Word: magnolia
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Rarely does a movie soundtrack focus on a single artist. Simon and Garfunkel's work on The Graduate is one of the few that come to mind. Former Bostonian Aimee Mann takes on the task with nine tracks for Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Why Aimee Mann? According to his liner notes, Anderson, a friend of Mann, felt that she "is the great articulator of the biggest things we think about." On the Magnolia soundtrack, Mann's songwriting cuts to the core of human emotion, exploring the intricacies of love and pain with a catchy quality that locks the songs...
...Magnolia...
...American Beauty, Fight Club) seemed to be an indication that an era of movie-making had ended, and that the artistic future of cinema would hold no place for the lengthy and sweeping sagas that culminated with the behemoth of Titanic. But Paul Thomas Anderson knew better. His brilliant Magnolia resurrects the epic from its wasted and moribund form and, in David Bowie-like fashion, makes it new and meaningful again...
Perhaps that's a misleading remark; after all, Magnolia never drags, and it bears no resemblance whatsoever to immobile talkfests like My Dinner with Andre. But while its characters do make choices, take actions and find themselves in precarious positions, none of these happenings brings about an "event"--a predicament that alters the course of the story or distracts from initial situations. Which is perfect, since the characters' situations are already so rich and deeply human to begin with...
...also to provide what are essentially the storylines of the film, since almost every scene unfolds as an extrapolation of character. Whereas previously, in Boogie Nights and the carefully-studied noir Hard Eight, Anderson relied upon plot twists and unforeseen complications to examine an unfamiliar socio-moral universe, Magnolia's characters are not gamblers or pornographers; they live in _our_ universe and don't require the same roughing up to be understood. It's obvious from the start that all of these individuals are in pain, and that in order to heal, they need either to forgive...