I decided to join a film review club called The 1001 Movies You Must See Club to help make me watch better movies.  What they do is every month recommend four movies everyone should see and review on their various blogs.  These films are taken from a book entitled 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.  Now I know I’ve seen some of these films but not all of them.  So enjoy as I revisit some and discover classics I probably would never see without this little nudge in the right direction.

Where do I start in this world that Paul Thomas Anderson has made for us?  He takes us through the lives of about ten different people who are all interconnected, in some way or another, over the following 24 hours and all are in Los Angeles.

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of those directors who seems to always have something to show us about life, whether present day (Magnolia), in the 1800s (There Will Be Blood) or in the 70s (Boogie Nights).  I find it interesting as how Mr. Anderson decided to show us this tale of people in the fast paced town on this very interesting day.  As the film begins telling us, some things that we think are coincidence are not always so.  I particularly enjoyed how Mr. Anderson matched his music (by Jon Brion) matched a lot of the scenes in the film, especially the scene after the credits with our introduction to all of our main characters, perfect camera work that made fifteen minutes of montage feel like five due to the smooth flowing feel.

Mr. Anderson gives us a sense of space with the use of a lot of tracking shots to help give us a better sense of setting especially whenever we entered buildings with tight spaces and we just followed characters as they traverse their world.

The movie feels a lot like we’re being shown a mosaic in film, because even though we see linkages between these stories we are left to figure out why all of these stories are placed beside each other (besides the fact that they are all in LA and on the same day) it continues to make for interesting discussion.  Personally I believe the biggest theme brought around in this movie is loneliness.  Each character being shown seem to deal with their own darkness in themselves on this day and one of the common ones here is loneliness or needing to be seen for something more.  Earl Partridge [Jason Robards] wants to see his son for again before he dies, Donnie Smith [William H. Macy] wants to be noticed again since the fame as a childhood ‘boy genius’ has more or less gone away, Frank T. J. Mackey [Tom Cruise] wants to keep his persona going without having to deal with the fact that his biological father still exists, and that is just half of the main cast.

This movie is jam packed with brilliant performances.  Tom Cruise will get the people in the seats or you to rent it but when you see people like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Phillip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly in this film you may just forget about Tom Cruise and his chauvinistic views on relationships and how to score the pussy.  I particularly enjoy watching John C. Reilly because he plays the working stiff and is the joke of the police force and talks to himself in his cruiser since he rides alone.  However when you see him have to interact with people you can tell he’s using more than the law, and not in a bad way.  He knows how to apply common sense to his situations, like with his first call of the day, and when he ends up meeting William H. Macy’s character.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman also delivers (as he usually does) with his role.  I love particularly the scene when he calls Frank’s business number and gets a call centre operator and has this wonderful moment talking about how it feels like it’s a scene in a movie and how it’s that scene now, as meta as it felt it felt good to see the honesty in his face and hear it in his voice.  The question I ask myself is what would I do if I were the guy on the other end of the line hearing this slightly preposterous tale from a random person (who was going to end up giving me no commission)?

The biggest discussion point though of this movie is its ending.  If you know nothing about this movie just know that you should watch it and it is insane.  This isn’t a huge spoiler (as far as I’m concerned) but some may consider it, so be warned… skip to the final summation paragraph now if you don’t want to be spoiled… ok. In the end of the movie when it starts raining frogs, I find myself (like when I first saw the movie) just floored.  I have no idea what to think or to take away from this moment.  What does it mean?  Is it a reference back to the story of Moses in the bible when he freed the Hebrews from the Pharaohs in Egypt?  And if so in what way does it tie in to this story?  It really baffles me and if someone can enlighten me with a better hypothesis or theory as to its meaning I’m all ears.  Otherwise it looked gorgeous and I wonder if any of it was practical effects rather than digital.  If it was just to wow me then it was did.

In the end this movie is a gorgeous watch and a brilliant story.  The editing and writing is phenomenal and the acting matched it perfectly.  Julianne Moore and John C. Reilly are two of the most underrated roles in the movie and people need to recognize.  If you’re a fan of the multiple story film (like Babel or Amores Perros or Traffic) then this is a must watch and hopefully it’ll get you into watching the rest of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films.

IMDB says 8.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 83%

I say 10/10