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Reviews
Magnolia (1999)
Nice try kid, but you should of waited.
A nice attempt by P.T. Anderson at an Altmanesque, megacast, cavalcade of soul searchers, but sorry he just can't pull it off. This is only his third feature film and his first one, "Hard Eight" aka "Sydney", was simply awful. I guess when the studio gives you the opportunity to make such an ambitious project as "Magnolia" you have to go for it, cause you never know when you'll have another chance, but this was a film that could only have been pulled off by a writer/director with much more life experience than the 30 year old Anderson.
Hurlyburly (1998)
It's about the mythology, stupid!
Since most of the reviewers just don't get it, here it is in what I hope is plain english. The characters are the modern day myth makers, they make films, the stories that are suppose to help us make sense of our times. Hmm. The stories they make are shallow and pandering. They see no meaning in their lives. They take drugs in a desperate attempt to obliterate their angst, ambivalence, shame, confusion, fear (of women among others), paranoia, blah, blah, blah. After the suicide, Penn's character attempts to make sense of it with anagrams etc. A feeble attempt to find meaning in a meaningless note from a lost soul. He has no relevant myths to help him deal with the loss or anything else for that matter. As Penn's character says to Ryan's, "Do you think the ancients had these problems?" Hell no, they had valuable and relevant myths. Why? 'Cause they weren't trying to make money for a film studio! Is technology changing our culture so fast that we can't make up the mythology quickly enough to deal with it? We have the technology but do we have the mythology? Blah, blah, blah!
The Newsroom (1996)
Smashingly smart, searingly irreverent, better than Larry Sanders at giving you the inside scoop on the crap that makes (most) TV what it is.
If you have any desire to see important TV, pun intended, take a gander at this 6 episode comedy series(available on VHS & PBS) produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 'The Corp.' let writer/director Ken Finkleman(escaped from HOLLYWOOD hackdom) do whatever he wanted and it shows in a TV show that knows no bounds in its behind the scenes look at a Toronto TV Newsroom. Smashingly smart, searingly irreverant, better than Larry Sanders at giving you the inside scoop on the crap that makes (most) TV what it is. Lock up your sacred cows. Ken's knives are sharp and long. Also see 'More Tears'(1998) also by CBC and Finkleman.