The Magnolia Files

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 8:42 am

Since embracing Magnolia as the most important, fabulous artistic creation in the history of human existence, I have strived to encourage others to enjoy it, as it was missed by a large portion of the viewing audience upon its initial release. Let's now catch up on those I've been nagging and pestering endlessly!

Name: Clash
Encouraged by: Purchasing a copy of the goddamn movie for him.
Paraphrased review: "It was okay, I guess. That part where they're all singing is stupid, though."

Name: Doug Linder
Encouraged by: Harping about it endlessly on MSN Messenger.
Paraphrased review: "Good. Not great."

Name: Li'l Franky Quan
Encouraged by: Harping about it endlessly in person.
Paraphrased review: "So boring, I fell asleep the first time. Sucked!"

Name: Saeid Zoonematkermani
Encouraged by: Lending him my goddamn copy.
Paraphrased review: Has not watched the fucking movie yet, after three weeks, and I want my copy back, bitch.

Name: Adam LeSchack
Encouraged by: Purchasing a copy of the goddamn movie for him.
Paraphrased review: Has not watched the fucking movie yet, even though I BOUGHT it for him, and also lent him $550 for a non-related purpose. MotherFUCKER.

Name: Ice Cream Jonsey
Encouraged by: Systematically destroying his BBS the longer he goes without watching it.
Paraphrased review: "HURRR... DURRRRRR..."

There ya go!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:21 am

I resent that remark.

I'll try to grab it this weekend. Here's the part that will literally drive you into a full red rage -- I am literally within 4/10th of a mile from a Blockbuster. I cross "East 17th Ave" in Longmont and I am there.

I also have a coupon good for one additional movie if I rent a movie. From the self-same Blockbuster.

I'd just like to sit back at this point and watch you seeth with that information. Toodles!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:22 am

Hey... wait... Love LeShack is that actor dude, isn't he? What the fuck!?!? Howcome he's not doing better?

Ask him if he wants to star in a video game at all. I want to do a buddy cop cliche game after the current one. There's no money, but upon his deathbed he will receive total consciousness.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:47 am

Additionally!

Are you telling me that you are specially inclined to TANK IT on here until I go see this dumb flick? Is that what I am to take away from all of this?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:52 am

I'm sorry. Did somebody say something?

Here now are a list of ten numbers between 0 and 1, inclusive:

0.2
0.21
0.8418
0.56765
0.1
0.6
0.09
0.911
1
0

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 10:35 am

Fantastic! I will not be seeing this movie, then. I don't negotiate with forum terrorists.

You can do whatever you like to shake and rock the foundation of this website, but I will NOT give in. And I don't mean that I will not give in like Reagan-giving-terrorists-missiles-not-give-in. I mean, the REAL not giving in, like basketball star A.C. Green not having sex until marriage. Thassss right.

I'm sorry it has come to this. I really am. But what kind of precedent is this? I can't let every poster on here hold me hostage by holding back the "fun" and the "content" until I go out and catch an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force or some home video that P.T. Anderson shot of Fiona Apple.

No. Sorry, sir. I can not view this movie until I get my friend back. HURR and DURR, indeed.

Vitriola · Post by **Vitriola** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 5:37 pm

If RobB didn't dye his hair when I threatened to tank your very trip to Las Vegas by withholding (Is this how you spell withholding? I have never before needed to spell this word, as it has never been one of the staples of my vengeful repertoire) my very presence, did you actually think you could get him to watch a crapass, nay, donkeyballsucking movie such as Magnolia? Shit, what's next, you're going to threaten to IM him pictures of you shaving your ass until he watches Happiness?

Gotcher back, G. Don't give in.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 5:42 pm

I think ICJ (fuck, I just wrote "JRC" and then had to backspace, bitterly, over it) is watching the movie RIGHT NOW!!!!

This is SO EXCITING!!!!!!!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 6:52 pm

pinback wrote:I think ICJ (fuck, I just wrote "JRC" and then had to backspace, bitterly, over it)

is watching the movie RIGHT NOW!!!!

This is SO EXCITING!!!!!!!

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 8:22 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 8:39 pm

I have a question. I just got through the first hour. What the FUCK compelled you to go watch hours two and three? Seriously. You are a lot more forgiving than I am, especially since your first viewing was on a DVD and not a theatre where there is "pressure" to sit through it.

I only got up to get something to drink, so I am going to go watch the rest of it, but consider yourself flattered: the only reason I am doing so is because it got glowing reviews from you. I haven't felt like just saying "fuck it" to a film since Crouching Dragon Hidden Tiger or whatever the fuck that one was called (which I did not bother finishing, by the way.)

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 8:44 pm

Hey, don't watch the rest. No skin off my dick.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 8:46 pm

Actually, if you end up hating the other hours as much as the first, just mail me your copy, please.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:48 pm

pinback wrote:Actually, if you end up hating the other hours as much as the first, just mail me your copy, please.

I rented it, so I can't do that.

I really don't know what to say. The beginning is absolute shit. The scene where the old guy in the bed whines on about how he cheated on his wife -- Jesus Christ. Most painful scene I have ever sat through in a movie, except for that (one?) rape scene in Blue Velvet. The guy, who the audience has been given zero reason to care about, just does not shut the fuck up. Christ that was terrible.

Then, you get the scene where they all sing parts of that song and, if the director had made me care even a bit about any of the characters in his movie, it would have been the greatest scene ever... at least, the greatest one in any movie I've ever seen. (I actually thought that was Tom Cruise's best moment in his career, when he was alone in the car there, singing the lyrics but still singing them like he would for any other character he's ever played. Holy shit.)

I honestly don't know if I liked it or not. The sum of the parts were better than many of the stringed-together bits. Like a necklace which is fine in its final form but agitating if you split it apart and get beads everywhere.

I'm going to go read all the threads on here that I intentionally didn't read so I would go in cold. I'm sure there is tons of symbolism that I missed -- I'm not good at picking that out in film.

I wish that I had some great take on it, Ben, but I've never seen a movie like that before and I really don't know what to say.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:50 pm

You are the world's biggest idiot.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:51 pm

pinback wrote:You are the world's biggest idiot.

Why?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:53 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:The beginning is absolute shit. The scene where the old guy in the bed whines on about how he cheated on his wife -- Jesus Christ. Most painful scene I have ever sat through in a movie

This is my favorite part, where he says "the beginning is absolute shit" and then rags on not only one of the best scenes of the movie, but a scene which happens over two hours into it.

I think once you get past the two-hour mark, Jonsey, it's no longer the "beginning". Jesus Christ.

Unless those two sentences were totally unrelated, which would make you both a bad writer AND the world's biggest idiot, because how can you not like the first hour of that movie? Or the second, or the third, for that matter. Or the end credits. Jesus Christ.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

I knew there was no way this would end well.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:57 pm

pinback wrote:This is my favorite part, where he says "the beginning is absolute shit" and then rags on not only one of the best scenes of the movie, but a scene which happens over two hours into it.

I think once you get past the two-hour mark, Jonsey, it's no longer the "beginning". Jesus Christ.

Unless those two sentences were totally unrelated, which would make you both a bad writer AND the world's biggest idiot, because how can you not like the first hour of that movie?

Oh, for Christ's sake. I'm fucking *trying* here, man. Pretend I hit the goddamn enter key twice.

What's at ALL appealing about the beginning of the movie? The fact that I had to go find my DVD remote and turn on subtitles so I could hear the dialogue? The fact that the filmmaker showed off his moving camera like a dog with a new chew toy, to the point of it being intensely annoying? The fact that the coke-snorting bitch just fucking lost it and started screaming and I honestly wanted to slap the shit out of whoever was responsible for that scene because it was so goddamn stupid?

And I'm sorry, but the old man waxing pathetic because he cheated on his wife -- that shit only works when you have an emotional investment in the characters. What did ANY of them do to get you on their side, Ben? You know what? Fuck the other shit, I don't care if you respond to it or not. But answer me ONE question:

What, in the first two hours of the movie, made you care about even a SINGLE person depicted in the film? Where was a single shred of payoff to ANY of those characters in the first two hours?

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:58 pm

And I'm sorry I ruined this thread. It didn't hit me that I did so until I went back and re-read it, as I am doing with all the threads with the word "Magnolia" in it.

(FWIW.)

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 11:04 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:What, in the first two hours of the movie, made you care about even a SINGLE person depicted in the film? Where was a single shred of payoff to ANY of those characters in the first two hours?

Ah, I see the problem here. You have no capacity to find any empathy with the (big letters here) "human condition".

When the old guy is moaning on and on, and right at the end, he just starts wailing, "What did I do? What did I do?" Did that not ring remotely true with any of your experiences? Did you not think for a second that one day, at the end of your life, you might question your decisionmaking of the present day?

When you see these people wracked and wrecked by the pain of their past, wholly aware of the shit that has befallen them, but unable to right the ship, just "spokes in the wheel", do you not feel a pang of empathetic regret, sitting there in your little Bentley Bear-ass apartment in the middle of nowhere?

Do you not understand anything that is going on in life while you're writing video games?

Are they LIKEABLE characters? Of course not. With the exception of the nurse and the cop, they are grotesque, pitiful, pitiable characters. That's sort of the point. (And that's why the very last scene in the movie is, along with the musical number, the most powerful scene I can remember.)

And besides all that, let's not forget the exceptional acting, directing and production. And the score. Oh god, man, the score.

Everything that makes up a film is just done as close to perfection as possible with this movie. And as a bonus, you have an, as I said in my original review, emotionally shattering experience.

At least, if you have any emotions ready to wield to begin with.