I saw the rain of frogs & the unison singing & the rapping kid as the underlying message of the movie -- that the need for connection is magical, primitive, and mostly shut out of modern culture until it unexpectedly bubbles out. That said, I don't think PTA was quite successful in getting this across, and I only came to this theory after watching the movie a third time. Still, it's my favorite of his movies -- although I liked Boogie Nights & Punch-Drunk Love, both had an unpleasant rawness (and mushy center) that I don't think I could ever watch again. Magnolia had enough artifice & mystery that I can stand it occasionally. Not that it's really deep or anything; it just wants to be.

EDIT - and, yeah, the usually subtle & charming Julianne Moore sucked donkeys in Magnolia.

I guess generally I'm not in the mood for its intensity.

To me, it felt like a good movie to have playing in the background on a loop, like a warm blanket of great filmmaking.

However, when I catch bits and pieces on cable, I can't stop watching for long stretches at a time, and I never seem to catch the same bits twice.

Like Frankenbuddha said. It's just mesmerizing.

And I do think it succeeds -- I'm not sure I could articulate exactly what it succeeds at, but the way it deals with chance and intersection and loneliness and the primal need that humans have to connect is just beautiful.

What I said last night was something like, "I'm sure it's about love and chance and forgiveness and redemption and all that and I don't even know whether it said anything original at all about those things, but just, wow."

I saw the rain of frogs as evoking a biblical plague, which in my brain somehow made sense given the desperation of the characters' lives. Maybe the rain of frogs is connected with the prologue to show how sometimes we are the victims of events of bizarre probability.

The rain of frogs did seem cathartic for the characters, though.

Tom, you nail it on both points. To me, the frogs were the embodiment of that element of chance, possibly from the hand of God or maybe not. PTA didn't actually know about the biblical connotation (he got the rain from a book by Charles Fort, says IMDb), but once he heard about it, he used it to his advantage. And also, yeah, catharsis. I mean, you've got all this shit going down on a human scale, and then fucking frogs are falling from the sky. How do you compete with that? How do you compare?

Narratively, I think the frogs are about having something happen to all of the characters that none of them can ignore. They are all forced to pay attention to something, which is exactly the wake-up call that most of them desperately need.

That's a nice interpretation as well. And like the sing-along, it connects all the characters once again. Which is why I loved the sing-along, because it was just this one song on this one night and every one of them was feeling it, needing it, and they're all alone yet they're not because somewhere out there, someone else is feeling the same thing.

On a different note, the movie reminded me of Happiness, which, incidentally, also starred Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Mr. Macy almost always breaks my heart when that's his intent, and Magnolia was no exception. Philip Seymour Hoffman, too.

Though PSH or no, I was exceedingly bored by Boogie Nights. It was a Lifetime movie with cock shots. Woohoo.

I thought the rain of critters was perfect for the moment, and could have explained why at the time, but that was years ago.

It had something to do with a reminder of things greater than our mundane lives, no matter how great and horrible our tragedy and trauma may seem.

the way it deals with chance and intersection and loneliness and the primal need that humans have to connect is just beautiful.

It had something to do with a reminder of things greater than our mundane lives, no matter how great and horrible our tragedy and trauma may seem.

What Plei and Jess said, and a little more. I think the rain of frogs is meant to symbolize that, despite the illusions we let ourselves believe, almost nothing in our lives is really within our control, and that life is dangerous, wonderful, strange, and all fucked up, all at the same time, eta: and all we can control is how we react to it.

And it was meant as a wake up call to all of them, though perhaps John C. Reilly and Melora Walters are the only ones who get the message, and even then we're not given total knowledge of that outcome either - only the knowledge that they kept trying.

My hatred of Tom Cruise means that I'll never see Magnolia but it sure does stir up some mighty emotions.

I think the rain of frogs is meant to symbolize that, despite the illusions we let ourselves believe, almost nothing in our lives is really within our control,

Huh, I thought almost the opposite. Well, not really, but I came at it from completely the other direction. None of the characters think they're in control of their lives. They're all basically living on inertia because they've resigned themselves to their ruts, where they're all desperately unhappy. They don't make choices because they don't see the point. And the rain of frogs is a drastic example of a "thing that happens" -- an event that is truly out of their hands. And by contrast, it becomes obvious very quickly that they do have choices. They have options. They can take them or not.

I'm in the camp that can't quite articulate why I loved it so much, but I am very fond of the amphibian storm. I can buy people's explanations, but it's one of those things that I just can't put words to.

However, "This is a thing that happens" has becomes something that bubbles to the surface of my brain from time to time, and is strangely comforting.

How much of my "Give Up" love comes from me, at some point, saying, "Oh my God, that's Wesley", I do not know.

Huh, I thought almost the opposite. Well, not really, but I came at it from completely the other direction.

I'd accept that, too.

A lot of what's at the heart of that movie is a little difficult to express simply, yet another thing I liked about the movie.

Hi Abi!

A lot of what's at the heart of that movie is a little difficult to express simply, yet another thing I liked about the movie.

This is the part of the conversation where I start to babble about film being an audiovisual medium, and how I don't think that one necessarily should be able to express why movies work simply, in words, and I'd probably also throw in something about high concept rarely producing high art.

But it doesn't really work without the hand gestures, so I'll restrain myself.