Here, I present to you, the list of offenses made by Magnolia, leading to imprisonment in the depths of Chicken Hell:
1. Since the main characters are all unique, it stands to reason that at least one or two would be impossible to like. Out of those 8, I only really cared about 2 or 3 at the most.
2. Similar to the first point, a lot of the people the main characters interacted with were stupid, mean for no reason, or were jerks. And they were rewarded for it. (Example: The kid on the quiz show is a genius and gets everything right by himself, but his asshole partners and greedy dad are reaping all the rewards.)
3. The interaction between the main characters was very loose, giving the audience the setup for what seemed at times to be 3 or 4 different movies.
4. For no reason at all, the main characters, even if they�re at the edge of death, start singing a really stupid song AT THE EXACT SAME TIME! And it�s out of character for half of them.
5. The big climax for the movie as a whole: It starts raining frogs. (Yes, I said raining frogs.) There�s no real reason for it either.
6. The focus of the stories was in favor of the stupid people, especially the stupid crack addict girl, almost totally ignoring the good characters, like the genius kid on the quiz show in the present.
7. When the stories start to reach their end, the stories about good characters are pretty much tossed off to the side to show more of the stories about the stupid characters.
8. There is no real closure. The memorable ending of this �great� movie is a minute long shot of the stupid crack addict girl (who I felt deserved to die) smiling at the camera.
Just as a point of clarity, a lot of people thought this was Tom Cruise�s best performance ever. No, it was good, but nowhere near great. If you want to see him do great work, watch Interview With The Vampire. Don�t waste your time with this movie; it�s stupid. I feel stupid just for having seen it.
