Synopsis:
The lives of nine strangers come together through a series of unrelated events.

Review:
Magnolia is hands down the best movie of 1999. It should have won best picture, and that fact that it wasn’t nominated was a fucking slap in the face. Now I’m not saying that American Beauty was a bad movie or nothing. I’m just saying…I’m just saying that Magnolia was a better film.

What’s so great about Magnolia? Its script. It’s truly amazing how all of the stories come together at the same time, with the same amount of tension and importance. Paul Thomas Anderson is an amazing screenwriter, and I for one am glad that his script was nominated by the Academy.

Special Features :
Even though this was a double disc set, the special features were kind of lean. But before I comment on them, I have to give props for the beautiful packaging that this set comes in. The boys over at New Line did a great job.

The Frank T.J. Mackey seminar deleted scene was great. I think it should have been left in the movie. It expanded on the character played by Cruise, my funniest (at least in the beginning) in the movie. That said, I also really enjoyed the full version of Frank’s infomercial. I love the part when the guy at the bar turns to the camera and nods.

The teaser and theatrical trailers were well done, but the TV spots were a little tedious after the first few. I liked the music video though.

The “Magnolia Diary” was quite good. This hour long “making of” covered the movie from pre-production to award ceremonies. Comprised of all behind the scenes shots and (what looks like video camera) interviews with the actors and the director, this was well worth watching. One question though: There’s a scene in this section where the black “rapper” kid holds up the TV whiz kid in a diner (I think it’s the whiz kid). Why wasn’t this deleted scene included anywhere else on this set? What a fucking tease.

And as for the aforementioned deleted scenes, there found on the movie disc under the Colour Bars menu option. This section is great. It looks like they had a good time making this movie from the amount of laughing going on.

Video and Audio:
They did a great job on the video transfer (P.T. himself over-saw the process), and the 5.1sound was great (especially the music).

“I don’t even know no loud crash.” - Marcy (Even though this line isn’t integral to the plot, I love the way Marcy says it)

-Nicky Eyes