![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0375709401\")
<\/p>\n\n
“It is also the case that anyone as good and smart as Anderson should be more perceptibly self-critical. In fact, Magnolia<\/i> is his most youthful and indulgent film — and Hard Eight<\/i>, his best and most austere. But there are poetic mysteries in the first film that come closer to pretension in Magnolia<\/i>. In other words, Anderson is not handling himself well. He is drawing fire upon his own vulnerabilities. But is there any other way?<\/p>\n
No other American director working today has such sad, tender, and smart ways of looking into the depths of society, or for feeling out their poignant juxtapositions. He writes great, ragged speeches, and he is like a fond parent with his family of actors. All his three films so far have used John Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Philip Baker Hall. In addition, he has done remarkable things with such diverse figures as Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, and Burt Reynolds. His way of blessing actors is so very close to his wish to rescue people from their drabness. Sooner or later, it will be perceived how desperately concerned he is about the society called America.<\/p>\n
Of course, Magnolia<\/i> is like Short Cuts<\/i> in that both films are symphonies attempting to take in everything. They have the ambition of an Ives, say, who could hardly get his work played, let alone make it popular. Altman has learned cunning ways of making that ambition into a career. But he’s older and far less kind. Anderson’s energy and aspirations are destined to collide with Hollywood thinking, and he may be too young and too good to learn subterfuge. If he is as good as he thinks he is (and I think he is), there are bloody battles to come. But no one has a better chance of offering us new narrative forms for our movies.”<\/p>\n
From David Thomson’s The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Expanded and Updated<\/a> \n