom. As for the director’s favourite singer being played endlessly in the background, this just becomes another annoyance. When a moviemaker publicly makes a statement like: "I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life but I guess Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make". Then please let me say: Stay out of our lives P.T. Anderson - way out. But of course, those either on the payroll or who consider themselves as knowing better than most will disagree.

Think of the most pretentious "symbolic allegorical" wanna-be movie you can think of. Got it? Now multiply the pretentious factor by 10, and maybe you can come close to imagining the nature of this film. A royal waste of time. If I had paid to have watched this movie in the theatres, I would have without a doubt demanded PAYMENT for the THREE HOURS of attention I gave to this movie. I truly did not expect this from the same director which graced us with There Will Be Blood. If you enjoy absurdism, this is the movie for you. This movie tries SO hard to be some kind of metaphorical master piece, but falls flat on its face, and the beauty of it all is that you can essentially see the exact point at which this movie drops to its knees and begs for the title of 'artistic masterpiece'- it's at the point where the members of the cast, all in different locations, have a sing-along. But what really drove home the pointless nature of this movie was a scene near the end when a certain amphibian begins raining from the sky. I wish I could say I was not being literal in my description, but I am. I highly dissuade one from viewing this movie, and to instead waste their time banging rocks together, because at least the latter will not cause a brain hemorrhage.