Posted by sean at threshold9n.jpmorgan.com on May 21, 2002 at 13:29:45:
In Reply to: give up 3 hours of your life and ... posted by The Doug on May 21, 2002 at 12:59:42:
: ...watch the movie. seriously, it is a great film. dont go into it expecting your normal 1st, 2nd, 3rd act, boring, see it before, movie. magnoila transends the film genre. there is nothing else like it. you HAVE to see it. trust me.
It, instead, has several stories that go nowhere and skips straight to the 'boring' part. It is unique, don't get me wrong, but there are reasons that certain things weren't done before. I'm not saying that it's not admirable that he tried to put so much stuff into the movie, I'm just saying that it fails to acheive half of what he set out to do and ends up really muddled, especially by the middle. This is certainly not aided, though, by the terrible performances of John C. ("Captain One-Note") Reilly and Melora Walters.
But, do see it once. Especially if you're unfamiliar with all the movies he's stealing from.