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Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Philip Baker Hall, Jason Robards, and Jeremy Blackman in Magnolia (1999)

An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley. An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley. An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Paul Thomas Anderson
Jason Robards
Julianne Moore
1.5K User reviews
183 Critic reviews
78 Metascore
28 wins & 59 nominations total

Frank T.J. Mackey

Earl Partridge

Linda Partridge

Sir Edmund William Godfrey …
Mrs. Godfrey
Joseph Green
(as Mark Flannagan)

Stanley Berry

Daniel Hill

Firefighter

Delmer Darion
Reno Security Guard

Craig Hansen

Forensic Scientist

Sydney Barringer

Arthur Barringer
1958 Detective
1958 Policeman
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Did you know

Trivia The story about the man being killed by a gunshot while falling off a building has for years been used as a hypothetical case in criminal law classes to illustrate causation.
Goofs In the "Wise Up" sequence, Claudia is dressed for her date, she's wearing black and her hair is up. When she opens the door to Jim, she's wearing red, her hair is down. On the way to the car, she is again wearing black etc, and at the restaurant she is back wearing red.

Jimmy Gator : The book says, "We might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

Crazy credits Underneath the title at the end a line reads "for fa and ea". fa is Fiona Apple (Paul Thomas Anderson's girlfriend) ea is Ernie Anderson (Paul Thomas Anderson's father)
Alternate versions The supplemental material disc of the R1 special edition DVD of Magnolia has about 8 minutes of hidden outtake footage. To access it, you need to select the 'Color Bars' option and wait about twenty seconds.
Connections Featured in The Johnny Vaughan Film Show: Episode #1.1 (1999)
Soundtracks One Written by Harry Nilsson Performed by Aimee Mann Courtesy of Superego Records

User reviews 1.5K

Sep 18, 2000
How long is Magnolia? Powered by Alexa
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January 7, 2000 (United States)
United States
Mag·no'li·a
Bryson Hotel - 2701 Wilshire Boulevard, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA
Ghoulardi Film Company
New Line Cinema
The Magnolia Project
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$37,000,000 (estimated)
$22,455,976
Dec 19, 1999
$48,453,541

Technical specs

Runtime 3 hours 8 minutes
Dolby Digital

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, tales of loneliness, in full flower.

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That may not be the "Magnolia" you recall. It was not quite the film I recalled, either, and now that I have seen it again, my admiration has only deepened. On its release in 1999, our focus was perhaps distracted by the theme of coincidence, the intersecting storylines, and above all the astonishing coup with which Paul Thomas Anderson ended his film. Nor was the film a melancholy dirge; it was entertaining, even funny, always fascinating.

The central theme is cruelty to children, and its lasting effect. This is closely linked to a loathing or fear of behaving as we are told, or think, that we should. There are many major characters, but in the film's 180-minute running time, there is time to develop them all and obtain performances that seem to center on moments of deep self-revelation. Let's begin with two smart kids.

One is now an adult, still calling himself "Quiz Kid Donnie Smith" ( William H. Macy ). He was briefly famous as a child on a TV show and still expects people to remember him. Now he works in a furniture store, is a drunk, desperately needs money to get braces on his teeth in the forlorn hope that they will attract the bartender he has a crush on -- who also wears braces. He has an outburst about his childhood, but his most touching moment is when he cries out that he knows he has love, he knows he can love, he knows he is worth loving.

The other smart kid, still about 9 or 10, is Stanley Spector ( Jeremy Blackman ), star genius on the TV show "What Do Kids Know?" He has all the answers. But on one crucial segment, he refuses to perform because, refused a trip to the toilet, he has wet his pants and refuses to stand up. His father browbeats him.

The show's emcee is Jimmy Gator ( Philip Baker Hall ), who has learned he has two months to live. He hasn't seen Claudia ( Melora Walters ), his daughter from his second marriage, for 10 years. She believes he molested her. He doesn't remember. Now she is a hopeless cocaine addict. The policeman ( John C. Reilly ) who appears at her door doesn't notice her nervous tics and asks her out on a date, which ends by them both confessing deep shame. And later the same cop observes Quiz Kid Donnie Smith trying to scale a pole to break into the furniture store, hears his confession, forgives him, helps him make restitution.

The show is produced by "Big Earl" Partridge ( Jason Robards ). His long-estranged son is the motivational huckster Frank Mackey ( Tom Cruise ), who fills hotel conference rooms with lectures on how to conquer women. When he was a child, his father abandoned the boy and his mother, and Frank had to nurse her through death by cancer. Now his father is dying of the same disease, attended by Phil the nurse ( Philip Seymour Hoffman ). His second wife ( Julianne Moore ), who married him for money, now finds she loves him and regrets that she cheated on him. The old man mumbles in pain to his nurse that he truly loved his first wife and hates himself for cheating on her.

But a plot description could take up all my space, and more. I have given enough to suggest the way the sins of the parents are visited on the children, how so many people lead lives of desperation, how a few try to help. The astonishing thing about this film, written and directed by Anderson when he was only 28 (and had made " Boogie Nights " two years earlier and " Hard Eight " three) is that it is so wise and sympathetic. He sees that we all have our reasons.

As an act of filmmaking, it draws us in and doesn't let go. It begins deceptively, with a little documentary about amazing coincidences (including the scuba diver scooped by a fire-fighting plane and dumped on a forest fire). This is narrated by magician and spellbinder Ricky Jay , whose book Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women can be seen open before the studious little Stanley. Jay's voice appears again at the end, to remind us that coincidences and strange events do happen, and they are as real as everything else. If you could stand back far enough, in fact, everything would be revealed as a coincidence. What we call "coincidences" are limited to the ones we happen to notice.

Is the film therefore defending itself against the way its lives are intertwined? Not at all. I think it is arguing that we must mind our behavior, because it has an effect far beyond our ability to witness. A small boy, abandoned by his father, left to care for his dying mother, grows up into a complete fraud who gets rich by teaching men how to mistreat women. Why does he hate women instead of men? Tom Cruise has a scene at the deathbed of his father (deliberately framed to evoke Brando at his dead wife's body in " Last Tango in Paris "), and his hands are so tightly clenched the fingers seem bloodless. His hatred is for this man, but how has it been transferred to women?

His breakdown during a lecture is mirrored by little Stanley and Jimmy Gator, who both find themselves unable to perform on the TV show. And the second wife of Jason Robards (Julianne Moore) confesses to his nurse but cannot confess to the old man and seeks another way out.

And Claudia cannot behave as she should on a date. And earlier that night, the cop has shamed himself by losing his gun and being unable to make an arrest. And Quiz Kid Donnie cannot tell another man that he loves him.

In one beautiful sequence, Anderson cuts between most of the major characters all simultaneously singing Aimee Mann's "It's Not Going to Stop." A directorial flourish? You know what? I think it's a coincidence. Unlike many other "hypertext movies" with interlinking plots, "Magnolia" seems to be using the device in a deeper, more philosophical way. Anderson sees these people joined at a level below any possible knowledge, down where fate and destiny lie. They have been joined by their actions and their choices.

And all leads to the remarkable, famous, sequence near the film's end when it rains frogs. Yes. Countless frogs, still alive, all over Los Angeles, falling from the sky. That this device has sometimes been joked about puzzles me. I find it a way to elevate the whole story into a larger realm of inexplicable but real behavior. We need something beyond the human to add another dimension. Frogs have rained from the sky eight times this century, but never mind the facts. Attend instead to Exodus 8:2, which is cited on a placard in the film: "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs." Let who go? In this case, I believe, it refers not to people, but to fears, shames, sins.

"Magnolia" is one of those rare films that works in two entirely different ways. In one sense, it tells absorbing stories, filled with detail, told with precision and not a little humor. On another sense, it is a parable. The message of the parable, as with all good parables, is expressed not in words but in emotions. After we have felt the pain of these people, and felt the love of the policeman and the nurse, we have been taught something intangible, but necessary to know. That Paul Thomas Anderson thinks and creates in this way is proven again in his latest film, " There Will Be Blood " (2007). It is another film with an enigmatic ending, one that "Magnolia" teaches me I will have to think more carefully about.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Magnolia (1999)

Rated R for strong language, drug use, sexuality and some violence

188 minutes

Melora Walters as Claudia Gator

Tom Cruise as Frank Mackey

Jeremy Blackman as Stanley

Ricky Jay as Burt/narrator

Alfred Molina as Solomon

John C. Reilly as Officer Kurring

William H. Macy as Donnie Smith

Julianne Moore as Linda Partridge

Jason Robards as Earl Partridge

Philip Baker Hall as Jimmy Gator

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Phil

Written and directed by

Paul Thomas Anderson

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An eruption of feeling that's as overwhelming as it is overwrought, Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia reaches a fevered crescendo and sustains it thanks to its fearlessly committed ensemble.

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Magnolia (1999)

This psychological drama leads you in several different directions, weaving and intersecting various subplots and characters, from a brilliant Tom Cruise (who was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe), as a self-proclaimed pied-piper, to a child forced to go on a TV game show and the pressures he faces from a ruthless father.

Paul Thomas Anderson's highly ambitious third feature is indebted to Robert Altman in its multifaceted approach to storytelling, but would in turn inspire a new wave of multilinear films – sometimes referred to as ‘hyperlink cinema’ – at the beginning of the 2000s.

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The Real-Life Inspiration Behind Tom Cruise's Character In Magnolia

Tom Cruise has quite an impressive body of work and while it's difficult for some to pick a career-best performance from the actor, I would choose one without hesitation: Frank T.J. Mackey in "Magnolia." Paul Thomas Anderson's magnum opus released in 1999 and follows a tapestry of interwoven characters as they struggle through their lives in the San Fernando Valley. At over three hours long, the film certainly isn't for everyone, but I think it's a masterpiece . Parts of it were written around the incredible music of Aimee Mann, who soundtracked much of the film, along with composer extraordinaire Jon Brion.

In "Magnolia," Cruise plays a motivational speaker of sorts, Frank T.J. Mackey, whose main objective is "Seduce and Destroy." Mackey is an unrepentant misogynist preaching his seduction skills to a room full of men all too eager to listen. He's a charismatic jerk teaching seminars on how to get laid, mainly through subterfuge, all while treating women as objects to be conquered. In other words, this is not an easy guy to root for. The most fascinating thing about the actor's performance isn't how good he is at inhabiting the role, but rather the humanity he brings to a character who, at first glance, seems to have none. Mackey is unlike any character Cruise has played before or since.

According to Grantland , the role was actually written for Cruise, who became a fan of Anderson after watching "Boogie Nights." While he might seem like he sprang directly from the director's imagination, this seemingly over-the-top character was actually inspired by a real person. So, who served as the spark for Frank T.J. Mackey?

Art imitates life

On the WTF with Marc Maron Podcast (via Uproxx ) Paul Thomas Anderson revealed that the inspiration behind Frank T.J. Mackey was real-life pickup artist, Ross Jeffries. I can't possibly do justice to all the details contained therein, but you can (but probably shouldn't) visit Jeffries' website at seduction.com . The site has a description of him that reads:

"Ross Jeffries™ is the founder, creator and Master Teacher of the worldwide seduction community. Featured as the mentor to Neil Strauss in the best-selling book, "The Game", RJ has taught, coached, and mentored thousands of men around the world, since 1991, guiding them to the success with women they truly desire and deserve."

One of his recent blog posts is called "Are You The Money Man Or The Honey Man?" and explains how you can be "The Vaginal Victor On V-Day!" Jeffries uses a system he's aptly titled Speed Seduction and his website has quite an extensive sales pitch for his online program, which includes a (what's the opposite of the phrase "treasure trove"?) plethora of lines like "How to use 'weasel phrases' to open her mind for instant and total sexual acceptance!" I have yet to look into what a weasel phrase is.

Despite this still seemingly active website, a man identifying himself as Paul Ross told Uproxx in 2015, "Ross Jeffries doesn't exist." He continued:

"Ross Jeffries was a character I created, a loudmouth, obnoxious, larger than life, sort of a bit of a showman to get the message out there, to be a loud mouthpiece. That character doesn't really meld with who I am today."

In regard to the movie, he stated:

"Here's the interesting thing: Paul Thomas Anderson thought that they were going to portray a real person. They didn't realize they were portraying a character created by an actor. Tom Cruise didn't realize that he was studying a character. He thought he was studying a person. He created a character based on a character."

As for Tom Cruise's performance:

"Mackey is more manic. Mackey is far more misogynistic. He's basically taking stuff from where I was in 1998. He's also much shorter than I am. Remember when Mackey had the audience take out their calendars? I didn't actually give them physical calendars, but I did have them say 'By the 5th of May I'll be having my way. By the 8th of June I'll have their poon.' That kind of rhyming stuff I got from Muhammed Ali."

He has indeed expanded his work into other areas, releasing a sales training book under the name Paul Ross. Ross, now a practicing Buddhist, says he still uses the name Ross Jeffries because it's "a brand," but that the work no longer reflects who he is.

According to Grantland, Jeffries is a former paralegal and brought a trademark attorney to see "Magnolia." Though he protested that Anderson "lifted some stuff almost word for word," Jeffries chose not to attempt a lawsuit because he liked the movie.

An actor playing an actor playing a role

As Mackey gives his ridiculous stage performance to an audience of men listening with rapt attention, it's impossible for the viewer to take their eyes off him, even as they are disgusted by what he is saying. Cruise is positively magnetic in the role, especially as his layers begin to fall away during his filmed interview with Gwenovier (April Grace). In a span of minutes, Frank goes from flexing in his tighty-whities to staring at Gwenovier like a caged animal: angry, frightened, and trapped. We don't immediately know why Frank is lying about his family trauma, but we do know he is no longer in control — though, perhaps he never was. It is Cruise's nuanced performance during this interview that allows his later breakdown to truly resonate.

Paul Ross considers Ross Jeffries a role he played that he's largely outgrown and feels as though Cruise didn't understand that he was a character playing a character. However, I would argue that's exactly how Cruise portrayed Frank Mackey, as someone hiding under a facade — albeit a convincing one. His final lecture sees him unravel, though his audience seems none the wiser. However, it's the reunion with his long estranged father (Jason Robards) that causes Frank to truly fall apart. Frank's emotional collapse at his father's deathbed is one of the film's most poignant moments. According to Grantland, Cruise was largely drawing on the experience of losing his own father. Much like Mackey, Cruise didn't get to spend much time with his dad. This storyline also proved cathartic for Anderson, who'd lost his father as well.

In what begins with a single take, viewers watch Mackey's face run the gamut of human emotion. He hates his father for leaving them and forcing him to take care of his dying mother as a teenager, but at the same time he's already mourning the life they never had together now that it's gone forever. The scene actually played out a bit differently in the script, with Frank immediately breaking down upon arrival, but Cruise thought it didn't feel quite right and made some changes. At this point, fans are more used to seeing Cruise perform increasingly wild stunts for his action movies. However, for me, there was no greater stunt than the one he pulled in making me cry right along with someone as evidently awful as Frank Mackey. Which I do. Every single time.

The Question of Ryan Tannehill

QB1 and the Same?

Fifteen Years Later: Tom Cruise and ‘Magnolia’

An exclusive excerpt from ‘Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor’

“It’s not just about picking up chicks and sticking your cock in. It’s about finding out what you can be in this world.”

—Frank “T.J.” Mackey

S hooting Eyes Wide Shut in England, Tom Cruise had time to kill. One evening, he and Nicole [Kidman] watched Boogie Nights (1997), the second feature from twenty-seven-year-old wunderkind Paul Thomas Anderson, a writer-director and LA native son who had become the upstart of Hollywood after his first film, Hard Eight (1996), made a splash at Sundance. Cruise was struck by a bungled, drug-addled robbery scene set to “Jessie’s Girl” and called Anderson up with his congratulations. Anderson happened to be in London, and he gladly accepted Cruise’s invitation to visit the Eyes Wide Shut set. Noting [Stanley] Kubrick’s scant film crew, Anderson asked the director if he always worked on such a small scale. “How many do you need?” replied Kubrick. “I’m an asshole, man,” said the humbled young auteur, “I spend too much money.” But he was about to embark on the most star-studded and narratively complex film of his career.

Earlier that year, Anderson’s father, Ernie, had died of cancer. A late-night horror movie host who went by “Ghoulardi,” Mr. Anderson purchased a Betamax video camera for his son when the boy was twelve, launching the director on his path. Cruise understood. He, too, had lost his father early. But in truth he’d lost his dad — and namesake — Thomas Cruise Mapother III years before. After his parents divorced when Cruise was twelve, he’d only seen his father twice: at fifteen when his dad took him to the drive-in and on his deathbed. The elder Mapother never watched one of his son’s films.

“He tried going out to see Risky Business , but he was in too much pain,” said Cruise. In the first leg of his career, he was remarkably open about their relationship, as though the wounds were still so raw that it helped to say them aloud. “I hadn’t seen my father for a number of years. I heard he was dying, and I didn’t know where he was. He didn’t want to be contacted. He left and didn’t want to be contacted for years . I think he was tired of inflicting so much pain on other people that he just had to get away.”

“I spent some time with him. We talked,” he continued. “I think he made so many mistakes that it ate him alive. Even when I went to see him, he didn’t want to discuss what had occurred in the past. I said, ‘Whatever you want, Dad.’ But I held his hand. And I told him I loved him, and that I was going to miss him. He said when he got out of the hospital we’d go have a steak and a beer and talk about it then. He died before we could do that.”

His father did have time to give a few quotes to journalists who tracked him down. In 1983, he told a reporter that he had “made a personal decision to respect my son’s wishes, which was for me to stay the hell out of everything,” saying that they had gone over four years without communication (“a long time, at least to me”) until Tom and his sisters had come by his hospital after a cancer operation. When it was suggested to the elder Mapother that their visit had meant more than words could express, he began to weep. “A lot more, a lot more.”

Given where the two men were at that stage of their lives — Cruise undergoing Kubrick’s emotionally taxing two-year test and Anderson confronting his own father’s death — it’s likely they talked about their shared pasts. The evidence: when Cruise asked Anderson to write a part for him, his standard request when he met a new talent he liked, the filmmaker flew back to Los Angeles and turned up six months later with the part of Frank “T.J.” Mackey, a bitter stage performer who has a wrenching meltdown beside his dying father, Big Earl.

Well, not quite. Anderson’s original script was more sympathetic to Frank and Big Earl than in the final cut. In Anderson’s draft, the pair reconcile with the dad soothing his son: “You are not what you think you are.” But when Cruise played the role, there was no spoken redemption and only a glimpse of Mackey making peace with his pain. The final film is colder, more cutting, and closer to Cruise’s childhood than to Anderson’s bond with his own father — it’s so close, in fact, to Cruise’s own life that both he and Frank Mackey had lopped off their father’s surnames before becoming famous.

Cruise leaped into his three-week stint on Magnolia almost immediately after Kubrick said “Cut.” He was in a rush to squeeze in Mission: Impossible II (2000) that same year — he did, after all, have his own production company to think about, and it’d been starving to get him back on the big screen. Now fifteen years into his career and with an incredible run of five $100 million–plus hits in a row ( Eyes Wide Shut wouldn’t flop until months after Magnolia wrapped), Cruise wielded his clout as a box office titan. He had the muscle to pick the best roles and, having already worked with most of the great directors, the might to invest in Hollywood’s next generation. P. T. Anderson was about to discover what Cameron Crowe had already learned: signing Tom Cruise made you the studio’s best friend and gave your film more money, more time, and more trust.

Still, Anderson was Cruise’s first younger director — a full eight years younger, in fact — and he knew he had to impress. Anderson created Mackey because the complex character was “un-turn-downable.” As he described, his philosophy when writing for actors is, “I want to be a genius to them because their opinions mean so much to me.” Mackey’s emotional arc with his father was in place. Now it was time to figure out the rest of the character. Said Anderson with a grin, “Something about Tom prompted a certain naughtiness in me.” Why not make Cruise a lascivious, woman-hating horndog?

Seduce and Destroy

Audiences who felt let down by the abandoned promise of seeing Cruise as a sex-mad therapist in Eyes Wide Shut — the prevalent preopening rumor — had their dreams fulfilled by Cruise’s first moments as Frank “T.J.” Mackey. Cruise had played lotharios before — in Cocktail , he bedded a woman just to win a bet — but Mackey was a whole new monster. Mackey isn’t just a lover. He’s a wicked psychologist, albeit uncertified, and he’s more interested in inflicting pain than receiving pleasure. Just think of his tagline: “Seduce and Destroy.” Seduce, sure. But destroy ?

Cruise had never been a tabloid Casanova. He’d married Mimi Rogers at twenty-four, then married Nicole Kidman within a year of his first divorce. If anything, he was continually fighting rumors that he didn’t like women enough. He continually headed to court to defend his image. Within one short span, he filed suits against two sex therapists who claimed to have given him and Nicole lovemaking lessons, a tabloid that pronounced him impotent and sterile, a male wrestler who claimed they’d had a romantic affair, and a magazine that announced it had a videotape of the actor in a homosexual tryst. Every case was won by Cruise, settled, or dismissed. If Cruise’s sexuality had a reputation, it was that you spoke about it at your own peril.

The irony of Cruise’s Mackey is that it’s both his most sexual performance and one where he doesn’t even lay a hand on a woman. For all of Mackey’s swagger that he can make any babe his “sex-starved servant,” Anderson never shows the man in action. Anderson and Cruise actually filmed several video reenactments of Mackey bedding women — outtakes from his instructional guide — but cut them from the final product. Even fictionally within the film, we never see Cruise make good on his threat to “master the muffin,” which strengthens the idea that Mackey isn’t the smooth-talker he claims. Is it all bluff? Or does Mackey really believe his own hype?

Cruise is allowed scenes with only two women, and one of them is over the phone. In both, the women control him . His off-screen assistant, Janet, genuinely cares about his well-being. She’s protective of his privacy, peppering his father’s nurse (Philip Seymour Hoffman) with questions to prove his credibility, yet also tender when telling Mackey the news about his dying father. But even she — a woman paid to do Mackey’s will — doesn’t take his orders. When Mackey shouts, “Do your fucking job!” she refuses to be cowed. Instead, she hollers back, “I am doing my fucking job!”

Mackey’s centerpiece male-versus-female showdown is another losing battle against television reporter Gwenovier (April Grace), who initially throws him — and us — off guard by acting submissive. Their interview is a teasing, fire-stoking combination where both he and she use flirtation as a tool. He wants to charm her and her camera; she wants to coo and smile until he drops his guard. Their dynamic is the distillation of every stereotype in the battle of the sexes: men using blunt chemistry to exert their power and women pretending to be impressed until they’re ready to wrest control.

Cruise gives the role a fascinating combination of confidence and insecurity. He comes on like a gorilla — literally — stripping down naked in front of Gwenovier and beating his chest. The nudity was Anderson’s idea. Cruise hadn’t flashed his underwear since Risky Business, and hadn’t gone fully nude since All the Right Moves. (The glimpse of his pubic hair has since been edited out of Moves .) On the day of the shoot, Cruise started the scene simply sans shirt, exposure he was used to. Then Anderson asked him to take off his pants. “I said, ‘ What? ’” recalled Cruise. “He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’ll be funny.’” To Anderson’s glee, Cruise disrobed. Gushed the director, “He’s like, ‘What do you want me to do, do you want me to stand on my head, do you want me to do backflips? I’ll do it, I’ll do anything you want.’”

With his manhood a tabloid fixation, all eyes were on his crotch. And the bulge in his briefs was distractingly large. Given Anderson’s previous use of a prosthetic penis in Boogie Nights , the columnist Michael Musto of the Village Voice launched a crusade to find out if “the garden hose is 100 percent real meat.” “I don’t know whether to be insulted or feel complimented,” joked Cruise, while Anderson was more definitive: “Tom Cruise is the biggest movie star in the world. Are you kidding? Of course he’s got the world’s biggest cock.” (Naturally, Cruise looked into a lawsuit against Musto.)

In just three minutes, the opening act of the interview establishes, then upends, Mackey and Gwenovier’s dynamic. Cruise starts the scene in full physical command. Defiantly pants-less, he rolls into a backflip — as Anderson asked — caps it with a strikingly graceful handstand, bounds into a chair, and starts panting like a dog in heat while blurting out nonsense: “Terrorists! Babes! Beauties!” Meanwhile, Gwenovier sits immobile with her back to the camera waiting for him to settle down. When Anderson finally cuts from Mackey’s face to hers, we realize that this woman isn’t under his spell — though he’s certain she is.

Suddenly, Mackey’s frantic ego-thumping seems naïve. Whether we’re excited or anxious to see her dismantle him depends on how much Cruise has made us empathize against our will with this sad, show-off child. To hint at Mackey’s eagerness to impress, Cruise exaggerates his movements, leaning so far forward in his chair that his skeleton looks apt to pop out of his skin. In response, Gwenovier purrs, “Calm down, take it easy, and be a good boy.” She talks to him like a naughty little child, and he cheerfully responds. “Yes, ma’am!” he chirps, buttoning his shirt as though he expects her to be proud of his fingers for moving so fast. Mackey mistakes her interest for flirting — which, in fairness, is probably part of her plan. Uncharmed, she subtly asserts her control by telling him that he missed a button.

Mackey’s immature need to impress isn’t written in the script, but it’s there between the lines. Like Cruise’s, Mackey’s father abandoned the family when he was a child. Like Cruise’s, Mackey’s father never called. Unlike Cruise, Mackey had to watch his mother die of cancer by his fourteenth birthday. He’s never grown past the pain — and in fact, underneath his adult braggadocio, Cruise clues us in that he’s never grown up at all. Playing Mackey with a teenager’s horny obedience speaks to his suspended adolescence — you see in him the age at which his maturity stopped. By giving us a glimpse of the broken boy inside, Cruise makes it impossible to hate Mackey, despite his unconscionable attitudes toward women. Wouldn’t let the rogue near our own daughters, but we believe that he, too, needs love — despite claiming he only cares about lust.

Cruise’s vulnerability is key to making Magnolia work. Without it, his sobbing scene at his dad’s deathbed would fill us with schadenfreude , not sadness. It also explains why with Gwenovier he’s determined to hide the truth of his origins lest she and her audience learn his secret pain. To assert Mackey’s feigned authority over Gwenovier — especially when her interview gets too personal — Cruise keeps his dialogue clipped and sharp, as though withholding his charm were punishment for her intrusiveness. He cuts off her questions by insisting that they’re a waste of her time and tries to shut her down with his restless disinterest — or, failing that, derail her with sexual innuendos. But look closely and Cruise transmits Mackey’s fear: his crow’s-feet quiver, he bites his lips, he nods overzealously, he glances over his shoulder at his assistant for backup. Gwenovier also sees through — or ignores — his alarm. Despite his lingering, clueless confidence that he can maintain control of the conversation, their interplay is like a river overpowering a dam: she gently flows past his obstructions.

Edit out the rest of Magnolia to allow the interview scene to play in real time, and the shift in Cruise is even more obvious. Just minutes after his exuberant backflips, her questions have hemmed him in so tightly that he can barely move. When he realizes Gwenovier already knows the truth about his childhood, Cruise takes us through an arc of angry resignation while barely appearing to react at all — Mackey wouldn’t want to give this woman the satisfaction. He doesn’t even blink. All he’ll allow is a change in his mouth, gradually collapsing from a grin to a forced smile to a pursed frown, which he holds, as stony as a sphinx. (“There are a lot of silent parts because I’ve always loved Tom Cruise silent,” said Anderson. “He’s a really good starer.’’) He won’t move, so Anderson does, pushing the camera so close to his face that we can see through his cold control — close enough to see him grinding his teeth. Without lifting a hand, Cruise creates a crackling air of violence. He doesn’t even raise his voice — in fact, his voice gets quieter and more controlled — but his silent fury triples the tension. In the climax, all Cruise has to do is stand, loom over the still-seated Gwenovier, and calmly call her a bitch, and she recoils like she’s been hit.

How to Fake Like You Are Nice and Caring

Anderson plays with Cruise’s physical proportions throughout Magnolia . When first we see him onstage, as “Thus Spake Zarathustra” (a nod to his time with Kubrick?) rises on the sound track, we see him as Mackey wants to be seen: back-lit and poised like Superman. In theaters, the shot makes him appear both life-size and larger than life. In front of his champions, Mackey is a rock star — literally. Watch closely and Mackey’s performance is Cruise’s sharklike impersonation of Elvis Presley. Cruise doesn’t walk, he swaggers — and curls his upper lip in a sexy snarl. Though Mackey was born and raised in Southern California, Cruise gives him a Mississippi twang. He doesn’t say “Men!” or “No!” he says, “Men- naaa !” and “Noooo- aaaa !” and when really overheated drawls the word “sausage” out to three sweaty syllables, as in “Suck my big fat fucking saw-seg- geah !” (Did Cruise cut the original script line, “By the end of May, you will know I’m not gay,” because it cut too close to the rumors?) When he mimes humping a girl, his pelvis swivels dangerously enough to get him brought up on obscenity charges in Los Angeles — something that nearly happened to Elvis in 1957 when the Vice Squad accused him of getting too provocative with a stuffed animal while crooning “Hound Dog.”

Cruise is a big Elvis fan — he’s sung Elvis publicly on Jay Leno, privately in a karaoke session with the prime minister of Japan, and even snuck an Elvis bobblehead on the dashboard of his Bubble Ship in Oblivion (2013). In Magnolia , he’s bold about the Mackey/Presley connection, continually poaching Elvis’s windmilling arm swing to rally his crowd. (His swagger barely changed when Cruise played actual rock star Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages [2012], though instead of drowning in hate, he’s drowning in drugs.) The crowd hoots and hollers like they’re at a concert. Mackey isn’t giving a motivational speech, he’s giving a motivational performance.

And it’s all Cruise. Anderson thought T.J. Mackey was a nerd. He first wanted to dress Mackey in golf pants and polo shirts. Cruise asked him to reconsider. “I always saw him wearing an armband,” he insisted to Anderson, “those leather-wrist, masculine hero kind of things.” Cruise pointed to the script for backup: Mackey likens himself to a mythic figure, a modern day Batman and Superman. “I was just on it with the character,” said Cruise. “And Paul trusted that.” Convinced, Anderson allowed Cruise to transform the character from a cruel geek to a strutting, vest-wearing rock star. He’s even visibly vain — when the spotlights hit Mackey’s face, they highlight lavender circles of makeup under his eyes.

The golf pants had come from T.J. Mackey’s real-world inspiration: seduction Svengali Ross Jeffries, a former paralegal. (Which might be why men trusted him — in reality, wouldn’t Mackey’s paying fans wonder if his pickup secret was, well, looking like Tom Cruise?) Jeffries’s seminar series launched the pickup artist into the popular culture, and he took a trademark attorney along to Magnolia in case he had a lawsuit. “He lifted some stuff almost word for word,” Jeffries complained, but ultimately decided he liked the film so much he wouldn’t sue. (Not that he had much of a case.)

“What Tom Cruise doesn’t know is that he was playing a character that I created,” explained Jeffries. “I’m not Ross Jeffries — that’s a persona I put on in my seminars.” But Jeffries underestimates Cruise’s intelligent reading of T.J. Mackey. Cruise knew that Mackey knew his act is artificial. His smooth moves have the practiced look of a performer who’s done them hundreds of times in a hundred different hotel convention centers. Mackey is a self-made construct who comes to life only under the spotlight. Who naturally strides around with their arms akimbo and fists clenched to their hips? Underscoring Mackey’s control over his artificial persona, after the one-two disasters of his interview with Gwenovier and the news of [his] father’s imminent death, Cruise shows us how he switches back into character onstage as easily as putting on a mask.

However, during his final lecture (“How to fake like you are nice and caring” — ironic, as Mackey really fakes being a jerk), it’s hard to tell if — or when — Mackey strays off script. “Men are shit!” he yells, “We do horrible, heinous, terrible things!” That sounds like Mackey, but Cruise’s movements get crisper and angrier until the film audience alone — his in-person audience never suspects — spot the seething hate and pain. Cruise’s jaw twitches, his voice builds, and when he yells, “I will not apologize for who I am,” Cruise makes it deliberately hard to tell if he’s talking to the crowd or himself. Mackey claims he can control a woman’s mind, but can he even control his own emotions?

Cruise and Anderson couldn’t figure out how to cap his mini-meltdown. “We had tried ending the scene a couple of different ways,” said Cruise. With Anderson and the crew watching, the actor paced as he tried to seize upon an idea. “I went over [to] the table on stage for a second, it was in the take, just at the end of it, and I just really wanted to throw the table,” recalled Cruise. “I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t really make a huge move to it, but he came up to me right afterward, and he just walked over to the table and put his hand on it and sort of tapped it a little bit as if to say, ‘It’s okay, let’s do it.’” But the masterstroke is that flipping the table doesn’t end the scene. Instead, Cruise has Mackey immediately wrenching control of himself to snap back into his own character, ordering the crowd to open their white books before they clue into the emotions churning underneath his smooth surface.

Fathers and Sons

Cruise has played Mackey loud and he’s played Mackey quiet. But he doesn’t show us the real Mackey until he visits his dying father, played by Jason Robards. Again, Cruise added his own input to the original text and convinced Anderson to cut back on the sentiment. “In the script, it said, ‘He gets to the door and he breaks down,’” noted Cruise. “And I said, ‘Look, I don’t feel that.’” Instead, when he gets to his parents’ house, Cruise can’t even be seen — he’s fully blocked by the door itself. The audience hears only his voice as he falls back on the trick he tried on Gwenovier: gaining control by demanding obedience. “I want you to come in with me, and I want you to stay away from me,” he orders his father’s nurse, warning that he’ll drop-kick the dogs if they come too close. (“I was looking for a way to make this guy human,” joked Cruise. “I thought it was funny that he was afraid of dogs.”)

“I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got to the house,” admitted Cruise. Was Mackey going to rage against his father, or crumple like a child? He does both. In a bravura single-take shot with Robards supine at the front of the frame and Hoffman, small and out of focus, watching from behind, Cruise enters the scene and stalks up to his father with exaggerated cheer. He reverts into his offensive position — the hands-on-hips macho stage pose — but Cruise lets his nerves slip: he’s breathing too heavy, baring his teeth, and tapping his foot loudly just out of frame. Then the hurt rolls in like a fog. Cruise puts his superhuman body control to work. His lips purse; he shakes imperceptibly and clasps his hands together so hard that the knuckles turn white. Just as he vows, “I am not going to cry,” Cruise tilts his head to the ceiling, perfectly placed so the light catches a tear seconds before it spills across his face. As he collapses into sobs, a vein pops in his forehead, his face turns painfully red, and by the time he hollers, “Don’t go away, you fucking asshole!” Cruise is heaving like a hurt animal. The whole arc happens in just under two minutes, and it’s arguably the best two minutes of acting in Cruise’s career.

“The whole time with the character, I was skating on the edge,” acknowledged Cruise. The personal parallels between him and Mackey were closer than he cared to admit. In a strikingly candid 1992 interview with GQ , Cruise described his final moments with his father and presaged the same struggles Mackey would face seven years later. “When people can’t forgive someone, my question always is, ‘What have you done in your life that you can’t forgive this other person?’” asked Cruise. “The things you’ve got to take responsibility for in your life, it makes forgiveness quite easy. And it also brought me a lot of understanding about him and the pain he was in.”

But by the time Magnolia earned him his third Academy Award nomination, Cruise had clammed up about his father. Back on the awards circuit, and this time all but certain that the Oscar was his, he wanted to build protective distance between himself and the script. And why risk voters thinking he wasn’t really “acting”?

Again, Cruise lost. He’d ripped his life open for a tightly crafted, stunningly raw performance. And it still wasn’t enough. Cruise was done chasing Oscars — now it was time to have fun.

Amy Nicholson ( @TheAmyNicholson ) is the chief film critic for LA Weekly and author of Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor .

Illustration by Alex Robbins.

Filed Under: Movies , Tom Cruise , Paul Thomas anderson , Magnolia , Nicole Kidman , Stanley Kubrick , Tom Cruise Week

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#69 Best Movies of the '90s
"'Magnolia' is operatic in its ambition, a great, joyous leap into melodrama and coincidence (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)" Roger Ebert : rogerebert.com
"'Magnolia' is a remarkably inventive and audacious film that almost overcomes its flaws." Emanuel Levy : Variety
ne of the best movies of the year — startling, innovative, hugely funny and powerfully, courageously moving Peter Travers : Rolling Stone
"The more you think about Magnolia -- the dry wit, the bravura staging, the intricate design, the wondrous performances -- the better and more unusual the film seems." Michael Wilmington : Chicago Tribune
"The most imperfect of the year's best movies, Magnolia's flaws are easily forgiven because they are the result of go-for-broke ambition" Mike Clark : USA Today
"An impressive piece of work with some fine acting that makes holding our interest for three-plus hours seem easy." Kenneth Turan : Los Angeles Times
"With Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson establishes himself as one of the most exciting and distinctive directors around." Peter Bradshaw : The Guardian
"Over-ambitious, self-conscious, self-indulgent, self-important and clumsy into the bargain. But it's also one of the most enthralling and exhilarating American movies in ages" Derek Adams : Time Out
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Magnolia Ending, Explained

I was in my late teens when I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Magnolia’ (1999) for the first time. Bits and pieces of how I felt afterward still remain with me. I remember initially feeling exasperated with the 180-minute runtime, but once the film started, I didn’t even notice how fast the time went by. When the credits started rolling, I recall feeling this deep sense of happiness though I can’t explain why. Rewatching the film after all these years is a wonderfully perplexing experience.

On one hand, some of the old memories of the film came rushing back. On the other hand, it felt like I am meeting a friend after a long time. In the intermediate period, we both have changed, even though it’s just my perspective that has changed. However, that ending of ‘Magnolia’ remains as perfect a combination of absurdity and meaningfulness as ever. Here is what you need to know about it. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Magnolia Plot Synopsis

‘Magnolia’ is filled with imperfect characters — social outcasts who are desperately trying to find some semblance of happiness in their lives. It’s a story about the duality of things and how that affects an individual: from love to indifference, from self-destruction to kindness, and from grief to catharsis. Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) has been the host of the immensely popular game show ‘What Do Kids Know?’ for the past three decades. He has recently been diagnosed with cancer. Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) is the latest young star of the show, who seems to know answers to virtually everything.

Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) is a former champion of ‘What Do Kids Know?’. Life hasn’t turned out for him the way he would have liked. His parents burned through his winnings. Hoping to recapture some of his past glory, Donnie continues to refer to himself as the “Quiz Kid.” Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is also dying of cancer and tells his nurse, Phil Parma ( Philip Seymour Hoffman ), that he wants to see his estranged son, Jack, who is now known as Frank Mackey ( Tom Cruise ), a successful motivational speaker who gives tips to his eager, testosterone-driven audience on how to dominate women.

Meanwhile, Earl’s second wife Linda (Julianne Moore) doesn’t know how to deal with Earl’s impending death. She married him for money but then fell in love with him. Now that Earl is dying, her world is falling apart around her. Claudia (Melora Walters) has substance abuse issues, while Officer Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly) knows that he is a laughing stock at the station. These two individuals meet when Jim answers a call about noise nuisance. The two painfully lonely people discover that they, too, can find love and be happy.

Magnolia Ending: What Do the Frogs Mean at the End?

‘Magnolia’ has one of the most unique, highly debated, and somewhat abrupt endings of all time. After all characters arrive at the concluding chapter of their respective stories, the sky opens up, and frogs start falling. That scene is very Biblical, and Anderson leaves clues about it scattered throughout the film. In the Old Testament, God instructs Moses to deliver a message to the Pharaoh, “And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs.” (Exodus 8:2).

Anderson makes multiple references to the passage in the film. The real question here is that whether the director wants to suddenly invoke theology in a film that has been largely secular up until that point. In the Old Testament, God brings the rain of the frogs to punish the Egyptians for the ill-treatment of His people. As one of the film’s main themes is child exploitation, it can potentially be argued that God unleashes His wrath to bring justice back into the world.

However, that understanding of the ending does seem limited, and divine intervention feels like a cop-out for such a candid depiction of the human condition. Instead, we should focus on something that Stanley says while the quasi-apocalyptic event is taking place. He stares through the window of his home and observes that this is something that happens. Frog rains might be rare occurrences, and they might be an extraordinary and terrifying sight to behold, but they are not unprecedented and, more importantly, not unnatural.

It’s an effective and eye-popping method to draw the audience’s attention to the final few moments when the characters demonstrate their greatest selves. Jim takes control of his despair and saves Donnie, becoming the man he has always wanted to be. After finding out horrifying truths about her husband, Rose leaves him and reunites with her daughter. After freeing his brilliant mind from his father’s exploitation, Stanley asks to be treated better.

Before Earl succumbs to his illness, Frank seems to forgive his father for abandoning him and his mother and breaks down crying. The film makes it a point to let the audience know that nothing is a coincidence, and everything is connected. Why should the frog rain be an exception? It serves as a catalyst for a new beginning for most of the characters. They have left their doubts and guilt behind and are ready to be happy.

Why Does Claudia Smile at the End?

For the first time in a long time, Claudia is truly happy. She has reunited with her mother and likely has learned that Rose has left Jimmy. A victim of sexual abuse, Claudia has led a troubled and lonely life. As her father seems to deny vehemently that he ever touched her, Claudia likely has experienced doubt and shame. In the film’s final scenes, when Jim comes and tells her that he will be there for her, Claudia has already started to heal. With Jim’s presence in her life, she will have someone who is equally imperfect but kind and loving. Filled with hope for the future, she smiles.

What Happened to Jimmy Gator? Did He Molest His Daughter?

Jimmy has led the life of a celebrity for decades. He has been married for 40 years and cheated on his wife Rose multiple times. When he gets the terminal cancer diagnosis, he becomes adamant about continuing to work until he can’t. However, the end of his career arrives sooner than he expected due to a disastrous episode.

Rose leaves him after realizing a horrifying truth about him. He is alone at his home when the frog rain begins. He prepares to shoot himself when a frog falls through the skylight of his home and hits him. Jimmy gets knocked out, and the trajectory of the bullet changes, destroying the TV. The resulting sparks set the house on fire. It’s unlikely that Jimmy will survive this. While the frog rain brings positive changes in other characters’ lives, Jimmy gets his comeuppance.

Yes, Jimmy molested his daughter. After returning home from the set, he tries to confess to his wife about his infidelity, hoping to free his conscience of any guilt and knowing that she is likely aware of it. But then, Rose proceeds to ask him why Claudia doesn’t want to talk to him, and he is forced to admit that Claudia thinks that he molested her. Although he claims that he doesn’t remember it, Rose seems to easily see through that lie and immediately leaves to find her daughter.

How is Everyone Connected in Magnolia?

As mentioned above, the film enunciates the fact that its characters are interconnected. Earl is a producer on Jimmy’s show, where Stanley is currently the star. Donnie used to be in the same position Stanley is now, a bright child whose brilliance and future are being exploited by their parent(s). Jimmy and Rose are Claudia’s parents, whereas Frank is Earl’s estranged son with his late first wife. Phil is Earl’s nurse, assigned to take care of him in the final days of his life. And Linda is Earl’s second wife and Frank’s stepmother.

Jim becomes romantically interested in Claudia after meeting her. During the frog rain, he saves Donnie’s life and later helps him put the money back into Donnie’s boss’ locker. Overwhelmed by her circumstances and grief, Linda tries to kill herself by taking prescription meds with alcohol, but a young boy finds her. Although he robs her, he doesn’t forget to call the first responders, saving her life. This is Dixon, the boy that Jim meets early in the film.

What is the Significance of the Title?

Like everything else with this movie, the title refers to its complexity and depth. Magnolia is a flower known for its vivid beauty. In the film, each petal of Magnolia signifies a character, and the flower as a whole represents how they and their stories are connected. Furthermore, the film is predominantly set on a San Fernando Valley Street called Magnolia Boulevard, and Anderson apparently discovered that it was believed that Magnolia bark could be used in cancer treatment. Because of all this, the film was named ‘Magnolia.’

Read More: Best Paul Thomas Anderson Movies

Magnolia streaming: where to watch online?

Currently you are able to watch "Magnolia" streaming on fuboTV, Paramount Plus, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Showtime Roku Premium Channel, Showtime, Showtime Apple TV Channel. It is also possible to buy "Magnolia" on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, AMC on Demand as download or rent it on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store online.

Can I watch Magnolia in theaters?

Yes! You can get tickets to see Magnolia in theaters in the United States right now. Tickets are available on Atom Tickets.

Where does Magnolia rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Streaming charts last updated: 9:22:31 PM, 05/02/2024

Magnolia is 297 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved down the charts by -58 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Blended but less popular than Ran.

An epic mosaic of many interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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Cast & Crew
78 Metascore
3 hr 8 mins

In this ensemble drama about the intersecting lives of troubled Californians, a dying mogul tries to reunite with his motivational-speaker son, a young quiz-show winner deals with his father's abuse and a drug addict falls for a lonely cop.

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2:45 Magnolia

2000 - Writers Guild Awards - Original Screenplay - nominated
2000 - Critics' Choice Awards - Best Picture - nominated
2000 - Berlin Film Festival - Golden Bear - winner
2000 - Golden Globe - Best Original Song - Motion Picture - nominated

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Frank T.J. Mackey

Melinda Dillon

Philip Seymour Hoffman

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Magnolia (Trailer 1)

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Branching Out

Article 370.

Wicked Little Letters

It Happened One Night

Meet Pickup Artist Ross Jeffries, The Inspiration For Tom Cruise’s Character In ‘Magnolia’

I called the hotline number that fed to Ross Jeffries’ Speed Seduction system, and the irony of the situation quickly dawned on me. Here I was scrambling to get in contact with the man who inspired Tom Cruise’s pick-up-artist/self-help guru character in Magnolia , and I was attempting to do so in the same exact way Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character did in the film. The only difference was that Hoffman was able to use the tactic to get in touch with Cruise’s Frank Mackie (granted, it was a life or death situation), while I only received an email address that could have been quickly ascertained had I committed to more internet research. (Perhaps I should have mentioned to the lovely telemarketer that Jeffries’ father’s condition was dire, and one of his last wishes was to speak to his son?)

By the tone and inflection of the woman’s voice — “He gets A LOT of emails” — I figured my correspondence would get lost in the shuffle of men scratching at his digital door begging for the secrets of sensuality to be slid underneath. Can I SEDUCE you into an interview with a very popular website? read the subject line. Send. (I decided to continue writing this piece with the hopes that Jeffries would get back to me but also with the awareness that he might not.)

One of the best parts of Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic drama, Magnolia , is Tom Cruise’s performance as Frank T.J. Mackie. In fact, it’s one of Cruise’s best performances, period. If you haven’t see the film, then take a gander at the video below (if you’re into drum and bass music, you’ll appreciate this even more ), which is the most profane Cruise has ever been with exception to Tropic Thunder.

Anderson was on Marc Maron’s latest WTF podcast , and during the discussion of Magnolia , the auteur dropped a little gem acknowledging Ross Jeffries as the inspiration for Cruise’s Oscar-nominated role. Mackie is one of Anderson’s most charismatic and engrossing characters, but who is this Ross Jeffries guy?

Jeffries website, Seduction.com, houses a short bio on him :

Ross Jeffries is the founder, creator and Master Teacher of the worldwide seduction community. Featured as the mentor to Neil Strauss in the best selling book, “The Game,” RJ has taught, coached, and mentored thousands of men around the world, since 1991, guiding them to the success with women they truly desire and deserve.

After a brief perusal of his blog headlines, this man’s function in society began to come into focus even more:

“Bring In 2015 With A Bang (Literally)”

“Touching Technique That Drives Her Crazy”

“I’m A Perpetual Mental Masturbator”

At the center of Jeffries’ Seduction website is the Speed Seduction system, which claims to be the “Fastest And Easiest Pathway To Rapid Success, With The Women You Truly Desire!” The basis of the program is something called NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. If you take a stroll through the vegetation of various definitions of NLP, you’ll come across definitions like this one from NLP University :

(NLP) is a pragmatic school of thought – an ‘epistemology’ – that addresses the many levels involved in being human. NLP is a multi-dimensional process that involves the development of behavioral competence and flexibility, but also involves strategic thinking and an understanding of the mental and cognitive processes behind behavior.

A more distilled definition of NLP brings us to a system that is based on cognitive and behavioral processes, one that allows you (I’m trying to not use the word “brainwash”) to inundate yourself with proven abilities of success while also instilling influence into others through the use of “linguistic patterns.” Here’s Jeffries discussing putting his program to use back in the early stages of his career.

(It was at this point in the writing process that my phone rang — a Beverly Hills number. To stay ahead of bill collectors I usually screen my calls. But, this was Beverly Hills, and I’m a fame whore. So I picked it up.)

“Ross Jeffries doesn’t exist,” the voice said.

I was taken aback.

The man on the phone identified himself as Paul Ross. No, he was not Ross Jeffries, but he knew so much about the man. Were they related? Did they work together?

“Ross Jeffries was a character I created,” Ross explained. “A loudmouth, obnoxious, larger than life, sort of a bit of a showman to get the message out there, to be a loud mouthpiece. That character doesn’t really meld with who I am today.”

I felt like I had unplugged from the matrix. Everything that I had learned in the past hour or two was a lie. I wasn’t even sure if the office I was typing this piece in was made of four walls and a roof or just a sequence of numbers.

“Here’s the interesting thing: Paul Thomas Anderson thought that they were going to portray a real person,” Ross told me. “They didn’t realize they were portraying a character created by an actor. Tom Cruise didn’t realize that he was studying a character. He thought he was studying a person. He created a character based on a character. Very few people know this.”

If Ross Jeffries “doesn’t exist,” then how about his teachings? We’re they, like Jeffries, just a facade?

“That’s still there, that’s still valid. There’s just no Ross Jeffries,” Ross said. “There’s no Santa Claus (laughing). As I’ve grown as a person, that character (who) would bang every girl in sight — it doesn’t really fit who I’ve grown to be as a human.”

Indeed, Jeffries doesn’t exist; even his Twitter account is an extension of his character. His friend Tania Raymonde was an actor on LOST for several seasons, and he said he regularly discusses with her the intricacies of playing a role. “The entire craft of acting is a fascinating thing. It fascinates me.”

Paul is a practicing Buddhist now. He’s changed the direction of his NLP programs to focus more on business, wealth, and overcoming traumatic experiences. It’s not just about getting laid anymore.

“I’ve never expressed hatred towards woman,” Ross said. “I no longer hate anyone. That part has been burned out by my Buddhist practice. I don’t deny gender differences, either. You can call me anything. Names don’t bother me anymore.”

Ross didn’t have the time, nor did it seem like he cared to explore in detail with me, the exact machinations behind his change in philosophy, but it was clear he was no longer wholeheartedly in the seduction business. “I don’t want to promote Seduction.com,” he said. “This is not what you expected, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” I replied.

As for Cruise’s portrayal of his character in Magnolia — did they get it right?

“Mackie is more manic. Mackie is far more misogynistic. He’s basically taking stuff from where I was in 1998,” Ross explained. “He’s also much shorter than I am. Remember when Mackie had the audience take out their calendars? I didn’t actually give them physical calendars, but I did have them say ‘By the 5th of May I’ll be having my way. By the 8th of June I’ll have their poon.’ That kind of rhyming stuff I got from Muhammed Ali.”

Paul Ross is continuing to use the name Ross Jeffries, because it’s “a brand,” but even though the focus of his seminars and programs have shifted more towards the arena of self-improvement, he’s not altogether abandoning his role as seduction guru.

“I’m temporarily stepping back from it so I can find a better way to teach it. I’m not getting out of it completely.”

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Tom Cruise’s ‘Magnolia’ Performance Will Never Not Make Me Cry

photo illustration of Tom Cruise in MAGNOLIA pink background

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These days, we’re much more likely to see Tom Cruise jumping out of a plane than we are jumping into an under-the-radar, daring drama. And that’s just fine! The Mission: Impossible movies only seem to get better with each new installment (I’m legitimately counting down the days till Fallout ), and Cruise is the biggest movie star in the world for a reason – he’s damn good at it. He’s an All-American hero (well, if you don’t think about all that Scientology stuff ), a guy we can all get behind. We want to see him beat the bad guys and flash that winning smile, because he’s Tom Cruise, goddamnit, and that’s what he was born to do. Before his résumé was mostly action fare and sequels, however, Cruise appeared in a wide variety of films, from Born on the Fourth of July and A Few Good Men to Jerry Maguire and Eyes Wide Shut . All these films (and many more) have established him as one of our most versatile working actors (though we’re wont to forget this nowadays), but there’s one Tom Cruise movie I’ll never be able to shake: Magnolia . On his 56th birthday, we’re looking back at his most devastating role.

Putting the fact that Magnolia is one of my favorite films of all time aside, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better Tom Cruise performance anywhere else. It may seem like an impossible mission to pick a “best” Cruise performance, and this isn’t discounting the incredible work he’s done elsewhere. But Frank “T.J.” Mackey is in an entirely different league from any other character Cruise has ever played. This miracle of a performance exists because of the perfect marriage of Cruise’s talent and willingness to go there and writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson. Mackey is a crass monster, a man whose entire brand is built on treating women like sex toys. When he struts across that stage and demands that we “RESPECT THE COCK!”, it’s difficult not to immediately despise him – but that twisted charisma makes it impossible to look away. We know he can’t be entirely rotten to his core, but is there anyone worth redeeming beneath it all? Over the film’s three hours, we chip away at his thorny exterior until we finally reach the trembling boy inside – and there’s nothing quite like the catharsis that ensues.

Magnolia offers us a glimpse into Cruise’s vast emotional spectrum; from the clownish, loathsome man riding high on stage to the angry, petulant child caught off-guard during his interview, we see his highs and lows, his fears, his rage. These libido-fueled moments may act as a testament to Cruise’s versatility, but the real magic happens when he finally confronts the father who abandoned him. Every inhale feels totally honest, and it’s likely because it was: Cruise reportedly drew from his own experience with his father for the scene. I’ve watched the scene dozens of times, and I catch something new with every viewing. The first part of his monologue is all in one take, and the steady rise in tension is nearly unbearable.

“I’m not gonna cry,” he spits out, but his words have already betrayed him – two tears roll down his cheek. It’s when my own tears begin to flow, too, without fail, every single damn time. We’ve spent over two hours hating this man and all that he stands for, but in that moment, and in the complete, full-body sobs that follow, he’s just as vulnerable and devastated as the rest of us, navigating this impossible scenario the best way he can. Cruise goes to a place that few actors might ever dare, reaches deep into his soul to find heartache and resentment and agony that many of us likely can’t fathom.

Tom Cruise may be able to pull off death-defying stunts better than anyone else out there, but he’s accomplished no greater feat than that of Magnolia , a true spectacle of emotional proportions. Frank “T.J.” Mackey is more impressive than scaling any skyscraper or hanging off the side of a plane, because in the end, Cruise does the impossible: he makes us feel for someone we want to see fail. And that’s a mission most would never accept.

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Tom Cruise rewatch: Shining from the sidelines in Magnolia and Tropic Thunder

Sometimes, the star is at his best when he's not the main event.

Ahead of this Friday's release of Top Gun: Maverick , our writers return to their favorite Tom Cruise movies, in appreciation of an on-screen persona that's evolved over decades.

People like to say that true movie stars — or at least the vanishing few who can still wear that title in 2022 — essentially always play themselves on screen. And they're right of course, to a point: At a certain Mt. Rushmore level of fame, the X-factor presence of a star operating at full wattage can eclipse just about any role or franchise.

Which makes it feel like an almost transgressive thrill when someone like Tom Cruise shows up in project that is not billed, per se, as Tom Cruise movie. There are at least two great examples of that (though they'll probably never appear together on a double bill, unless it's wild-card night at a Cruise Completist festival). The first is Magnolia , the three-hour Paul Thomas Anderson opus released in 1999, in which the actor played a spectacularly toxic sex guru named Frank "T.J." Mackey; the second is his deft turn in the giddy 2008 film-industry farce Tropic Thunder as Les Grossman, a Hollywood mogul whose love languages are rage and Flo Rida .

As diametrically opposed as these two roles are in nearly everything from tone to hairline, they both tap into something intrinsically, ineffably Cruise: the actor's trademark intensity, a trait so inborn that "turned to 11" seems to be his default setting. (Even as a Ray-Banned prep schooler or a moonlighting bartender , his performances tend to vibrate at a frequency best described as code red; do you really think he'd sign up for any mission if it were just... medium possible?)

In the sprawling interconnected storylines of Magnolia , which take place largely over the course of a single day in Los Angeles, Mackey is a very specific kind of motivational speaker, a rabid cad in a half-ponytail selling snake-oil sexuality to a Marriott ballroom of single men eager to absorb his patented Seduce and Destroy pickup system. (Anderson was inspired, reportedly, by O.G. Game guy Ross Jeffries .) Entering triumphant to the crashing strains of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," T.J. is incel energy personified, screaming "Respect the cock! And taaaame the c---!" like both his life and his spotlight in a Tucker Carlson infomercial for manhood depended on it.

But of course, there's an ocean of hurt lurking beneath that glossy leather vest: Mackey's estranged power-player father (Jason Robards) abandoned the family decades ago, and left his teenage son to nurse his own mother through a terrible, fatal cancer. Now, T.J. will have his revenge on the half of the population he can't call "Daddy," and in a seething scene with a Black female reporter (April Grace), his aggressive exuberance devolves into real, messy fury. All those signature Tom charms — the swoop of hair, the can-do grin — have been weaponized, metastasized.

Magnolia , if the Aimee Mann singalongs and raining frogs hadn't already tipped you off, is not a subtle movie. Its emotions run high and hot, and even Cruise eventually falls prey to the melodrama in a sobbing, furious bedside reunion with Robards . Still, he's electric in the part, a deeply damaged man so determined to master the universe — to penetrate it, if you will — that he hasn't truly looked in the mirror in years. The novelty in hearing a star of Cruise's toothy, clean-scrubbed magnitude scream the C-word wears off eventually; the pain and mania behind it stays.

It's also a little bit disconcerting how physically gorgeous he still is, hotel-samurai ponytail aside. But if you feel uncomfortable finding him attractive as a cross between Caligula and Tony Robbins, there's a cure for that: Thunder 's Grossman, the bald, bespectacled studio chief with forearms the size of ham hocks and the core personality traits of an irate water buffalo. (He, too, is said to be based on a real-life character, in this case famed Die Hard producer Joel Silver .) While the cast of a fictional film-within-a-film that includes Ben Stiller (who also directed and cowrote the script) and Robert Downey Jr. in blackface (listen, kids, it was 2008) watches their shoot in a remote jungle go spectacularly awry, Les is the guy back in L.A. playing hardball.

Does he negotiate with terrorists, even when they're holding one of his biggest stars for ransom? Les doesn't play that . Will he shout down Matthew McConaughey 's mercenary agent until he gets him to trade the life of his prized client for a G5? Well, if he must. And does he dance on the graves of his enemies? Just watch him Dougie. Grossman is the monologue king, blithely inured to other human beings and their petty needs; mouths are moving, but only money really makes a sound. The churn of bumper-sticker quotables aside ("I'm talking scorched earth, mother-f---er, I will massacre you"; "That's physics, it's inevitable"), he's just a joy to watch: a giant ball of id barrelling down the lens, without explanation or apology. In these roles, one of the most famously controlled figures in show business seems to find his own sticky sweet spot: Give Cruise chaos, and set him free.

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Alden Ehrenreich Joins Josh Brolin and Julia Garner for Horror Movie That’s Tonally Inspired by One of the Best Tom Cruise Movies Ever Made

W hile Hollywood has several incredible horror features already, a yet-to-be-released horror movie promises no less than a thrilling horror experience by taping into the essence of Tom Cruise’s one of the most iconic movies. Directed, written, and co-produced by Zach Cregger, Weapons , is being described as tonally similar to Cruise’s 1999 drama film Magnolia .

Although, the movie’s prospects certainly seem high already, what makes it even more thrilling is that similar to Cruise’s epic, Weapons too appears to be eyeing an incredible cast. After roping in the likes of Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich is the newest edition to the cast.

Alden Ehrenreich Joins Josh Brolin-starrer Weapons

One would argue that Tom Cruise has been in several incredible movies, many of whom deserve a separate place in Hollywood’s Hall of Fame. Yet, Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson will forever have an individual fan base, not because of its ensemble cast, but because of its complex and interconnected narrative tying several storylines together.

And to have a horror flick made in a similar vein by an acclaimed director like Zach Cregger promises a chilling ride for the audience. After casting Josh Brolin and Julia Garner in unnamed roles, Alden Ehrenreich is the recent star to join the cast (via Deadline ).

“I was very much prepared for that”: Alden Ehrenreich’s Experience With Robert Downey Jr. Explains Why Tom Holland Calls Iron Man Star His Godfather

Ehrenreich is perhaps known best for starring as the young Han Solo in 2018’s not-so-well-received Han Solo: A Star Wars Story . After brief appearances in series like Supernatural and movies like Twixt , the actor most recently was in the news for his role in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning flick Oppenheimer and Netflix’s Fair Play . He is also slated to star in Marvel’s Ironheart in the lead.

Zach Cregger’s Weapons: All We Know About It

Zack Cregger’s first movie was Barbarian. Written and directed by him, the horror thriller went on to earn $45 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo ), against a budget of $4.5 million (via Vulture ). And so, just a year ago, the director had studios scrambling for his second feature, Weapons , despite nobody wanting to make his first film.

Alden Ehrenreich’s $393.1M Star Wars Flop Made Actor Nearly Quit Acting After Grim Reality Check

After a frenetic auction, Weapons was sold to New Line for a huge sum of $38 million, with Cregger getting $5 million for directing and $10 million for writing the script and co-producing along with his Barbarian producing team (via Deadline ).

Other than it being tonally inspired by Tom Cruise’s Magnolia , the details of the upcoming flick have been scarce. Cregger, in an interview in 2022 with GQ , did seem to hint that he had written Weapons keeping the end in mind for he had loved the ending.

Other than Josh Brolin , and upcoming Marvel stars Julia Garner and Alden Ehrenreich, no other cast members have been announced. The release date of the film is yet to be revealed.

Barbarian can be streamed on HBO Max.

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Warner Bros. Spends Big: ‘Joker 2’ Budget Hits $200 Million, Lady Gaga’s $12 Million Payday, Courting Tom Cruise’s New Deal and More

By Tatiana Siegel

Tatiana Siegel

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In January, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy jetted to London to connect with the new crown jewel of the studio, Tom Cruise . The three met to identify a film that would kick off their nonexclusive “strategic partnership.” Sources say a raft of possibilities were discussed, including an “Edge of Tomorrow” follow-up and Quentin Tarantino ’s “The Movie Critic,” which currently isn’t set up with a distributor and has Warner Bros., like every major studio, salivating.

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“The strategy at Warner Bros. right now and the reason they made some of these big star deals is they’re basically playing with other people’s money,” says one insider. “They’re shopping for Quentin or Cruise with the notion they can use it as a shiny object that is going to be additive when Zaslav sells the company.”

That time may be approaching. In April, Warner Bros. Discovery can entertain offers to buy, sell or merge with a studio like NBCUniversal, as many on the lot believe will happen. That’s when the two-year lock-up period expires as part of the 2022 deal that united WarnerMedia and Discovery. All of the recent moves, from a first-look pact with Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap to the quest to land Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” follow-up are akin to painting a house before it hits the market.

And this is one splashy renovation. The budget for Todd Phillips’ musical “Joker” sequel — one of De Luca and Abdy’s first green lights — has ballooned to about $200 million, a significant bump from the $60 million cost of the first film. Sources say Joaquin Phoenix is getting $20 million to reprise his role as the clown prince of crime, while Lady Gaga is taking home about $12 million to play Harley Quinn. “Joker” took in more than $1 billion, but musicals are tricky. Case in point: Warners lost $40 million on last year’s “The Color Purple,” according to sources. Though that one can be blamed on the previous regime.

Some argue that spending big is essential when releasing movies in theaters.

“There’s only so much top talent in Hollywood, and it’s very competitive and stretched thin because a lot of talent have deals in streaming,” says Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “If theatrical is going to work, you need the A-lister like Tom and Leo, and Warner Bros. is spending what they need to spend to keep this talent.”

But executives across town believe Warners’ math sometimes doesn’t add up, with the studio decried as fiscally irresponsible. The Anderson film, for instance, was greenlit with a $115 million budget, according to sources. Underscoring the gamble, none of the director’s movies has crossed $80 million at the box office. His latest, 2021’s “Licorice Pizza,” made $33 million worldwide. Even with Cruise’s star power, “Magnolia” only mustered $48.5 million. (It was De Luca, then a New Line exec, who convinced Cruise to play “Magnolia’s” misogynistic self-help guru.) The pair are said to be less pumped about another auteur’s latest: Bong Joon Ho ’s “Mickey 17.” In January, Warner Bros. pulled the $150 million Robert Pattinson sci-fi starrer from its schedule and then moved it to 2025. A Warner rep insists: “There is, of course, enthusiasm for it.”

As merger mania draws near, De Luca and Abdy seem unwilling to push back on talent asks. But apparently they did just that during the Coogler-Jordan negotiations. The director and star wanted 25% of first-dollar gross to split and two guaranteed theatrical release slots for future films. Both deal points were nixed.

Despite the pressure to acquiesce to demands from top talent, De Luca and Abdy can still say no.

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Official Trailer
Theatrical trailer of "Magnolia" by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Pat Healy, Genevieve Zw...
Magnolia (1999)
About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright ...
Magnolia (1999) Official Trailer #1
Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6hSubscribe to COMING SOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUnSubscribe to CLASSIC TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u43jDeLike us on FACEB...
Magnolia (1999)
Magnolia: Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. With Pat Healy, Genevieve Zweig, Mark Flanagan, Neil Flynn. An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.
Magnolia (film)
Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, directed and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson.It stars an ensemble cast, including Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards (in his final film role) and Melora Walters.
Magnolia
Tom Cruise gives one of the most talked about and celebrated performances of his career in Magnolia. Now on Netflix.
Magnolia movie review & film summary (1999)
Paul Thomas Anderson. "Magnolia" is a film of sadness and loss, of lifelong bitterness, of children harmed and adults destroying themselves. As the narrator tells us near the end, "We may be through with the past, but the past is never through with us." In this wreckage of lifetimes, there are two figures, a policeman and a nurse, who do what ...
Magnolia
100 Best Free Movies on YouTube (May 2024) Link to 100 Best Free Movies on YouTube (May 2024) ... William H. Macy as Quiz Kid Donny Smith in New Line's Magnolia Tom Cruise and Jason Robards in New ...
Magnolia (1999)
This psychological drama leads you in several different directions, weaving and intersecting various subplots and characters, from a brilliant Tom Cruise (who was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe), as a self-proclaimed pied-piper, to a child forced to go on a TV game show and the pressures he faces from a ruthless father.
The Real-Life Inspiration Behind Tom Cruise's Character In Magnolia
Tom Cruise has quite an impressive body of work and while it's difficult for some to pick a career-best performance from the actor, I would choose one without hesitation: Frank T.J. Mackey in ...
Fifteen Years Later: Tom Cruise and 'Magnolia'
A late-night horror movie host who went by "Ghoulardi," Mr. Anderson purchased a Betamax video camera for his son when the boy was twelve, launching the director on his path. Cruise understood. He, too, had lost his father early. But in truth he'd lost his dad — and namesake — Thomas Cruise Mapother III years before.
Magnolia
Watch the official trailer of Magnolia, a 1999 drama film by Paul Thomas Anderson, featuring an ensemble cast of Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Jason Robards and more. Explore the lives of nine ...
Magnolia (1999)
Magnolia is a film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson with Tom Cruise, John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Julianne Moore .... Year: 1999. Original title: Magnolia. Synopsis: In a single day in Los Angeles, a number of interconnected lives are changed forever. A lonely police officer (John C. Reilly) falls in love with a disturbed cocaine addict (Melora Walters).
Magnolia Ending, Explained: What Do the Frogs Mean at the End?
I was in my late teens when I saw Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Magnolia' (1999) for the first time. Bits and pieces of how I felt afterward still remain with me. I remember initially feeling exasperated with the 180-minute runtime, but once the film started, I didn't even notice how fast the time went by. When […]
Magnolia streaming: where to watch movie online?
Currently you are able to watch "Magnolia" streaming on fuboTV, Paramount Plus, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Showtime Roku Premium Channel, Showtime, Showtime Apple TV Channel. It is also possible to buy "Magnolia" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, AMC on Demand as ...
Magnolia
1999. 3 hr 8 mins. Drama. R. Watchlist. In this ensemble drama about the intersecting lives of troubled Californians, a dying mogul tries to reunite with his motivational-speaker son, a young quiz ...
Ross Jeffries Inspired Tom Cruise's Character In 'Magnolia'
Here I was scrambling to get in contact with the man who inspired Tom Cruise's pick-up-artist/self-help guru character in Magnolia, and I was attempting to do so in the same exact way Philip ...
Tom Cruise's 'Magnolia' Performance Will Never Not Make Me Cry
Tom Cruise may be able to pull off death-defying stunts better than anyone else out there, but he's accomplished no greater feat than that of Magnolia, a true spectacle of emotional proportions ...
The Magic of 'Magnolia'
Join our WBAM Familia on Patreon - just $5/month:https://www.patreon.com/WeBoughtAMic/Magnolia (1999) is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and fea...
Tom Cruise shines from the sidelines in Magnolia and Tropic Thunder
Tom Cruise rewatch: Shining from the sidelines in. Magnolia. and. Tropic Thunder. Sometimes, the star is at his best when he's not the main event. By. Leah Greenblatt. Published on May 25, 2022 05 ...
Watch Magnolia
Magnolia. This sprawling character study follows 10 people whose damaged lives intersect--often by sheer coincidence--during a single day in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. The price before discount is the median price for the last 90 days. Rentals include 30 days to start watching this video and 48 hours to finish once started.
Prime Video: Magnolia (1999)
Magnolia (1999) This sprawling character study follows 10 people whose damaged lives intersect--often by sheer coincidence--during a single day in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. IMDb 8.0 3 h 8 min 2000. R. Drama · Emotional · Cerebral · Serious. This video is currently unavailable. to watch in your location.
Tom Cruise in Magnolia
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Alden Ehrenreich Joins Josh Brolin-starrer Weapons
Other than it being tonally inspired by Tom Cruise's Magnolia, the details of the upcoming flick have been scarce.Cregger, in an interview in 2022 with GQ, did seem to hint that he had written ...
Warner. Bros Spending Spree: Joker 2 $200 Million Budget, Tom Cruise Deal
Even with Cruise's star power, "Magnolia" only mustered $48.5 million. (It was De Luca, then a New Line exec, who convinced Cruise to play "Magnolia's" misogynistic self-help guru.)

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