DVD Collectors Online

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)

Chak De! India, a review by Tom

Title: Chak De! India
Year: 2007
Director: Shimit Amin
Rating: FSK-6
Length: 143 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35
Audio: German: Dolby Digital 5.1, Hindi: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: German

Stars:
Shahrukh Khan
Vidya Malvade
Tanya Abrol
Chitrashi Rawat
Arya Menon


Awards:

Filmfare Awards	2008	Won	Best Actor Award	Shah Rukh Khan
Filmfare Awards	2008	Won	Best Cinematographer Award	Sudhip Chatterjee
Filmfare Awards	2008	Nominated	Best Director Award	Shimit Amin
Filmfare Awards	2008	Won	Best Editing Award	Amitabh Shukla
Filmfare Awards	2008	Nominated	Best Movie Award
Filmfare Awards	2008	Nominated	Best Supporting Actress Award	Shilpa Shukla
Filmfare Awards	2008	Won	Critics Award for Best Movie
IIFA Awards	2008	Won	Best Actor	Shah Rukh Khan
IIFA Awards	2008	Won	Best Director	Shimit Amin
IIFA Awards	2008	Won	Best Movie

Extras:
Scene Access

I guess I first have to stress the fact, that there are no song and dance numbers in this one. Seems to be important for some people 
If you enjoy movies about underdog sports teams, I think you will enjoy this one. It's about the Indian national women's hockey team. Interesting about it are the difficulties they are facing. For one thing they have to fight for their place because in India women are not supposed to be playing hockey but are supposed to be housewives. The other big issue is, that these women come from different parts of India. Not only do the character clash, but the trainer also has to deal with the cultural prejudices the team members have against each other. So the movie is more serious than similar movies I know.
Shah Rukh Khan stars as the trainer. He did a great job. He plays it rather low key, which is not something I know SRK to do.
I am usually do not like to watch sports games, but I have to admit that I was on the edge of my seat in the final match of this movie.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on June 9th, 2010)

Pete's Pilots, a review by addicted2dvd

Birds of Prey


Pilot
Birds take wing. Oracle, Huntress an Dinah work as one against Quinn's New Gotham power grab.

My Thoughts:
Even though I definitely enjoyed it... the pilot episode was not quite as good as I remember it being. In this episode Oracle and Huntress first meet Dinah... and take her in after she helps them with the case they are working on. It has someone preying on people's fears similar to the way the Batman villain "The Scarecrow" did... minus the costume and such. We also hear the story on how Oracle and Huntress gets together... and what happened to Batman. So that really is a lot of information to put into an hour long pilot episode.

My Rating:

(From Pete's Pilots on November 4th, 2009)