march

I'm in one of those time-warp phases where it seems I have no time for anything, at work I think of all the things I want to read or see or do, and then when I actually have free time I don't want to do anything except listen to beck and play snood.

I did watch magnolia yesterday, because I thought about it after seeing twbb; I remembered that I liked it, but not much else. I was shocked at how bad this movie is - it's not so bad for the average hollywood director, but for PTA, it blows, especially when compared with twbb. it seems that PTA just couldn't be bothered to figure out what magnolia is supposed to be about, what it's supposed to say. is it about the innocence of children? the eerie power of coincidence? about fucking up and forgiving? about the falseness of television? the only thing that might unify this whole pastiche would be something unbelievably bland, like the theme of "making mistakes" or something. though john c. reilly and philip seymour hoffman had appealing characters, the rest - julianne moore, ugh - were totally unlikeable. the gameshow kid with eerie blue eyes, who sits in the library and says "this is something that happens" when the frogs fall from the sky, is a goofy, corny conceit.

it's too bad, because PTA is someone I consider kind of a "voice" for a generation, in that I feel like a lot of his concerns are ones I would come up with, if I were a filmmaker. we are on the same wavelength as far as feelings toward modern society go - especially in punch-drunk love, which uses a loophole in a pudding coupon as its catalyst - and he is definitely a director who tries to nail certain ideas. sometimes this goes over awkwardly, as I felt it was when tom cruise nearly burst a vein in his forehead while telling his dying father he was a fucking asshole. sometimes it goes over with incredible grace, as it did when plainview is "blessed" by the boy-preacher in one of the best scenes of twbb. either way, PTA is trying to portray a certain idea of an emotion - forgiveness, hate, or revenge. sometimes this means the work gets too cerebral and abstract, which I really felt magnolia was. I think most of the connections in magnolia were there in PTA's head, but didn't make it into the film. which is really, really too bad, because the stylistic control and technique in all of his films, not just this one, are superb. for example, the whole first half of the film is scored with buildup music, which seems to be creating some interesting tension - but then it never really goes anywhere, and just ends up being annoying.

in many ways magnolia seemed like a hysterical realist novel, with many extraneous symbols and sundry subject matter smashed into one incoherent messy plot - except that this one never cohered, at any point, really. even the point we were supposed to go "ohh, I see", where they all sing along to the aimee mann song (which, don't get me wrong, was a cute and original idea), didn't make the rest of the movie clear. the rain of frogs, another plot twist you might read in a DFW novel, seemed too weird for no certain purpose. which, I'll just repeat again, is really too bad, because if they had found a good purpose, those techniques and elements would have been truly striking.