In addition, there's a couple of deliciously satirical moments, an incredibly
surreal moment when the entire cast are singing along to an Aimee Mann
song one by one, plus a nice 2001 parody. I spotted the layer-change at
1:37:38, where chapters 7 and 8 change over, which seemed odd as it's the
first one I've ever noticed on my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM and it does generate
a slight pause.
Oh and don't forget Frank Mackey's chant,
"respect the cock and tame the cunt".
Whereas EiV's release of
Boogie Nights
had the picture cropped to 16:9, here we are presented with the original
cinematic ratio of 2.35:1 and it's anamorphic. The only downside is a
slightly-grainy look to the dark scenes which is actually very noticeable with
artifacts and can be seen when the film is paused, such as when Cruise is
walking down the hallway 1hr 56mins into the film.
The average bitrate is a fairly steady 5.37Mb/s.
I'll give full marks to the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix which makes good use
of Jon Brion's superb score throughout and - again - I don't want to
spoil the surprise, but from around 2hrs 40mins in, you'll hear a serious test
of your surround sound system.
Extras :
First up is a 60-second Teaser Trailer in anamorphic 2.35:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1
sound and an introduction to the cast, a two-and-a-half minute Theatrical Trailer
with the same production values but with one scene involving a car crash having had its background
cleaned up (I'll say no more on that - you'll have to check it for yourself), nine TV spots
all in Dolby Pro Logic and slightly-stretched from their original 2.35:1 ratio and a
music video for Aimee Mann's "Save Me", directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and
recreating several scenes from the film.
There's also the full four minutes of Tom Cruise's Frank Mackey Seminar mixed in with
his statements played out in real life, the 90-second Frank Mackey Infomercial shown
earlier during the film and the Colour Bars begin like that but actually turn into
seven-and-a-half minutes of Deleted Scenes.
Finally comes the fascinating 73-minute Magnolia Diary, made by Mark Rance, which
runs from October 1998 to March 2000, in the life of the film's production, release and
winning awards. To add insult to injury though, this section receives 32 chapters while the
three-hour film itself has a mere 12! Compare this to The Big Blue, running 163
minutes on Region 2 DVD which has 69 chapters and the 101-minute
Deep Blue Sea which has
63 (yes, they are there if you can find them).
The only thing we could have done with was a feature-length director's commentary, but
we still get all the extras of the Region 1 release. I'm just surprised it didn't come in
a single box with room for two discs as many of these do, rather than two actual separate
ones in a rather flimsy cardboard case that easily comes apart.
All the menus are silent and static and the only subtitles available during the film are
in English.
I was really looking forward to watching this film, having read little about
it at the time of its cinema release but mainly the interest came about as a
result of hugely enjoying
Boogie Nights
and I wasn't disappointed with either the film or the extras.
Note that both the director and Tom Cruise received Oscar nominations
and the latter won the Golden Globe Best Actor award. Excellent performances
come from all though, particularly Cruise and William H. Macy and
even Julianne Moore has her moment.
The only trouble is that after the film's over you want to follow it on and see
what happens next...
A while ago I asked, why is it actually called "Magnolia" ?
Thanks to Greg Clancey who replied stating :
"I believe the title Magnolia refers to Magnolia Blvd., a major east-west
street that runs through the middle of the San Fernando Valley. The empty
street late at night that appears throughout the film, as well as in the
'frog' scene, is probably Magnolia. I think PT Anderson sees it as a way to
tie all the stories together much like the street ties the varied parts of
the Valley together."
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
