Speaker 1: Hey, film Spotters, Adam and Josh. Here. You know, the
Speaker 1: film Spotting Archive has a lot, it has reviews, it's
Speaker 1: got top fives and more going back to two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. And if you want access to that full archive,
Speaker 1: just become a member of the Film Spotting Family. That's
Speaker 1: one of the benefits you get, and you can learn
Speaker 1: more about that at film spottingfamily dot com. Now we've
Speaker 1: got a new Paul Thomas Anderson film this week, so
Speaker 1: we're going to dip into that archive for our review
Speaker 1: of Magnolia, which wasn't all that long ago, right, Adam.
Speaker 2: No, No, twenty nineteen. It was part of our nine
Speaker 2: from ninety nine series. Yeah, we're getting ready for one
Speaker 2: battle after another. We're seeing it this weekend. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about it on next week's episode. Nine from ninety nine
Speaker 2: was fun. Of course, that was jam pack because nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine is one of our all time great movie years.
Speaker 2: We talked about the matrix being John Malkovich, the Blair
Speaker 2: Witch Project, the Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Eyes Wide shut.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait wait you skipped over muffle my
Speaker 1: Mouth Star Wars episode one. Uh huh, I think you
Speaker 1: also missed American beauty.
Speaker 2: Oh kay, we talked about those two. You know, we
Speaker 2: had to reckon with the entire year. And yes, we
Speaker 2: also revisited Magnolia. People are gonna hear this just before
Speaker 2: they hear us talk about on Friday and we share
Speaker 2: the results to the current deeply flawed, deeply troubling, more
Speaker 2: like film spotting pole question. Actually, they won't hear the
Speaker 2: results because we're setting up the new question that people
Speaker 2: can vote in right now, the PTA Decade's Poll. Do
Speaker 2: you keep you can only keep one decade. Do you
Speaker 2: keep the nineties that has boogie nights in Magnolia? Or
Speaker 2: do you keep the two thousands? Or do you keep
Speaker 2: the twenty tens. We're leaving out the twenty twenties for now.
Speaker 2: It's such a tough choice, Josh. And maybe people listening
Speaker 2: to us talk about Magnolia will make them think that
Speaker 2: the nineties is the decade they have to hold onto.
Speaker 1: It's probably it's probably going to give the nineties a
Speaker 1: little bit of a bump in that poll for now.
Speaker 1: From November twenty nineteen. Here is that nine from ninety
Speaker 1: nine review of Magnolia.
Speaker 3: There is the story of a boy.
Speaker 1: Genius Thomas Kate Jong, the Peaceful, Cleanly Year, and the
Speaker 1: game show is Jimmy Gator Live from Burbank, California.
Speaker 3: First question for twenty five.
Speaker 4: This French playwriting actor joined the Beijar group of actors
Speaker 4: and the ex.
Speaker 3: Boy genius Chrisky Donny Smith. I used to be smart.
Speaker 3: Now I'm just stupid. There is the story of the
Speaker 3: Dying Man. I'm Marl Partry.
Speaker 4: I have a son you now you do find him?
Speaker 3: I'm right TJ Mcki his lost son.
Speaker 5: What did he say?
Speaker 2: Because I Am not going to take care of him?
Speaker 3: What's he want? The dying man's wife, I'm in departres.
Speaker 3: I took care of him through this Alan what now?
Speaker 4: And then me and him?
Speaker 3: Do you understand there's no one else? No one else
Speaker 3: the caretaker. I'm Phil Parma.
Speaker 6: See this is the scene of the movie where you've
Speaker 6: helped me up.
Speaker 3: And there's the story of a mother.
Speaker 2: Unlike Paul Thomas Anderson, sadly, my creativity couldn't match my ambition.
Speaker 2: This week I started learning the guitar chords and rewriting
Speaker 2: the lyrics to Amy Mann's Wise Up before I realized
Speaker 2: I just wasn't going to be able to pull off
Speaker 2: singing your setup. Oh wow, that's no joke.
Speaker 1: I started, Oh, don't tease me.
Speaker 2: It could have been great, So I'm taking an easier
Speaker 2: route instead one already paved for me. You asked whether
Speaker 2: Pta was already a master filmmaker in ninety nine or
Speaker 2: if he was still warming up with Magnolia, and an
Speaker 2: av club piece from August described the film as quote
Speaker 2: exactly the kind of thing an artsy kid with all
Speaker 2: the feelings would write. It's also the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that begs for the red pen end quote, and earlier
Speaker 2: this week in the Film Spotting newsletter, our producer Sam
Speaker 2: took a similar tack, comparing PTA's sprawling, intense day in
Speaker 2: the life of several somewhat randomly connected Southern Californians to
Speaker 2: Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. It's become conventional wisdom,
Speaker 2: according to Sam, to consider the five or so years
Speaker 2: prior to two thousand and sevens there will be blood
Speaker 2: as a quote sort of gestation period where Paul Thomas
Speaker 2: Anderson transformed from a wonder kind with more talent than wisdom,
Speaker 2: eager to show off how thoroughly he's absorbed the lessons
Speaker 2: of his idols to an artist of mature genius content
Speaker 2: to use his outsized talents to more enigmatic and subtle ends.
Speaker 2: End quote. He then confesses I was guilty of this
Speaker 2: kind of thinking myself before revisiting Magnolia. It definitely struck
Speaker 2: me as the work of a younger artist, but in
Speaker 2: the same way that Sergeant Pepper's is the work of
Speaker 2: young artists. Both or Try Anything, Slash Everything works of
Speaker 2: boundless artistic imagination and formal mastery. But there are also
Speaker 2: works of great beauty, empathy, and understanding, you know, masterpieces.
Speaker 2: So a little bit of that classic Sam van Holgren
Speaker 2: van Purbley in there for you. I'm going to propose
Speaker 2: that you, too, Josh, were guilty of such thinking coming
Speaker 2: into this revisit. The receipts include your three out of
Speaker 2: four star blurb, presumably written back in ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it's pulled from that.
Speaker 2: Okay, in which you call mag another great imitation of
Speaker 2: a great movie from writer director Paul Thomas Anderson, and
Speaker 2: you cite Altman's Nashville and Shortcuts as Magnolia's prime influences.
Speaker 2: You're complimentary, to be sure, but the imitation implication suggests
Speaker 2: a still relatively unformed artist, a position supported by your
Speaker 2: letterboxed ranking of PTA's films. I want to state clearly that,
Speaker 2: at least according to my research, you have not actually
Speaker 2: given a negative review to any Paul Thomas Anderson movie, but.
Speaker 1: That would be correct.
Speaker 2: You do have in last place his debut Hard eight
Speaker 2: or Sidney, third from the bottom, his second and breakout
Speaker 2: feature Boogie Knights, and in between those two is the
Speaker 2: film we're discussing, Magnolia. His three earliest works are the
Speaker 2: ones you fancy the least. So are you sticking to
Speaker 2: this narrative or are you ready to revise the list?
Speaker 2: Is PTA's Tale of Wounded Children, despicable patriarchs and they're
Speaker 2: collaterally damaged caretakers, more profound develop piece of art than
Speaker 2: you initially gave it credit for, and did any of
Speaker 2: the performances surprise you? On this rewatch? In your blurb,
Speaker 2: you rightfully praise John c Riley's do gooder policeman Jim Kurring,
Speaker 2: Philip Seymour Hoffman's emotional hospice attendant Phil Parma, and Tom
Speaker 2: Cruise's malevolently charismatic seduce and destroy instructor Frank TJ. Mackie,
Speaker 2: a role that earned him a Best Supporting Oscar nomination.
Speaker 2: But you were not a fan of Julianne Moore's manic
Speaker 2: adulterous wife Linda, or William H. Macy as whiz kid
Speaker 2: Donnie Smith, who has so much love to give? Won't
Speaker 2: you give some of your love to Macy and to
Speaker 2: the artistry of PTA, artistry that extends beyond breva steady
Speaker 2: cam shots to non diegetic ensemble singalongs, and of course
Speaker 2: Frog's falling from the sky. Or will you always think
Speaker 2: of Magnolia most fondly as the stepping stone to PTA's
Speaker 2: true masterpiece, his next film, Punch Shrunk Love.
Speaker 5: Hm.
Speaker 1: Yes, Punchdrunk Love is just so wonderful. That's a whole
Speaker 1: other conversation. Can't wait till we do that Sacred cow
Speaker 1: review of that one. But I think this is going
Speaker 1: to be I don't know that we've had a full
Speaker 1: on Maya Colpa in the nine from ninety nine series,
Speaker 1: yet I know positions have shifted a little bit later
Speaker 1: and there. But who was this stingy bastard in nine?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 1: Now? Mind you? What I was hoping because you've stated
Speaker 1: so badly three out of four stars, you know, positive review?
Speaker 1: But why why did I get so focused on the
Speaker 1: things that held me back from it?
Speaker 2: Just wrote it off as an ultimental talk.
Speaker 1: About no no, Now, don't rephrase what you've already read.
Speaker 1: That's not exactly how I couched it. Noticed the word
Speaker 1: great there when I noticed it when I wrote a
Speaker 1: great imitation. So we're going to get to, you know,
Speaker 1: how I feel about some of those things I pointed
Speaker 1: out before. But what was with me that that's where
Speaker 1: I decided to go first? Yes, this thing has so
Speaker 1: wonders to it. The reservations I have pale in comparison
Speaker 1: to what this movie does well, And I would say
Speaker 1: of the performances. We'll circle back to that. But my
Speaker 1: biggest sin was probably in a longer print review that
Speaker 1: I wrote that I dragged out of some boxes. I
Speaker 1: didn't care for Malaura Walters and this watch she just
Speaker 1: stunned me. Now, maybe those three characters have something in
Speaker 1: common we can get to. Maybe it's just a matter
Speaker 1: that I had not yet learned to appreciate melodrama. I
Speaker 1: described this as we led into this review as a melodrama,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that was a genre that I
Speaker 1: quite understood twenty years ago as well or appreciate it
Speaker 1: as well as I do now. Maybe that had something
Speaker 1: to do with it, But yeah, I way underrated this,
Speaker 1: even if I think it's still it's more of a
Speaker 1: master work in progress. I'll stand by that. But I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be as harsh as it sounds like
Speaker 1: that AV Club reappraisal was. It's still something absolutely wonderful
Speaker 1: as is, and I'm looking forward to spending some time
Speaker 1: on those positives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me as well. I'd love to hear more because
Speaker 2: I'm also a big fan of this film, and I'm
Speaker 2: a big fan of all of Paul Thomas Anderson's films.
Speaker 2: Our rankings are very different, though ultimately the same, because
Speaker 2: we're positive on all of them, and I think watching
Speaker 2: Magnolia again, I did realize that it would be very
Speaker 2: easy to be completely overwhelmed by it or exhilarated by
Speaker 2: the sheer audacity and the speed of it. It's three
Speaker 2: hours and eight minutes long. I'd forgotten, honestly that it
Speaker 2: was that long yea too, and didn't quite believe the
Speaker 2: timer on the TV when it said it was that long,
Speaker 2: But especially that first ninety minutes before PTA deliberately slows
Speaker 2: the movie down. And I think there is a point
Speaker 2: where he deliberately slows it down. It's during Stanley's decision,
Speaker 2: the kid on TV who has told the world that
Speaker 2: he's not going to answer that question. He's standing his ground.
Speaker 2: He's not going to be forced into this position anymore.
Speaker 2: And similarly, all of the other characters at that moment
Speaker 2: are having kind of breakthrough personal moments, and that's where
Speaker 2: he really does. PTA, for better or worse, elongate that
Speaker 2: that entire section, I think. But up until that, with
Speaker 2: the me music and the quick cuts that do connect
Speaker 2: all these storylines and characters, it just propels forward. And
Speaker 2: as we talk about the artistry of it and how
Speaker 2: bold it is and whether or not it reflects an
Speaker 2: immature artist at this point, I mean, I did listen
Speaker 2: to the interview PTA gave to Mark Maron on WTF
Speaker 2: a few years back where he basically says in that interview, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it probably should have had twenty minutes cut from it.
Speaker 2: I was a little bit out of control. I was
Speaker 2: overly eager, and I wasn't going to be stopped. I
Speaker 2: was going to have my way on that movie. Who
Speaker 2: am I to argue with pta, but that boldness going
Speaker 2: for a moment like we get with the frogs at
Speaker 2: the end, like the amy Man song wise Up that
Speaker 2: we've referenced a few times, even the moment like the
Speaker 2: one with Jim and Claudia. So this is John c
Speaker 2: Riley and Malaura Walters who have met when he has
Speaker 2: been called to her house by neighbors who are complaining
Speaker 2: about the noise. So there's some disturbance there and they
Speaker 2: do end up making a connection and going out that evening,
Speaker 2: and they're two very broken people we see in that moment.
Speaker 2: But she has a line at one point where she says,
Speaker 2: now that I've met you, would you object to never
Speaker 2: seeing me again? That does feel a little bit forced,
Speaker 2: And now in retrospect, I know that that is a
Speaker 2: line from an amy Man song, and her songs are
Speaker 2: really the foundation of this entire soundtrack. But it was
Speaker 2: a line he fell in love with, and he said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to find a reason to get this into
Speaker 2: the movie. I'm going to go ahead and force it
Speaker 2: into the film, And you know what, I'm on board
Speaker 2: with all of that, But it is the intimate moments
Speaker 2: that make the film so much more for me than
Speaker 2: those pyrotechnics. And I will go back to that same
Speaker 2: scene with Jim and Claudia where it's pretty early in
Speaker 2: the conversation and she's saying to him, you're so good,
Speaker 2: you're so put together, you're a police officer, and pta
Speaker 2: doesn't linger on John c Riley's face, but he does
Speaker 2: keep the camera on him just long enough to see
Speaker 2: that flicker in his eyes where Riley is processing Jim,
Speaker 2: the character he's playing, is processing so much. In that flicker,
Speaker 2: he's recognizing that they're exactly the same, that they are broken,
Speaker 2: that in addition to that, he's somehow fooled her, and
Speaker 2: that he's going to have to be completely honest with her,
Speaker 2: like he isn't really with anybody else, and it's gonna
Speaker 2: be uncomfortable, and he's gonna reveal just how truly pathetic
Speaker 2: he is to her. And that kind of I guess
Speaker 2: nakedness of it, of that emotion, of that vulnerability, is
Speaker 2: really what I think makes Magnolien special.
Speaker 7: Can I tell you something? Yeah, of course, I'm really
Speaker 7: nervous that you're gonna hate me soon. You're gonna find
Speaker 7: stuff out about me, and.
Speaker 8: You're gonna hate me, no, Like, what what do you mean?
Speaker 7: You have so much, so many good things, and you
Speaker 7: seem so together. You're a police officer, and you seem
Speaker 7: so straight and put together without any problems.
Speaker 8: I lost my gun today? What I lost my gun today?
Speaker 8: When I left you? And I'm the laughing stock of
Speaker 8: a lot of people. I wanted to tell you. I
Speaker 8: wanted you to know.
Speaker 3: And it's on my.
Speaker 8: Mind and it makes me look like a fool. I
Speaker 8: feel like a fool.
Speaker 1: That might be my favorite scene. Really love the film
Speaker 1: on this rewatch, and you're right, it's relatively unshowy in
Speaker 1: terms of the camera work compared to a lot of
Speaker 1: what we get here. But the timing of Riley's response
Speaker 1: when Officer Jim jumps in as she's talking about how
Speaker 1: she's messed up and he's so good and I lost
Speaker 1: my gun today, and it's like he just he blurts
Speaker 1: it out, because you're right, he's trying to keep up
Speaker 1: with her with what she's throwing at him. And then
Speaker 1: what he follows that up with, I'm looked down on
Speaker 1: and I know that, and he's he's it's it's as
Speaker 1: if he may have always known that, but he's maybe
Speaker 1: never admitted it to himself until this moment, right, and
Speaker 1: her presence and her vulnerability is allowing him to do that.
Speaker 1: And then there is a bit of technical virtuosity when
Speaker 1: they kiss and we get the camera push in on right.
Speaker 1: I will have other things to say about other us
Speaker 1: of camera pushes, the maybe four hundred and eighty three
Speaker 1: we get in the first twenty minutes, but this camera
Speaker 1: push is absolutely perfect. I also like about Officer Jim
Speaker 1: and Riley's performance out He's always talking and the choice
Speaker 1: Anderson makes. There are a couple times in the movie
Speaker 1: where he's still talking and we see that but we
Speaker 1: can't hear him.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: One is when he's escorting Donnie back into the store
Speaker 1: to put back the money's from that he's rout from
Speaker 1: the and.
Speaker 2: The sail actually in a more dramatic way.
Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna say. With Donnie, we see
Speaker 1: his mouth moving, we see Officer Jim's mouth moving, and
Speaker 1: we just don't hear him. But then you're right, the
Speaker 1: final scene we do kind of hear him, and if
Speaker 1: you listen in over the Amy Man song, you can
Speaker 1: make out what he's saying, but it's not what the
Speaker 1: soundtrack prioritizes no, So it's just a good way of
Speaker 1: keeping that reaction yes and keeping that character consistent. This
Speaker 1: is a guy who's just always talking, trying to say
Speaker 1: the right thing, being helpful more often than not, I think.
Speaker 2: But certainly trying.
Speaker 1: I do love that quality about him. So the overarching
Speaker 1: thing that I enjoyed about this movie seen in a
Speaker 1: second time, and it sounds ridiculous not to have watched
Speaker 1: this movie a second time because it is so overwhelming.
Speaker 1: How could I not have wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: it and try to figure out more and just pe
Speaker 1: smart again.
Speaker 2: More than any other film. And I'll just say real quick,
Speaker 2: we've watched some mind benders in this nine series for sure,
Speaker 2: looking back on The Matrix and The Sixth Sense and
Speaker 2: other films and John Welco to make sense, and this
Speaker 2: is the only one where I really feel like I
Speaker 2: needed to watch it a second time before discussing it
Speaker 2: or what would ultimately be a third time.
Speaker 1: For sure, And as wild as it all is, it
Speaker 1: all comes together in at least one way. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying there's an answer or a clue, but it is
Speaker 1: considering this essential question, it seems to me basically, do
Speaker 1: things happen for a reason? Is everything the phrase that's
Speaker 1: repeated often a matter of chance? Or are things crucially connected?
Speaker 1: And I think from the structure of this film, to
Speaker 1: the emotional beats that it hits, to the throw the
Speaker 1: frogs in here too, Magnolia argues that, yes, we are connected.
Speaker 1: It may not be entirely sure how we're connected or
Speaker 1: why we're connected, but undoubtedly this is a movie that's
Speaker 1: pro connection, it's anti chaos, and I think this is
Speaker 1: why for all of its tragedy, and you know, there
Speaker 1: are some really awful things we learn that these some
Speaker 1: of these characters have suffered. Yes, I do find it
Speaker 1: strangely comforting, and I think this is maybe where the
Speaker 1: regret theme is important. And regret is also something that's
Speaker 1: mentioned a number of times by multiple characters when we
Speaker 1: learn about the awful things they've done that they should
Speaker 1: be regretful about. But if regret, basically, if everything is
Speaker 1: just a coincidence, then what's the point of regret?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Why bother with regret if there's no sense of control
Speaker 1: here at all? And I think it's because the movie
Speaker 1: shows us that there is regret, because we are connected
Speaker 1: by the things that are beyond our control, yes, by
Speaker 1: things that are greater than us, yes, but also by
Speaker 1: our voices, especially those choices in our relationships. So again
Speaker 1: back to Officer Jim near the end, when he says,
Speaker 1: can we forgive? That's the part that's the tough part
Speaker 1: of the job. That's a tough part of walking down
Speaker 1: the street.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: That's one way to corral the chaos of the universe,
Speaker 1: to forgive. And that's a through line that was just
Speaker 1: so consistent for me in watching this movie. That is
Speaker 1: probably one of the things I should have focused on
Speaker 1: and been less worried about whatever trick Anderson was pulling
Speaker 1: out of his bag to get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's certainly a lot of Catharsis here, and
Speaker 2: there are undoubtedly connections not just being made with the camera.
Speaker 2: But if you really break it down all nine or
Speaker 2: ten or however many characters there are in this film,
Speaker 2: we see that there is something that is linking them
Speaker 2: beyond just the thematics, but there's that thematic element as well,
Speaker 2: And in every sort of subplot there is an element
Speaker 2: of a patriarch, as I mentioned, who has done terrible
Speaker 2: damage to a child, and I think one of the
Speaker 2: things that's kind of comforting about the ending of the
Speaker 2: film though, or a moment near the end of the film,
Speaker 2: even though it's not necessarily the moment of emotional breakthrough
Speaker 2: we would want on the part of the father, But
Speaker 2: when Stanley is able to go into his father and
Speaker 2: confront him with his father's mistreatment of his abuse, maybe
Speaker 2: not on the scale of Malaura Walter's character or of
Speaker 2: Frank tom Cruise's character at the hands of Jason Robard's
Speaker 2: but the fact that he's able to go in you
Speaker 2: talk about that connection. It's as if, even though he
Speaker 2: doesn't know those other people in this story that we're watching,
Speaker 2: we know the other people and we know what they've
Speaker 2: lived through, and we know what they regret and feel
Speaker 2: at this point in their lives, and somehow he has
Speaker 2: absorbed that and now he's able to go into his
Speaker 2: father and say things need to be different, and there's hope.
Speaker 2: There's hope in Stanley that somehow does I think, make
Speaker 2: you feel better about everything at the end of this film.
Speaker 1: I like how that scene is played too, though, where
Speaker 1: his father doesn't he kind of ignores him and tells
Speaker 1: him to go to bed. You go back to bed twice,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't play it for this easy, now cathartic moment,
Speaker 1: but you're right, you do get the sense that a
Speaker 1: choice has been made. That's Stanley.
Speaker 2: I think it's just in the act of confronting it.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to talk about that a little bit
Speaker 2: more because when you talk about John c Riley's character
Speaker 2: and him telling us in that kind of voiceover about
Speaker 2: how hard it is just dealing with forgiveness and getting
Speaker 2: through the day, that's a meta element in a film
Speaker 2: that has a lot of them. The fact that we
Speaker 2: hear him sometimes talking to us where it's almost as
Speaker 2: if there's a documentary crew in the car with him,
Speaker 2: but not really, but he's clearly just talking to himself.
Speaker 2: To himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I understand it, but it very.
Speaker 2: Much feels like he's talking to us the audience. And
Speaker 2: there is that moment where Phil Parma, the Philip Seymour
Speaker 2: Hoffman character and Wow, talk about an amazing performance, not
Speaker 2: a surprise and believe somehow a surprise. It's just how
Speaker 2: good it was. When he's talking on the phone and
Speaker 2: he's saying, this is that scene in the movie. Things
Speaker 2: happen in the movie sometimes like this and I need
Speaker 2: you to now do it. I like that because it
Speaker 2: fits in with I think everything else is going on
Speaker 2: in the film. The moment when we are exiting Malaura
Speaker 2: Walter's apartment and the camera quickly shows us the painting
Speaker 2: on the wall and the part that says, but it
Speaker 2: did happen that's written on the painting, a note just
Speaker 2: for us the viewer. The fact that most of the
Speaker 2: drama and suspense is built around a TV show, right,
Speaker 2: characters watching it at different points. It's the game show,
Speaker 2: and how that plays out the fact that Earl Partridge,
Speaker 2: the Jason Robard's character, is a TV producer who is
Speaker 2: the producer of that game show. And it makes you
Speaker 2: think of the Partridge Family. Of course, this is the
Speaker 2: dysfunctional version of the Partridge family, and all these characters
Speaker 2: tie back to him. And did you catch in the
Speaker 2: credits to the Henry Gibson character, the kind of character
Speaker 2: who's in the bar putting on the airs of being
Speaker 2: this rich man of class who's talking to and kind
Speaker 2: of harassing Donnie. The William H. Macy character. His name
Speaker 2: is Thurston Howell, which is the millionaire character from Gilligan's island,
Speaker 2: so Pta is playing with all of this stuff, including
Speaker 2: all of the different references to Exodus eight two and
Speaker 2: the different uses of the numbers eight and two that
Speaker 2: are in the film. The movie just dares you to
Speaker 2: repeatedly watch it, as we noted for these connections. But
Speaker 2: a couple more, Cruz unravels in front of a camera.
Speaker 2: His entire facade breaks down when he's questioned for a
Speaker 2: TV news profile of some kind. And isn't the whole
Speaker 2: film in a way just a bye? How obviously cinematic
Speaker 2: it is. Isn't it all kind of like a TV
Speaker 2: drama with all these different characters that you meet, whether
Speaker 2: it's a sitcom or whatever, or a melodrama, all these
Speaker 2: different storylines. Think it's just kind of checking in on.
Speaker 1: I compared it, and not derisively, to a soap opera
Speaker 1: in my original partner.
Speaker 2: There is the element to it, but that all from
Speaker 2: me is building to a great moment in this idea
Speaker 2: of confrontation. And I want to talk about some of
Speaker 2: the surprises in the movie for you. If there were,
Speaker 2: as there have been throughout this series, certain moments where
Speaker 2: you just completely had forgotten about them in the twenty
Speaker 2: years that have passed. I kind of forgot about the
Speaker 2: Melinda Dylan character who plays Philip Baker Hall Jimmy Gator,
Speaker 2: the TV host wife, and I forgot about that scene
Speaker 2: completely that they have where he's come home from the
Speaker 2: taping he has had some kind of attack, he's dying,
Speaker 2: and we've seen her up to this point be the
Speaker 2: doting wife. She has always been caring for him and
Speaker 2: worried about him, and you feel like she has possibly
Speaker 2: become content to accept a certain version of her life.
Speaker 2: She is married to this guy who's successful, She's had
Speaker 2: a good life, and she loves this man, but she's
Speaker 2: been in denial about his past indiscretions, which he confesses
Speaker 2: to cheating on her multiple times, and she's probably been
Speaker 2: in denial about the sexual abuse of their daughter. And
Speaker 2: it's only when he unburdens himself of one of those
Speaker 2: anchors that's around his neck as he's dying, but not
Speaker 2: the other, that she forces him to really confront it.
Speaker 2: It's as if she's saying, if you're going to try
Speaker 2: to make yourself feel better as you die by telling
Speaker 2: the truth and making me deal with this now, well
Speaker 2: then you're gonna have to actually be totally honest with
Speaker 2: yourself and with me, and I'm gonna have to hear
Speaker 2: all of it. And her line when she turns to
Speaker 2: him and says, I'm not through asking my questions. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's one of the great lines and great line deliveries
Speaker 2: in the entire movie. I think. I think it speaks
Speaker 2: to the inquisitive nature of this movie and that idea
Speaker 2: of confronting truth, confronting the reality within the randomness, and
Speaker 2: accepting certain narratives or abandoning certain accepted narratives. We see
Speaker 2: all these characters trying to carve out these new paths
Speaker 2: that seem to have been decided for them, So all
Speaker 2: those meta elements actually kind of swirl together, I think
Speaker 2: in a really neat way.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought up Melinda Dylan because I
Speaker 1: did remember that scene. I actually did not remember. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of the most horrible secret of the film,
Speaker 1: So it did stick with me, but I did not
Speaker 1: remember who played the wife, and I do not remember
Speaker 1: how good she was in that scene. Because the element,
Speaker 1: you're right how you describe it, But it also is
Speaker 1: not like a got you like a courtroom sort of
Speaker 1: you're on the stand now you realize in her performance,
Speaker 1: the little hesitation she has, she could make that choice
Speaker 1: to still deny it tell what you're talking about. But
Speaker 1: the courage it took for her to say he may
Speaker 1: die tonight, but I am going to follow this through
Speaker 1: no matter how painful this is going to get, and
Speaker 1: the courage that she brings to that. I think she
Speaker 1: probably has maybe three scenes in the film or four,
Speaker 1: but that scene between them is just so absolutely wrenching,
Speaker 1: and she's fantastic in it.
Speaker 4: Do you feel better now that you've said this?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Mad, Oh I am, but I'm not.
Speaker 3: You know, I love you so much, Ruse.
Speaker 4: I'm not through asking my questions.
Speaker 1: The other performances that I did want to talk about,
Speaker 1: you've touched on a lot of them. I think we
Speaker 1: covered what's so great about Riley Philip Seymour Hoffman. You
Speaker 1: absolutely see why Paul Thomas Anderson was like, I'm eventually
Speaker 1: giving this guy his own movie or as close as
Speaker 1: you could. Yeah, with the Master from what he does here,
Speaker 1: I feel like that line, this is that scene.
Speaker 6: I know this sounds silly, and I know that I
Speaker 6: might sound ridiculous like this is the scene of the
Speaker 6: movie where the guy's trying to get a hold of
Speaker 6: the long Lost Sun, you know, but this is that scene.
Speaker 3: This is that scene.
Speaker 6: And I think they have those scenes in movies because
Speaker 6: they're true, you know, because they really happen, and you
Speaker 6: gotta believe me, this is really happening.
Speaker 1: It's again, it's it's pta like dancing, like just like
Speaker 1: it's a little too little, too much. But if anybody,
Speaker 1: if you tell it Philip Seymour Hoffman to say it, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's gonna work, and he pulls it off for sure.
Speaker 2: I just want to say he makes it something to
Speaker 2: human would say, yeah, he does, while also being idiosyncratic
Speaker 2: with every moment, but not distractingly. So anything that he says,
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be remotely comic, is a little funnier
Speaker 2: than that moment probably should be or could have been
Speaker 2: with another actor. And you talk about wrenching every emotional
Speaker 2: beat is a little more heartbreaking than that moment could
Speaker 2: otherwise be. I think, because really the secret of it,
Speaker 2: I think to the acting with Hoffmann is that he's
Speaker 2: always serving the other character in the scene, whether it's Cruise,
Speaker 2: whether it's Robarts, whether it's Julian Moore and her history.
Speaker 2: Really see it right, He's just a character and an
Speaker 2: actor ultimately who's bursting with empathy and as I said,
Speaker 2: not a surprise because we all know he's one of
Speaker 2: the best actors ever, and yet moment to moment he
Speaker 2: constantly surprised me.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about him in the film is
Speaker 1: that a lot of these are uncomfortable characters, and even
Speaker 1: if you're interested in their stories and where they're going
Speaker 1: to go, when we return to them, you're a little
Speaker 1: bit on edge. Whenever it comes back to Phil, you
Speaker 1: feel like you're in good hands. This is a good
Speaker 1: place to be. Part of that is the occupation this nurse,
Speaker 1: but it's also the empathy that you talked about. So Cruz,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not surprising that it was probably
Speaker 1: the stand up performance for me the first time I
Speaker 1: saw it. Watching it again, I like to think, and
Speaker 1: having seen twenty years of time Cruise performances since then,
Speaker 1: I like to think that on set, the early version
Speaker 1: of Frank Mackie we get is that Cruz does like
Speaker 1: a less misogynistic version of that for himself to get
Speaker 1: himself pumped up for every scene. He does. It's just
Speaker 1: fantastic how he gets himself ramped up and he's giving
Speaker 1: two performances here. Right, there's that creening first half where
Speaker 1: we see him and then also the bravado breaking down
Speaker 1: during the interview that he mentioned. But really the breakdown comes.
Speaker 1: He doesn't break down there, He kind of like shuts
Speaker 1: down there, right, that's stare and he just says, I'm
Speaker 1: silently judging you.
Speaker 2: Yes, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1: But the real breakdown comes when he does, of course
Speaker 1: finally meet his father who's on his deathbed, and again
Speaker 1: Cruse using his Cruise powers not to cry, right and
Speaker 1: saying that right, I'm not gonna let you make me cry,
Speaker 1: even though as an actor that's what the character requires.
Speaker 1: But you just knowing what sort of a performer Cruise is,
Speaker 1: how he's one hundred and ten percent all the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can see when he's gripping his hand and trying
Speaker 1: to prevent that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how much he's giving that, I think not a surprise.
Speaker 2: You're right, And yet I did feel like he was
Speaker 2: even better than I remembered it. And I think it's
Speaker 2: because in ninety nine there was that element of oh,
Speaker 2: we're watching Tom Cruise do something he's never done before.
Speaker 2: We're watching Tom Cruise play a vile character, and there
Speaker 2: was a performative aspect to it. As you said, there
Speaker 2: is certainly a performative aspect to the character he's playing.
Speaker 2: He is playing a role absolutely as Frank TJ. Mackie,
Speaker 2: and he is a performer on stage for his sort
Speaker 2: of sycophantic fans who are buying his product. But it
Speaker 2: is a very textured performance and it's a very powerful performance.
Speaker 2: And you touched on those silent moments. It isn't just
Speaker 2: the Blake moments of misogyny and some of the exercises
Speaker 2: he does and is underwear that all of that that
Speaker 2: came back right, It really is again it speaks to
Speaker 2: the whole film. It's those quieter moments. And I do
Speaker 2: think that breakdown with Robards and you nailed it. That
Speaker 2: demand of himself to not cry, but his body taking
Speaker 2: over in those moments and kind of almost forcing it
Speaker 2: out of him is really strong.
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry for you,
Speaker 5: you sucker. I know you could hear me. I hate
Speaker 5: your guts. You can just dye you. And I hope
Speaker 5: it hurts. I hope it.
Speaker 2: Hurts now I'll throw at you. As I mentioned from
Speaker 2: your ninety nine take, not a fan of William H.
Speaker 2: Macy and Julianne Moore. I do think that Donnie's storyline
Speaker 2: overall is the weakest link in the film. I do
Speaker 2: feel like those bar scenes. Anytime we go back to
Speaker 2: that bar, I felt as if I was ready. I
Speaker 2: was ready to go, sooner than Paul Thomas Anderson was
Speaker 2: ready to go, ready to get back to some other characters.
Speaker 2: Felt like it maybe meandered a little bit and definitely
Speaker 2: had some redundancy in terms of him articulating his pain
Speaker 2: and his loneliness. That isn't to say though I don't
Speaker 2: think William H. Macy's really good in the film. I
Speaker 2: think it's exactly the type of performance we've seen from
Speaker 2: William H. Macy in a lot of great films.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, you know, I excited those two performances,
Speaker 1: but I think it was more to suggest that the
Speaker 1: material was not serving them as well as it served
Speaker 1: the other characters. I do agree, and maybe for me
Speaker 1: partly it's also the obviously it's a film of coincidences,
Speaker 1: but having two quiz kids, a grown quiz kid and
Speaker 1: the Young quiz Kid was almost, you know, like too
Speaker 1: much of a doubling down on that sort of theme.
Speaker 1: And the one thing watching again that I did notice
Speaker 1: about both More and William H. Macy scenes and Laura
Speaker 1: Walter scenes has a bit of this, but as I said,
Speaker 1: I think she navigates them a little bit better. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of shouting back and forth with other people,
Speaker 1: whether it's the multiple lawyers that Julianne Moore's character goes
Speaker 1: to me or Donnie with his bosses. It speaks also
Speaker 1: to this element of this was a movie that you
Speaker 1: get the sense, and it sounds like he said he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to cut a second out of and those
Speaker 1: maybe have been the places, those heightened emotion shouting matches
Speaker 1: that those two characters get engaged in became a little
Speaker 1: bit redundant for me. Yeah, you know, I would not
Speaker 1: go so far to say is they are bad performances.
Speaker 1: I don't think the material is up to the level
Speaker 1: there in those scenes that it is elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll admit I'm not sure ultimately where I fall
Speaker 2: on Julianne Moore watching this film, and I would have
Speaker 2: said coming into it, oh, of course, I mean I
Speaker 2: think she was nominated for an Oscar as well, along
Speaker 2: with Cruz, and she clearly has a great body of
Speaker 2: work behind her. I've enjoyed a lot of her performances,
Speaker 2: but there is a theatricality that goes beyond just a
Speaker 2: bigness and goes beyond just the yelling. There is something
Speaker 2: very pronounced and very forced about her performance that I
Speaker 2: don't feel in any other performance in the film. And
Speaker 2: you could point to the fact that she's a character
Speaker 2: who is becoming progressively unhinged and is also fueled by drugs.
Speaker 2: I think that's very clear. So the performance being a
Speaker 2: little bit scattered makes sense. And yet, like I said,
Speaker 2: it did overall stand out for me as one, I
Speaker 2: was never quite on the same plane with her when
Speaker 2: she was on screen. I mentioned surprises in terms of
Speaker 2: things you just didn't remember at all about the film.
Speaker 2: Did you have anything that stood out to you a
Speaker 2: certain scene or an idea that wasn't something you recalled
Speaker 2: from your previous feeling?
Speaker 1: Well, do you want to talk about the frogs? I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't. That's the biggest surprise in the film. Obviously
Speaker 1: I knew it was coming, but just you know, I
Speaker 1: also had ahead of me, and are the frogs going
Speaker 1: to make any sense this time or any more sense?
Speaker 1: And obviously, as you suggested, they are foreshadowed. We see
Speaker 1: that Exodus eight two, you know about the plague of
Speaker 1: the frogs in Egypt. We see a sign that just
Speaker 1: says Exodus eight to an audience member holding at the
Speaker 1: game show, and someone comes and takes it away. It's
Speaker 1: also I think foreshadowed in the Boys rap to Officer
Speaker 1: Jim on the street. I think the final line there
Speaker 1: is when the sunshine don't work, the good Lord bring
Speaker 1: the rain in, which could obviously suggest the storm we see.
Speaker 1: But also maybe there are the storm of frogs.
Speaker 2: There are chapter breaks too, essentially which remember that are
Speaker 2: all weather report. It suggests maybe not that frogs are
Speaker 2: going to fall from the sky, but the weather is
Speaker 2: getting worse. Yes, And whether the movie's preoccupied with it, and.
Speaker 1: Whether something still No matter whatever technological developments have come about, we.
Speaker 2: Cannot control write it can't control.
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate chaos. So I do think with the frogs,
Speaker 1: it's telling that the first person to experience it is Jim,
Speaker 1: because he's maybe the only one in the film who
Speaker 1: who seems to believe in a providential God. Some of
Speaker 1: those moments where he's talking to him are actually one
Speaker 1: or two are actually prayers.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So he seems to have this sense behind him here. Yeah, yeah, kindly, well,
Speaker 1: he seems to have a sense that there. He believes
Speaker 1: there's someone guiding events right, putting things in his path,
Speaker 1: giving him then the choice of what to do with
Speaker 1: what he comes across. So something more than just coincidence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I always.
Speaker 2: Think God too to help him find his gun.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, that's another one of the prayers. Also, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that the frogs precipitate Earl's death. That's that's kind
Speaker 1: of what they lead up to. We've been anticipating it
Speaker 1: the whole film really, but this is when it arrives,
Speaker 1: and death another maybe can be seen definitive act of God.
Speaker 1: So I think the bottom line is, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: the frogs are they're sort of like man's songs that
Speaker 1: are sprinkled throughout. It's just another way to connect these
Speaker 1: characters in an exact moment with a singular experience and
Speaker 1: absolutely singular experience.
Speaker 2: And a singular, unexplainable experience which the whole movie is
Speaker 2: predicated on those types of experiences and this idea that
Speaker 2: something unbelievable, something miraculous can happen. And not only can
Speaker 2: it happen, it does happen. It happens to people every day.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the reasons I was so
Speaker 2: set up for it, beyond the fact that I knew
Speaker 2: it was coming, is the prologue, which was my big surprise.
Speaker 2: I had completely.
Speaker 1: Forgotten me too, Yeah, had completely.
Speaker 2: Forgotten about that opening sequence in the narration by Ricky Jay,
Speaker 2: who does appear in the film as kind of the
Speaker 2: executive producer or one of the producers of the game show,
Speaker 2: and it absolutely sets the table for everything that unfolds.
Speaker 2: It says, what you're about to watch defies rationality. It
Speaker 2: defies reason, but sometimes so does life. So buckle up.
Speaker 2: And so when you get frogs falling from the sky
Speaker 2: at the end of the movie, it's almost like we
Speaker 2: knew it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's fair. But here we're getting to
Speaker 1: some of my critiques that I am going to say
Speaker 1: still stand, and it has to do with maybe the
Speaker 1: first twenty minutes of this film. Sam, I believe you
Speaker 1: the phrase formal mastery and describing his revisit, and I
Speaker 1: just don't think I think there are moments of that,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's consistent throughout the film, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it has that formal mastery in these
Speaker 1: first twenty minutes. I admire it's brio and maybe in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine like that's I just never recovered from
Speaker 1: this sort of onslaught we get at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Like it could be overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can meet us, That's how I would describe
Speaker 1: the experience. First, we do get the narrated prologue that
Speaker 1: you're talking about, so it whips us through these historical
Speaker 1: incidents of coincidence. The first one shot like a silent movie,
Speaker 1: right with the spect ratio, black and white everything, and
Speaker 1: it's about a man being murdered in the neighborhood of
Speaker 1: Greenberry Hill by three men named Greenberry, Hill and Hill.
Speaker 1: Then we move to this story of a woman who
Speaker 1: fires a gun at her husband, only to miss shoot
Speaker 1: her son, who had just jumped to his death from
Speaker 1: the roof of their building that was passing by there
Speaker 1: and had loaded the gun. Yes, okay, so this is
Speaker 1: like coming that fast and furious past I forgot Pat
Speaker 1: Naswa too. Yeah, the scuba dive scuba I official surprise,
Speaker 1: totally forgot about Patton Oswalt go ahead, what was his well.
Speaker 2: Experienced He likes to scuba dive, and he ends up
Speaker 2: getting picked up in one of those planes I don't
Speaker 2: know the proper name, that picks water up to dump
Speaker 2: it on forest fires, and he got picked up with
Speaker 2: the water and dropped up the tree and died. And then,
Speaker 2: of course the other coincidence is that he actually had
Speaker 2: had an encounter, a kind of violent altercation or a
Speaker 2: skirmish with the guy who ultimately was flying the plane
Speaker 2: at his blackjack table where he's a dealer a week
Speaker 2: or two prior, a few days prior.
Speaker 1: And then that pilot of Pilono, learning what happened, kills
Speaker 1: kills himself. Okay, so which brings me to admire the
Speaker 1: brio again. But there's a sense of self satisfaction to these,
Speaker 1: all of these sequences here that I still find a
Speaker 1: little off putting. And there's a flippancy and a glibnus
Speaker 1: to it as well, especially when you think about the
Speaker 1: actual violence being recounted in these stories. So there's that
Speaker 1: element that's our first maybe eight minutes or whatever. Then
Speaker 1: we get this mannic sequence introducing all of these characters,
Speaker 1: all of these people we've been talking about, and the
Speaker 1: filmmaking itself is just too much here. I still stick
Speaker 1: to that it's like he's coming into his powers but
Speaker 1: is not fully in control of them. Think about the
Speaker 1: way I would describe it, It's like Peter Parker going
Speaker 1: out to websling for the first time.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: We've seen those scenes in how many Spider Man movies,
Speaker 1: and you're odd at what he's doing and experiencing. But
Speaker 1: every once in a while he hits a wall and
Speaker 1: he's going to have to get up and try again.
Speaker 1: And this is where the camera pushes really did start
Speaker 1: to bother me. I think half of the shots as
Speaker 1: we meet each of these characters again, maybe it's to
Speaker 1: develop consistency to connect them, but it pushes right in
Speaker 1: at a dramatic moment on the central figure. I also
Speaker 1: think there's an over reliance on the first Amy Man
Speaker 1: song we hear one to create a sense of montage
Speaker 1: that otherwise isn't really there in the actual filmmaking. If
Speaker 1: you look on it, we get those repeat pushings, but
Speaker 1: the song is doing most of the work to create
Speaker 1: a montage out of this. So again like you're wowed
Speaker 1: at what's being attempted here and and and maybe that's
Speaker 1: enough for most people for you, but I think this
Speaker 1: movie for me, Magnolia gets really good once it settles
Speaker 1: down and stops trying to prove itself. And I think
Speaker 1: that happens eventually, once we've met those other characters, we'll
Speaker 1: get like that showy single take through the TV production
Speaker 1: studio that maybe we need to see every floor a
Speaker 1: room in the entire building, impressively done, impressively scored. But
Speaker 1: when Magnolia settles down, that's when it's closer to a
Speaker 1: master work.
Speaker 4: Hey, come here, Ah, I'm gonna try talk, and I'm
Speaker 4: trying to say something something, Do you know? Do you know? No, Bully, No,
Speaker 4: I don't. Oh excuse my love my life, love of it.
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Speaker 8: MHM