I remember being startled when I saw "Magnolia" back in 1999. I enjoyed it throughly and I sang PT Anderson's praises. We're in 2007 now - two days into the New Year - and I decided to see "Magnolia" again with a couple of people who were seeing it for the first time. Shocking really. The brilliance is still all there but I couldn't help seeing through it. It all felt so damn calculated that its smart ass phoniness took over my senses. Only Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance made me "feel" something. When I was with him I was somewhere and Tom Cruise is fun to watch. Julianne Moore is unbearable and the whole movie drags from, by now, predictable turn to predictable turn. The frogs are wonderful but they are just frogs pouring over the Valley. I'll see it again in another six years and let's see what happens. I feel that Mr Anderson, if you forgive the impertinence, needs a doses of humbleness. Talent he has, in enormous quantities.
Review of Magnolia
