Change Your Image
craw-2
Reviews
Magnolia (1999)
Ambitious and lazy all at once; definitely a step backwards
While I can't say I either loved or hated Magnolia, I certainly appreciated it. The film occasionally transcended its mundane theme and thin characters, hitting its stride in a scene or two. However, Anderson, not displaying the wonderful directorial maturity he used to great result in BOOGIE NIGHTS, moves once too often to the gimmick bag, mostly notably at the climax, where obfuscation and imagery serve as poor substitutes for genuine substance.
The reason? Magnolia is a lazy film, and a bit cowardly, as Anderson avoids the rigors of crafting a full story from start to finish, choosing instead to write six or so short films, stringing them together with a common theme. No matter what any critic may say, these stories do NOT intertwine in any significant manner...or at least, any more than ANY stories with similar themes do. Unfortunately, this theme, which bares an unfair burden in this film, is the fairly mundane, "We may be done with the past, but the past isn't done with us." Well...yes, okay, but stating a theme isn't enough. We need to FEEL the impact of that theme, and in Magnolia, that theme is repeated endlessly and diluted over several stories, none of which really hit home.
The acting is uneven, with exciting turns (Cruise), subtle and classy performances (Riley, Hoffman), and then the not-so-good; the otherwise stellar Julianne Moore seems to be punching the "hysterical woman" button on her AutoAct device, and Jason Robards' overwrought deathbed scenes ought to be used in a PSA for euthanasia. Then again, these characters, like practically ALL the characters, seem to have nothing to them. It's as if Anderson wanted to keep practically everything of interest about these people in backstory, leaving us with people as scabs...nothing left to see here but the RESULTS of interesting things. Okay, but that's boring.
What shocked me was the uneven writing! Anderson, who brilliantly kept all characters on the level in Boogie Nights, goes wildly over the top in Magnolia with an outrageously shitty father of a quiz kid. Similarly, in a shrill scene in which a daughter is confronted by her estranged and dying father, all we get is an endless repetition of "Get the fuck out! Get the fuck out!" It's melodrama, and he's done better.
However, Anderson does have a way of connecting scenes, even when they don't have anything to do with each other, and he's also got a natural style that favors moments and emotion over technical obsessions with focus and coverage. He's so stylish, he almost fooled me into thinking this movie worked. But after only a few minutes of reflection, it seemed pretty clear that it didn't.
Magnolia is a good effort with some beautiful moments, but it's also an insecure film made by a writer/director who should rely less on tricks and contrivances.
Free Enterprise (1998)
A dismal failure
This film is a failure in every way a film can be a failure. It is neither technically accomplished, well-written, artistic, entertaining in a mainstream sort of way, nor well-directed.
It's excrement. The direction is simply absurd. Horrible shot choices, terrible lighting, nothing in focus, performances so miserable they ought to be enshrined in some kind of museum for people to study, and the overall pacing of a dead snail nailed to a brick.
At nearly 2 hours, I don't think I've ever experienced a movie this bloated and unfunny.
Look, I like Star Trek. A lot. In fact, I'm a Trekkie. And I like sci-fi. But that doesn't make me some kind of indiscriminate moron willing to overlook the basic requirements of good filmmaking just because some self-indulgent director throws me a few sci-fi references.