h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This puts me in an unpopular position, but hey.
Apart from the opening rush sequence which is quite nice indeed, I thought the whole thing is hugely overstretched in time and very much over-acted. The camerawork was the one thing that stuck as being great, but in the film the focus is on drama-drama-and-more-drama so much that it fails to get to me. It's not that I'm insensitive to drama, just that when a movie is so obviously trying to make me cry, it tends to backfire and I can't take it seriously anymore. I couldn't help laughing cynically at pretty much the whole second half.

Why so many people seem to fall so unconditionally in love with the flic is thus beyond me. A tearjerker with a good cameraman. Sorry.

I think a good film is often one that some love and others hate. Who can get much interest up for the average film? I have seen slow films that seemed to go nowhere - yet I loved them, because they hit some current down inside me or a character seemed so true. Other well-loved films I can hardly watch. It seems to me this film might be worthwhile just because reactions to it are so diverse - so I guess I'll take the plunge. I will be interested to see if I agree with you or with the author of the article...

Go ahead! By all means, I want to know how you liked it. And I agree with the others that you should like the opening if all goes well

I'll have to vote with Prez on this one.

I thought it was trying to be Short Cuts but failing. The coincidence stuff at the beginning is good but the "coincidences" within the movie itself pale by comparison. The characters are full of their own importance, utterly unlikeable and uninteresting. Tom Cruise does more Acting (with a capital A), to less effect and with sillier material than I have ever seen before or since.

But that's just one guy's opinion.

Thank you, PF!

And does your comparison mean I should in fact go and see Short Cuts?
If so, and if not so as well, you should go and see Happiness, if you haven't already. Same concept, only much smaller, more modest, more believable, less glib and over-acted. Happiness is good movie that will really have you laugh until you cry, while Magnolia tried so hard to make me cry, it made me laugh...

Thanks for the recommendation, Prez!

As for Short Cuts - it's better than Magnolia. Its structure is wonderfully complex (speaking as a writer) and it has to be admired as an intellectual exercise. It's also quite watchable, and the acting is less contrived. But I felt it still suffered from the same failing as Magnolia - that the multiple storylines sliced every character so thinly you never really engaged with them; and because the connections between them are unwitting, there isn't any central motivation for what they do - which makes it all seem rather aimless.

In summary: it does what it does better than Magnolia, but I'd still rather watch a good, old-fashioned, three-act, linear story.

So not for Happiness. You go see, you like. Ugh

Well I've seen 'Magnolia', 'Short Cuts' and 'Happiness' and liked them all to some extent.
I think 'Magnolia' is a hugely indulgent movie on Anderson's part and clearly is more than just influenced by 'Short Cuts'. The problem with these ensemble peices has already been laid out; ie a lack of as great an engagement between the audience and the characters as in a more traditional narrative.
However what we get instead is an examination of the nature of a story and the nature of our expectations of film characters. Why should any story have a beginning, middle and end, real life does not and film perports to, in some way, put up a miror to life experience. This is especially the case in Magnolia where we see that so many of the characters touch each others lives in some way, just as in reality we meet strangers and never consider where they are from. An interesting example of this theme of fiction against reality is the scene where Phillip Seymour Hoffman's nurse character is trying to find his patient's son and explains how this is just like a scene from a movie. This is interesting as this strand is by far the most linear and forms the core of the movie.
On a less highbrow level I do agree that Magnolia is a flawed work and not of the same standard as Altman's piece. I also agree that the begining of it is excellent. However I would also go on to say that it is not far from being a classic. All it needed was a few less strands. I do not mean characters should have been expanded just that some should be taken out (eg that talk show host guy). The standard of acting from such great character actors as Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Macy is excellent and worth checking the film out or alone.

Talking of Hoffman brings me neatly to 'Happiness' which is also an interesting film. However with a greatly reduced number of strands and a clear focus on a three sisters with subsidury characters orbiting around them Happiness is a much easier watch for those who are fans of linear narrative structure. It is also a very funny movie.
This is interesting in that it is a film which deals sympatheticly with the story of a child abuser. It is without doubt a good film to watch. However for me it was ruined a little by one thing. The day before I saw it for the first time I saw the amazing film 'Festen' from the now infamous Dogme 95 group. This film stunningly deals with the subjects of 'Happiness' in a far more taboo breaking way, and, to be honest, in a far funnier and more groundbreaking style. Fans of Happiness should check it out.

On a final note on the subject of multi-narrative films I wish to bring up the work of Tarrantino. Pulp Fiction seems to me to be a work on a similar, if slightly more structured, scale of multiplicity of characters. I was just wondering why nobody really considers this as a problem of that film whereas many people find it problematic in films such as 'Magnolia'

I agree with you, Scott, that Magnolia has great strengths and is certainly closer to being a classic than many safer (if perhaps ultimately more "enjoyable") films. It's rather like a piece of modern art which you can see as being ground-breaking and influential, but maybe wouldn't want to have hanging in your living room

As for Pulp Fiction, I think the critial thing is that it works as a story first and foremost, then that story is told in an interesting and unconventional way. Maagnolia, on the other hand, is "about" the structure, and the story seems somewhat incidental by comparison. But they're both streets ahead of (for example) Jurassic Park 3

I think you shouldn't even try to compare Happiness to Festen in any way othger than that both deal with child abuse... but hey, that's where the comparison stops, don't you think? Phew, both are very goood, sharp films, thanks for mentioning them! Their being diaplyed on my screen so close to each other gave me tingles all over.

However, to return to Magnolia: it's not the cutting up of the storylines, or the multiplicity of characters to which I object. I can take that in a film. It's the drahmah, the textbook acting out of those tearjerking scenes, the naggingly omnipresent of tear-eyeed faces and dramatic lines ('I have so much love, I just don't know where to put it')...

I'll make an exception for Seymour Hoffman: he wasn't at all so overdone as some others.

I have to agree with you about the OTT nature of some of the performances (with special mention there for Cruise) but I really think Macy did a good job along with Hoffman.

I also agree that Happiness dosen't compare to Festen on an equal basis. However their similar themes and the coincidence of my viewing them has left them linked in my mind for better or worse. For the record I think Festen is the better film as it hits its targets with far more accuracy.

I also bow to the point about Pulp Fiction, but with the proviso that to someone who is not a cineaste that difference is not so clear and so any suggestion that Magnolia is less accessible on that basis seems ill founded.

Finally I wish to stand up for Jurassic Park III which was clearly excellent. Can Magnolia compare to those special effects? They've got the frogs but where were the dinos. I can see it now: 'Magnolia 2:The Lost World'- this time coincidence can bite you on the ass!

That, or 'The Lost Plot'...

and was Jurassic III really something to stand up for? I've heard them say it was refreshing to not have Spielberg behind it mushing up the storyboard, but is it a good movie to see?

Well it was certainly fun. Better tha Lost World, as good as the first in plot terms but it dosen't have that same impact now. Event movies can't really cut it when the event happened 8 years ago and again a few years afrter that.
But if you wanna see some enjoyable pap it is definitly amongst the best on offer (along with final fantasy) at present.