Magnolia (1999) on Netflix
In the San Fernando Valley, Officer Jim Kurring asks Claudia Wilson on a date. A dying producer looks for his estranged son. Stanley Spector competes on Jimmy Gator's quiz show.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb8.0/10353,430 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
Trailer
Plot summary
Officer Jim Kurring is called to a woman's apartment, where he finds a body in a closet, and Dixon, a neighborhood boy, tries to tell him who did it. Jim then answers a noise complaint at Claudia Wilson's apartment. She has been arguing with her estranged father, Jimmy Gator. Jimmy hosts the quiz show What Do Kids Know? and is dying of cancer. Stanley Spector, the brightest of the child contestants, feels the pressure of his father Rick's expectations. Former champion Donnie Smith, whose parents took his prize money, has lost his job and wants braces. Earl Partridge, the show's former producer, is also dying, cared for by his nurse Phil Parma, and asks him to find the son he left, who now calls himself Frank Mackey and sells seduction advice to men.
Cast
- Genevieve Zweigas Mrs. Godfrey
- Mark Flannaganas Joseph Green
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Magnolia (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Frank T.J. Mackey, the character Cruise would play, was based in part on an audio-recording made in an engineering class taught by a friend: two men "talking all this trash" about women and quoting Ross Jeffries, who taught a version of the Eric Weber course "How to Pick Up Women" using hypnotism and subliminal language techniques.
- Anderson said that "Simon and Garfunkel is to The Graduate as Aimee Mann is to Magnolia"; "Wise Up", the song at the center of a sequence in which all the characters sing, was originally written for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire, when Mann's record label had refused to release her songs on an album.
- Anderson wrote the role of Earl Partridge for Jason Robards, but Robards could not do it due to a staph infection; after George C. Scott declined the role Robards managed to take it, calling it "sort of prophetic that I be asked to play a guy going out in life".
- The rain of frogs was inspired by the works of Charles Fort, and Anderson claims he was unaware that it was also a reference in The Bible when he first wrote the sequence.
- Anderson ended up designing his own poster for the film, cut together a trailer himself, wrote the liner notes for the soundtrack album, and pushed to avoid hyping Cruise's presence in the film in favour of the ensemble cast.
- Filming began on January 12, 1999 and was initially scheduled to be 79 days, but ended up lasting until June 24, 1999, making a total of 90 filming days plus 10 days of second unit filming.
- Anderson wanted Burt Reynolds to star in the film after working with him on Boogie Nights, but Reynolds declined it.
