Top 250 Challenge: 132

Magnolia (1999)

Number 177 on IMDb's Top 250

Nominated by Kim

Okay, lets see, how do I explain this movie. A cop (John C. Reilly) meets a girl (Melora Walters) during his shift and aks her out on a date. The girl's estranged father, a TV game show host (Philip Baker Hall) tells her that he has cancer. Meanwhile, on the game show, a young boy (Jeremy Blackman) who is a genius finally rebels against a father who is more agent then dad. While the game is going on, a former child prodigy and former game show contestant (William H. Macy) has fallen on hard times after the stardom fades. The creator of the game show (Jason Robards) is dying so his nurse (Philip Seymour Hoffman) trys to contact his estranged son (Tom Cruise), who is a sexist motivational speaker, to tell him about his father, while his father's wife (Julianne Moore) struggles with the guilty she carries about cheating on her husband whom she married for his money, but eventually really fell in love with, she tries to take her life with an overdose of prescription drugs. And then frogs start falling from the sky and the hilarity really ensues. Got that? Oh and at one point all of the main cast breaks into song.

Trivia: The title "Magnolia" not only refers to Magnolia Blvd in LA, where much of the movie takes place, but is also similar to the term Charles Fort (who is referenced many places in this movie) coined for a hypothetical region where things that fall from the sky come from - "Magonia". Almost every location contains at least one picture or painting of a magnolia flower. After the frogs start to fall, Jim Kurring, the cop, and Donnie Smith, the former child star, take cover under a Mobil gas station. The original name of Mobil was Magnolia Petroleum.

This is a pretty weird movie. It is hard to follow because af the multiple story lines and the way it jumps to another story line while someone is still talking in the previous story line. And at one point all the main characters start to sing, kind of like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer show where the evil demon turns everything into a musical. Thanks Kim.