An immediate addition to my 5 best of 1999 list, MAGNOLIA is an exhausting emotional roller coaster cutting between several characters during one day. The ensemble cast led by Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards, and William H. Macy is excellent. Cruise gives the performance of his career. Once again, there is no real story here -the film is a snapshot of people's lives while they are all in despair and how they deal with it. I won't recommend this one to most -its also three and a half hours long. Couple that with some brilliant but bizarre twists and you get a film that will send most walking away scratching their heads. But for those of you who can sit and enjoy being engrossed in the characters, the dialogue, and the inevitable chaos and confusion that marks our lives, go see it. My hats off to writer/director P.T. Anderson who should get best director and best original screenplay noms for this one.

People said that you'ld either hate or love this film; I did neither. Let me explain. On the one hand, this is one of the most creative and imaginative stories written for the screen this year; the writer was P.T.Andersen. On the other hand, the director(also P.T. Andersen,) in trying to juggle nine thinly related story lines, managed to drop the ball so many times, that I eventually lost interest and often became bored. What you're left with then, is a series of acting turns, almost audition tapes, where an ensemble of actors gets to act up a storm, but rarely advancing the story even the slightest bit. Some of the actors(notably Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore turn in the best performances of their careers; surefire Academy Award nominations for them.) What P.T. Andersen needs to do is to add Editor to his Writer and Director credentials, because this film could have been cut by at least one hour. At 3 1/2 hours, it's an endurance test that I failed.