Wise up

Magnolia

(1999)

A screening of my favorite P. T. Anderson film as a challenger for that title looms on the horizon.

Can anyone be lukewarm about this film? The stuff people hate--the length, the unremitting emotional abrasion, Aimee Mann singing over the dialogue, the musical number, the frogstorm--that's all the stuff I love. (Well, OK, I could live with a more conventional soundtrack mix.)

Discovery this time is that I can't get away from Deadwood: if I'd given it any thought going in, I might have remembered that Ricky Jay is in it (though I never would have remembered that he's the narrator as well as appearing in the flesh). But who knew that Jim Beaver was Smiling Peanut Patron #1--or even that there were three smiling peanut patrons?