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Magnolia, a review by Emma

Magnolia - 1999
Running Time: 188 minutes
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars: Tome Cruise, Philip Baker-Hall, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, William H, Macy, Julianne Moore and John C. Rilley

Trailer:

Review

A large ensemble cast, flawed and desperate characters, set in San Fernando Valley? Its probably a PT Anderson film

Magnolia features a large ensemble cast and many intertwining stories. The story can be split into two main parts: the story of Frank TJ Mackey a successful self help guru, his estranged father Earl who is dying of cancer, Earls second wife  linda who is much younger then her husband and Phil Parma Earls nurse. the next story is of Stanley a young genius who is currently starring on the show "What Do Kids Know?" the host of the show Jimmy Gator who is also dying of cancer but wants to make things right between himself and his daughter before he dies. Claudia Jimmys daughter and drug addict, Jim Kurring falls in love with her when he is called to her house after neighbours hear a disturbance, and finally Donnie Smith the "Quiz kid" a child genius who stared on "What Do Kids Know?" as a child. the characters spend the film trying to discover happiness and forgiveness.

PT Anderson is know for his typical themes in his films, much like other directors his films try to tackle similar problems. Some of the main themes in Magnolia include dysfunctional families, fathers who fail their children, the search for redemption and faith. Characters like Jimmy Gator (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Earl (Jason Robards) both have disjointed relationships with their children in the film, There are six basic character types that represent the children of dysfunctional families. Both Jimmy Gator's daughter Claudia and Earls son Frank take on the roles of the "Lost Child" these relationship help propel the story line forward, by linking the smaller self contained stories into to larger story arcs. We also see characters of Jim Kurring, Donnie Smith, Phil Parma, Jimmy Gator, Earl and linda seeking redemption, all of these characters have done something wrong in their lives and have lost people because of this, all characters seek to fix these relationships which helps connect the characters emotionally indirectly as well as create a compelling story and helping create the coincidental ideals that link each character.

Magnolia has two officially released soundtracks, the Soundtrack which features Aimee Mann heavily, what is surprising is that for a relatively large soundtrack a lot of the songs are featured in the film with the cast even singing the song "Wise up". The soundtrack includes the song "Save me", for which Paul Thomas Anderson directed the video. The video features the characters of Magnolia with Aimee Mann singing in the background, the song was nominated for an Academy award but lost out to Phil Collins song "You'll be In My Heart" which was written for the Disney film Tarzan.



The film also has a Score which was composed by Jon Brion. The only song that features on both cds is the song "Magnolia" Jon Brion is a frequent contributer to Andersons films also working on Hard Eight and Boogie Nights and even having a cameo in Boogie Nights as a guitar player.

Magnolia haunts me, it is my all time favorite film. Its an experience, a learning curve and I doubt it could be any better if it was shorter in length, at 3 hours long Magnolia is an epic film, the editing and cinematography are flawless. Magnolia truly is a masterpiece.




(From Emma's New Film Reviews! on December 14th, 2010)

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, a review by Tom

Title: Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
Year: 2006
Director: Tim Hill
Rating: U
Length: 82 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Other: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Breckin Meyer
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Billy Connolly
Bill Murray
Ian Abercrombie

Plot:
Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Bill Murray return in another adventure with America's favourite fat cat, and this time, Garfield's giving England the royal treatment! It's a British invasion of a different king when Garfield, along with pals Jon and Odie, travels to London and meets his mirror-image in Prince, an aristocratic kitty who has inherited a fabulous castle. The two trade places, and soon Garfield is living large as only he can! There's just one problem: the dastardly Lord Dargis wants him out of the picture. 'Garfield 2' is twice the laughs and double the fun for the whole family... It's good to be the king!

Awards:

Golden Raspberry Awards	2006	Nominated	Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment
Golden Raspberry Awards	2006	Nominated	Worst Prequel or Sequel

Extras:
Audio Descriptive track
Featurettes
Interactive Game
Music Videos
Photo Gallery
Scene Access



(From Tom's Random Reviews on August 15th, 2009)

Tom's Glee Marathon, a review by Tom

Glee
Season 1.19 Dream On
Writer: Ryan Murphy (Created By), Brad Falchuk (Created By), Ian Brennan (Created By), Brad Falchuk (Writer)
Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray), Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel), Jessalyn Gilsig (Terri Schuester), Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester), Jayma Mays (Emma Pillsbury), Kevin McHale (Arty Abrams), Lea Michele (Rachel Berry), Cory Monteith (Finn Hudson), Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester), Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones), Mark Salling (Noah "Puck" Puckerman), Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang), Neil Patrick Harris (Bryan Ryan), Jonathan Groff (Jesse St. James), Idina Menzel (Shelby Corcoran), Molly Shannon (Brenda Castle), John Michael Higgins (Russell), Iqbal Theba (Principal Figgins), Naya Rivera (Santana Lopez), Paul Vogt (Herb Duncan), Heather Morris (Brittany Pierce), Harry Shum, Jr. (Mike Chang), Dijon Talton (Matt Rutherford), Molly McCook (Sophomore Singer), Wendy Worthington (Woman Auditioning)

Brian, an old rival of Will's, shows up, played by Neill Patrick Harris. I enjoyed this episode.
Also in this episode Rachel finds out, that Shelby (the coach of the rival Glee club) is her biological mother. This storyline has been chosen by the producers because fans have been saying that Idina Menzel (Shelby) and Lea Michele (Rachel) look a lot alike. They were not wrong as you can see in one of the music clips below. Menzel has starred in "Wicked" on Broadway. I only knew her from the movie version of "Rent" before this.

Tina-Watch:
She has some great scenes with Artie.

Notable music:
There was a short rendition of "Piano Man" sung by Brian and Will, which I enjoyed.
Another song I enjoyed was "Safety Dance", a dream sequence in which we see Artie out of his wheelchair for the first time. Before this I wasn't aware that the actor playing Artie wasn't paralized in real life:


Another song I really enjoyed in this episode is Brian (Neill Patrick Harris) and Will singing Aerosmith's "Dream On". And I also enjoyed Artie singing "Deam a Little Dream of Me".

My favorite song in this episode is sung by Shelby and Rachel. "I Dreamed a Dream" from LesMis. Sadly I only found a clip for it where the spoken parts are dubbed in Spanish:



Rating:

(From Tom's Glee Marathon on September 18th, 2012)