Newest:

• From Erik Arneson: "I'm not sure how these fit in with the other references, but there are a few very blatant pieces of Freemasonic symbolism in 'Magnolia.' The first is right before the start of the game show, when the game show host with cancer is about to walk onto the stage, his buddy places his hand on the host's shoulder and said "We met upon the level and part upon the square." (Or something very similar to this.) This is a traditional Masonic salutation/farewell. In addition, he's wearing a Masonic ring on his left pinkie finger (it's got the Masonic square & compasses on it if you look closely). It basically means this: "Meet upon the level" means that no matter what your station in life, as a Mason every man is considered a brother or an equal. "Part upon the square" means that your dealings with the other person have been honest, true, and virtuous, and nothing bad has really remains between you. When I heard it, it made me feel that they both knew the host was going to die soon, and that those two considered any business between them properly fulfilled. The second reference is on the large blue decorated panels behind the game show contestants. One of the panels is decorated with a compass and laurel leaves. This is almost identical to the badge worn by a Past Master of a Masonic lodge, and could even be the symbol of a clandestine Masonic order. I'm not sure. I don't know how this all ties in with the rest of the movie, but as a Freemason, I thought it was really cool."
• Gilbert checks in with some more biblical 'Magnolia' weirdness: "During the scene in which Wm. H. Macy is throwing up, I heard him mumble something about "sins of the father" and Psalms, so I pulled out the ol' Gideon King James and looked up Psalms 8:2. "Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger." Ties in nicely with the title "What Do Kids Know." Also out of the mouths of babes: the kids' speech during the game show, the little kid who raps."

• "P.T. Anderson = 2 letters (pt) + 8 letters (anderson)." - Jasen

• "818-775-3993 was the A to Z pharmacy phone number as well as the phone number Phil first called looking for TJ Mackey.  Phil gave a second phone number (818 area code) for the Partridge residence when he called for the porno mags, but I screwed up when writing it down.... the prefix may be made up with 725, or perhaps 255, and then the rest should be 4424....  Incidentally, I got the Magnolia Shooting Script book, and there were DIFFERENT phone numbers in it. If you know someone who would like to call these, I would love to hear what's there. I've grown a bit chicken to call more numbers, to be honest. On page 34, when Phil calls looking for Frank, the number written is 509-9027 (presumably 818 area code, like in the film). On page 64, where Phil calls for the delivery, the number given is 818-753-0088.  Lastly, if anyone in CA would try calling the 877-TAME-HER number, I'd like to know if it's still going. I tried calling a week or two back, and it said this toll free number couldn't be reached from my area (Florida)." - Derek Miner

• "I love your Magnolia trivia page, but there's one thing that was a bit inaccurate. On the page, you imply that Jim Kurring's gun just fell from the sky at the end (after the rain of frogs). Actually, there is a short shot of Dixon running off with the gun right after Kurring loses it. I read the script recently, and yes, there is a cut shot of Dixon throwing the gun off a bridge after the rain of frogs, and it lands by Jim. This was obviously cut, but the shot of Dixon running off with the gun is still there."

• The recording at 1-800-TAME-HER has been changed from Tom Cruise's line: "Respect the cock... and tame the C*nt!" to the more tame sales pitch (wav) that Phil (Philip Hoffman) hears while on hold in the film.

• The apartment building across from Claudia's is #12601. If you leave the 2 and add the rest of the figures (1+6+1+0=8) you get and 8.

• Claudia snorts coke off of Aimee's "Im With Stupid" cd cover.

• There is a white frog figure on the right corner of the desk of the doctor who prescribes liquid morphine to Earl Partridge.

• "The theme you mention with the bell that's in Hard Eight and Boogie Nights is in the scene at the start where Sydney Barringer loads his father's shotgun. It's only for about three seconds." - Matt

• "Just to inform you, the repeated ringing bell score is heard in the third part of the opening scenes. It plays while the little boy is explaining when he saw Sydney Barringer load the shotgun - the tracking shot down the hallway into a close up of the boy."

• "I've recently listened to the secret message of one of Magnolia´s secret phone numbers... it´s the one where a woman says something like: 'Please leave a message after the tone.' I´m not sure, but her voice sounds a lot like Fiona Apple's.  (wav) It seems plausible, she being Anderson's girlfriend and all." - José

• "I also heard that Paul put Fiona in the movie and I think I saw her in the Audience at "What Do Kids Know?" right after the kid pissed his pants they do a pan of the audience and I saw a person that I could have sworn was Fiona in like the 5th row wearing dark brown, looking right at the camera."

• "Thanks for all the information you've collected on Magnolia, but there was one large error I caught on your site. Donnie Smith, after vomitting in the toilet, does not reference Exodus 8:2, but Exodus 20:5. Just thought you'd like to know."

Real-world contacts:

• WWW:

  • All of the following websites lead back to the official Magnolia site, and at least one appears in the film (www.wdkk.com, in the credits for the fictitious gameshow, 'What Do Kids Know?'). The other two domain names refer to the fictitious self-help program that Tom Cruise runs.

    • www.wdkk.com

    • www.tameher.com

    • www.seduceanddestroy.com

• Telephone:

  • There are at least two real phone numbers used within the film. The first is the number Frank Mackie (Tom Cruise) uses for his 'Seduce and Destroy' seminars: 1-877-TAME-HER. The other is a local California number (818 area code), I believe.

  • The recording at 1-800-TAME-HER has been changed from Tom Cruise's line: "Respect the c*ck... and tame the c*nt!" to the more tame sales pitch (wav) that Phil (Philip Hoffman) hears while on hold in the film.

  • "I've recently listened to the secret message of one of Magnolia's secret phone numbers... it's the one where a woman says something like: 'Please leave a message after the tone.' I'm not sure, but her voice sounds a lot like Fiona Apple's. It seems plausible, she being Anderson's girlfriend and all." - José

  • A recording of the female who might be Fiona Apple, taken from one of the Magnolia phone numbers, can be found here (via entertainmentwerks).

Music:

• The most interesting thing I noticed on second viewing was the fact that the music used to score the first of the three intro coincidences (The three hangings) is the little orchestral bit that occurs at 3:29 into the song 'On the Bound' from Fiona Apple's 'When the Pawn...' album. The bit in question lasts maybe a total of 5 seconds on the album.  In the film it's looped in an awkward-sounding sort of way. I was listening to the album minutes before leaving for the movie, otherwise I never would have noticed it.

• "I also heard that Paul put Fiona in the movie and I think I saw her in the Audience at "What Do Kids Know?" right after the kid pissed his pants they do a pan of the audience and I saw a person that I could have sworn was Fiona in like the 5th row wearing dark brown, looking right at the camera."

• In both of Anderson's previous features, an identical theme prominantly featuring a bell ringing has been used in the score. The theme appears in Magnolia during the scene in the intro where Sydney Barringer loads his father's shotgun. It only lasts for about three seconds.

• "Just to inform you, the repeated ringing bell score is heard in the third part of the opening scenes. It plays while the little boy is explaining when he saw Sydney Barringer load the shotgun - the tracking shot down the hallway into a close up of the boy."

• In her apartment, Claudia snorts coke off of Aimee's "I'm With Stupid" cd cover.

Some recurring themes:

• Within Magnolia:

  • The phrase "Go, go, go!" is uttered by almost every character in the film.

  • The phrase "It's raining cats and dogs (or some variation thereof)." is also repeated several times throughout the film.

• Between Anderson's Films:

  • One of Anderson's 'trademark' techniques is the use of a tracking shot that 'passes' the viewer's attention from one car/truck/ambulance to another.  It appears in Magnolia as Julianne Moore's character is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance and the viewer's attention is shifted to William H. Macy's character waiting in a nearby left turn lane.  The effect is used a bit more elaborately in 'Boogie Nights,' as three automobile-based parrallel action scenes converge in a busy intersection (The car-full of guys who beat up Dirk "hands off" the camera to the limo containing Jack Horner and Rollergirl, which wastes no time in passing Buck and his wife on their way to the donut shop, leaving the camera to follow them).

  • In P.T. Anderson's first feature - 'Hard Eight,' Samuel L. Jackson (Playing 'Jimmy') is talking to Philip Baker Hall (Playing 'Sydney'): "Oh, I know all those guys you hung out with: Floyd Gondolli, Jimmy Gator..." The joke here is that Philip Baker Hall would go on to play both Floyd Gondolli (in Boogie Nights) and Jimmy Gator (in Magnolia).

  • Boogie Nights veterans in Magnolia include: John C. Reilly, Melora Walters, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Ricky Jay, Robert Downey Sr., Thomas Jane, Veronica Hart, Patrick Warren, Alfred Molina and Luis Guzman.

Actors:

• Jimmy Gator's assistant Mary is played by Eileen Ryan who just happens to be an actress and the mother of Michael Penn.

• Rebecca Pidgeon, actress, and wife of David Mamet was offered the role of Jimmy Gator's mistress. She had to turn the role down due to her pregnancy and the mistress name is mentioned, but Paul decided not to cast the part.

• Mark Wahlberg was originally supposed to have a cameo in the Seduce and Destroy scenes but it did not work out. Here's the quote from Mark from the Toronto Sun: "There's no animosity between Paul and I," says Wahlberg, "We will work together again. He talked to me about playing a very small part in Magnolia. The hook was that I'd be able to kiss Tom Cruise."

• Thomas Jane (Boogie Nights' Todd Parker ) plays the young Jimmy Gator in a few still pictures and one very brief flashback scene with the young "Quiz Kid Donnie Smith".

• Porn actress Veronica Hart, plays one of the Dental Assistants when Donnie Smith visits the dentist.

Frogs and 82:

• Everyone who has seen the film knows about 'the frogs.'  In the following  excerpt from an interview included with the official screenplay, Anderson explains his logic.  To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what the hell he's talking about, but maybe you can make some sense of it:

  • Q: Of all things, why frogs?

  • A: It truly came from a slightly gimmicky and exciting place.  I'd read about rains of frogs in the works of Charles Fort, who was a turn of the century writer who wrote mainly about odd phenomena. (...) So I just started writing it in to the script. It wasn't until after I got through with the writing that I began to discover what it might mean, which is this: you get to a point in your life, and shit is happening, and everything's out of your control, and suddenly, a rain of frogs just makes sense. You're staring at a doctor who is telling you something is wrong, and while we know what it is, we have no way of fixing it [Earlier in the interview the subject of cancer came up].  And you just go: "So what you're telling me, basically, is that it's raining frogs from the sky."  I'm not someone who's ever had a special fascination with UFO's or supernatural phenomena or anything but I guess I just found myself at a point in my life where I was going through some shitty stuff, and I was ready for some sort of weird religious experience, or as close as I could get to one.  So then I began to decipher things about frogs and history things like this notion that as far back as the Romans, people have been able to judge the health of a society by the health of its frogs: the health of a frog, the vibe of a frog, the texture of the frog, its looks, how much wetness is on it, everything.  The frogs are a barometer for who we are as a people.  We're pollutting ourselves, we're killing ourselves, and the frogs are telling us so, because they're all getting sick and deformed.  And I didn't even know it was in the bible until Henry Gibson gave me a copy of it, bookmarked to the appropriate frog passage.

• Exodus 8:2 in the bible reads: "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs." Supposedly there are over 100 occurances of the numbers 8 and 2 within the movie, foreshadowing the coming 'storm'.  The '100 references figure comes from the following interview excerpt:

  • Q: The film has obvious biblical overtones, and I noticed in at least a few scenes signs embossed with "Exodus 8:2."

  • A: Yeah, there's more than that. There's many, many more. I bet you could probably spot a hundred. Exodus 8:2 (describes) the plague of frogs in the Bible. The funny thing is, my reasons for using the plague of frogs aren't exactly biblical. I didn't even know it was in the Bible until after I wrote the script. The rain of frogs is something that really happens. Did you know that? It's a true thing.

  • Q: So did you go back and include the beacons of Exodus 8:2?

  • A: No. Right after I got done writing the script I found out it was in the Bible. So then I became very interested in looking at the Bible and figuring out what it meant there. I just thought it was a fun directorial, bored-on-the-set thing to do, to plant 8:2s all over the place.

• Here is a listing of all the 82's  and other frog-stuff I have either seen or been told about: 

  • The coils of rope spell out 82 when the murder/suicide kid jumps off of the building in the intro.

  • The first whether Report is an 82% chance of rain.
  • The kids on 'What do Kids Know?' have been winning 8 weeks in a row.  They need 2 more weeks to break the record.
  • The woman whose apartment Jim (John C. Reilly) visits and ends up finding a dead body in is arrested.  When she gets her mug shots, her prisoner id# is 0828282.
  • The score in the dart game at the Bar that Quiz Kid Donnie (William H. Macy) frequents is 82.  It can be seen on a blue dry-erase board.
  • The number 82 is painted on the firefighting plane in the second of the three 'coincidences' that open the film.
  • In the flashback revealing the relationship between the blackjack-dealing diver and the pilot, the dealer deals an eight to the pilot instead of the two that he needs.
  • Jim's (John C. Rielly) dating phone box number is 82.
  • At the beginning of the 'What Do Kids Know?' taping, an audience member holds up a sign that says 'Exodus 8:2.'
  • When the rain stops, a (actually several) bus sign(s) lights up reading 'Exodus 8:2' (This occurs as the "It's raining cats and dogs rainstorm ends. A wide shot of a street (presumably 'Magnolia') reveals several rows of bus-stop-esque signs that backlit with florescent lights.)
  • The suicide kid at the beginning lives in apt # 682
  • The clock on the wall during Jim's police briefing reads 8:02.
  • The 'Seduce and Destroy' number is 1.877.(82)6.3437 [or 1.877.TAME.HER].
  • When Donnie Smith is hugging the commode, he says "Exodus 20:5."
  • In the opening sequence there is this big banquet, and the time on the sign says 8:20
  • When sydney is loading his gun, the hands on the clock right behind him are on the 8 and the 2.
  • "I'm not sure about this one, but pretty sure:" When Frank Gator is walking alone in his house (near the end), he passes a thermometer on the wall, and the temperature is 82 degrees.
  • "The scene in which William Macy breaks into his employer's electronics store has a pretty clever '82'. When he enters the code into the back door, I could have sworn he entered a '3' and '5' at the same time (sum=8) followed by a '2'."
  • "When we see the giant check behind the Quiz Kid, the date is April 28, 196-something."
  • There is a FROGGER video game in the bar that Quiz Kid Donnie Smith frequents.
  • There is also a ceramic frog piece in Earl Partridge's house.
  • Stanley can be seen reading a Charles Fort book in the library.
  • During his 'seminar,' Tom Cruise says that there should be an 8-day waiting period with a 2-day follow-up in regards to phoning women.
  • There is supposedly a poster in the library behind Stanley with the numbers 8 and 2.
  • There's supposedly an Exodus 8:2 on the wall of Solomon & Solomon's when Donnie gets to work.
  • At one point, the score on WDKK is 102500 (1+0+2+5+0+0 = 8) for the Adults and 20000 (2+0 = 2) for the Kids.
  • In the beginning, police count 8 20 dollar bills from the apartment of the irate woman.
  • As the third man drops through the trapdoor as he's being hanged in the intro, he has the number 82 on a kind of bib around his neck.
  • The apartment building across from Claudia's is #12601. If you leave the 2 and add the rest of the figures (1+6+1+0=8) you get and 8.
  • There is a white frog figure on the right corner of the desk of the doctor who prescribes liquid morphine to Earl Partridge.

Jim's Gun:

• Somewhere in the middle of the film, Jim (John C. Reilly) loses his gun.  Later on, (after the frog storm) it drops out of the sky.  At first I just thought this was a cheesy hollywood joke, but apparently Anderson has some crazy supernatural justification for it. The following excerpt is also from the interview included with the original screenplay.
  • Q: Did the title come to you early along?
  • A: Yeah, but at the time, Icouldn't say exactly why. Yes, Magnolia is a street in the valley, and I knew something was going to happen in an intersection in the valley, but it was still not totally clear why that was going to be the title.  And it wasn't until the last two weeks of the writing that certain validations for the title really started coming.  One of them was the discovery of this thing called the Magonia, which is this mythical place above the firmament where shit goes and hangs out before it falls from the sky.  I think I'd come to it through Carles Fort, who wrote about strange phenomena like rains of frogs and Greenbury Hill [The three hangings]. The Magonia is this place where, when ships disappear from the ocean, that's where they go, and only later will an anchor from it fall from the sky.

Errors:

• Early on when Jim is driving in his squad car (in the 'Cops' parody part) you can see the camera mounted to the hood of his car reflected in his sunglasses.

Criticism:

• Several people have called Anderson on Magnolia's similarity to Robert Altman's Short Cuts.  Both films deal with ridiculously large casts who are loosely related, and culminate in a natural disaster that unites the ridiculously large cast in experiencing the same thing (In Short Cuts, it's an earthquake).  Judging from the following interview excerpt, it's become something of a sore point:
  • Q: I see a lot of similarities between your film and Altman's "Short Cuts."
  • A: I don't know what you want me to say. "Short Cuts" is a great fucking movie. I don't know. Yeah. Sure. I saw it. It's fucking great.
  • Q: Both films have a climactic catastrophic event that ties everything together . . . (Silence on the other end.) I guess you have nothing to say on this.
  • A: No, I guess I just ripped it all off.
  • Q: That's not what I'm implying.
  • A: No, I just fucking ripped it off! (Extremely testy.) You know, I've ripped it all off. That's what I do. That's all I do.
• Also of note is Kevin Smith and Vincent Pereira's (Frequent Smith collaborator) public bashing of Magnolia.  In my opinion Kevin Smith has no room to make any comments.  Technically his films are disasters, and he is notorious for writing dialogue that simply doesn't sound right (or fit in the time allotted for the charcters to speak).  Perhaps he's just jealous that Dogma was such a ripe piece of shit.

Sources:

• Cigarettes and Coffee (PTA Fan's Heaven)
• IMDB Magnolia site
• The Charles Fort Institute

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