An occasional series in which we revisit some of our all-time favorites.
MAGNOLIA (1999) (A) - It was with trepidation that we returned for Paul Thomas Anderson's epic three-hour mopefest, wondering whether the past two decades have been kind to the movie that helped launch the stories of intersecting lives that was popular in the Aughts (and culminated with Paul Haggis' insufferable "Crash" in 2004). It has aged just fine. And it's no easier to make it to the end of this "psychological drama."
Anderson was in the middle of a run, in between "Boogie Nights" and "Punch-Drunk Love," headed toward his mid-career doldrums of "There Will Be Blood" and "The Master." He was at the top of his game, and he was blessed with a solid case of actor's actors and the indelible songs of Aimee Mann, who provided one of those cinematic chocolate-and-peanut-butter moments (while sharing the soundtrack with some classic Supertramp).
It would be hard to find a movie where so many characters weep and cry out in emotional pain without the proceedings descending into maudlin theatrics. Julianne Moore is the glue that holds it together as the damaged trophy wife of a dying TV producer, Earl Partridge (Jason Robards). When she lashes out, rather hysterically, at a pair of pharmacists for apparently judging her based on her prescriptions, she threatens to tear a hole in the movie screen. The supporting cast is incredibly deep: Philip Seymour Hoffman as a (weepy) medical aide; John C. Reilly as a glum, naive police officer drawn to a drug-addict (Melora Walters), who is the daughter of the guilt-ridden TV host played by Philip Baker Hall; William H. Macy as a love-starved former child quiz-whiz; gritty character actors Luis Guzman and Ricky Jay; and, of all people, Tom Cruise, in a career-reviving role as a phony men's-rights motivational speaker, who happens to be related to one of the above.
Anderson weaves these stories together like Godard mashing together a week's worth of episodes from a soap opera. He employs magical realism (the famous plague of frogs), musical interludes with singing characters, and over-the-top familial melodrama, and he has both the visual command and the multitasking skills of a master storyteller, in a rag-tag but assured manner that he would again employ with the shambling "Inherent Vice."
Fear not the turn of the millennium. We got some things right back then. "Magnolia" is a saga for the ages.
FLIGHT (2012) (A) - Welcome to the Denzel Washington show. The actor heroically shoulders the role of a hard-partying pilot who miraculously saves most of the crew and passengers with a daring landing of a plane in distress, only to be put through the wringer of an investigation into his blood-alcohol levels on the day of the crash.
Robert Zemeckis ("Back to the Future," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit") shakes off the doldrums of his Tom Hanks mid-career period and offers the anti-hero counter-narrative to Hanks' sappy Sully movie that would come four years later. The narrative is tight, and it doesn't shy away from the horrors of addiction, straight out of the gate with a scene of the morning after of a night of partying.
Washington stands at the center of it all, anchoring every scene, whether he is physically present or not. He gives us a man full of anger, grief, grit, self-loathing and an ache for companionship (Nadine Velazquez and Kelly Reilly are among his doomed love interests). You can't imagine this movie without him beating at the center of it. The supporting cast is strong, sinking their teeth into a meaty script by John Gatins ("Coach Carter"): Bruce Greenwood as a union official; Don Cheadle as the union lawyer; John Goodman as a drug dealer and enabler; and Tamara Tunie as a surviving flight attendant.
If this were a novel, it would be a page-turner. And Washington and Zemeckis prove that even in this day and age you can still milk emotion and suspense out of a dramatic courtroom reveal, exposing this as as much of a thriller as a character study. A high mark for both men.
BONUS TRACKS
Aimee Mann's "Wise Up," from the essential soundtrack to "Magnolia":
Our title track, the height of R.E.M.'s self-indulgence (both audio and video versions), is still a pretty good song. Here's a lovely acoustic cover by Mojo Spin:
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