Sometimes the most complicated situations have the easiest solutions
As the Joker said in The Dark Knight, “Where do I begin?”
Magnolia is a wonderful film about seven different sets of people coming together in some eerie way. During the film you meet a lovable cop, a lost child star, a new child star, a remorseful trophy wife, a messed up cokehead girl, a womanizing man with a vendetta against all females and a very hopeless soul that just learned he’s dying. All of these characters come together in a most bizarre and subtle way that will make you scratch your head and say, “Wow, that worked.” The brilliance of Magnolia stems from a character driven story that was carefully planned with an all-star cast. Each actor takes on a very different personality and they play it through until the end. What’s remarkable is that by the end of the story, which I’m not giving away — that’s why I’m being so general, is when they all reach the same point they all receive the same message telling them what to do. What made this movie popular is that the message is frogs raining down from the sky. Turn away if you don’t want an explanation.
(SPOILER BEGIN)
The frogs are taken right from the Bible, as many skeptics and critics believe, as a sign of freeing oneself from the bondage of slavery. Of course, the Hebrews were actual slaves, but this time around it’s about freeing one from the burden of their past and forgiving. Up until this point in the film, all seven storylines seem to be going in different directions and without a sudden conclusion. When the frogs reigned down everything settled. The lovable cop finally helped turned two people’s lives around (the cokehead and the lost child star). The womanizing scumbag forgave his father from abandoning him and his mother (on her death bed). The cokehead finally bonded with her mom after her mother discovered the awful truth that her father had molested her (and was toting her as crazy). The molesting father finally realized that he wasn’t a good person, but couldn’t escape his suffering through suicide. The new child star stopped being a child star and demanded more out of his father. Finally, the trophy wife realized that she couldn’t kill her guilt through pills (guilt from marrying a man for his money) and decided to live.
All of these storylines met in some way and ended with a perfect resolution. Some people will say that the frogs were a cop-out, but this reviewer rather enjoyed the artistic touch to a somewhat tough conclusion.
Everyone wins and everyone starts a new life; can’t really beat that.
(SPOILER END)
Paul Thomas Anderson spins a great tale together and as always pushes it back together at the end. Why isn’t this man doing more movies?
Now, for the goods, which is the blu-ray.
Warner Home Video could have pushed this release out without doing a helluva lot to it in terms of upgrading it to HD. There is a fanbase for this film and it didn’t need to do anything special to make this release superb; more than likely people would have bought it. Thankfully, they took great care in upgrading the quality of the visuals. The HD picture you get with Magnolia is one of the best for re-released material. Warner Home Video, who does take pride in a lot of films it converts, brought the goods with Magnolia and didn’t disappoint. The blacks/whites/reds/gold/brown all look frightfully good on blu-ray. You really get to see some gorgeous, though sad, detail in Jason Robards’ character. He actually looks sick and dying and the facial details and sunken in eyes are beautiful and terrifying in high-definition. As for the audio, it’s truly icing on the cake, as it’s remastered in Dolby TrueHD. The soundtrack is already quite good, so there isn’t much to talk about other than it sounds better.
As for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Magnolia Video Diary
– Frank T.J. Mackey Seminar
– Seduce and Destroy Infomercial
– Aimee Mann Music Video
– Theatrical Trailer
– TV Spots
You’ve seen these before, so it’s nothing completely new. They are done in SD and they seem odd when compared to the film. Still, the content is very solid, but I wish there was more (commentary would have been nice).