Magnolia: Art or imitation?

PT Anderson can tell a story. Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood are marvelous films. But setting those aside and focusing only on Magnolia paints a picture of an egocentric, imitating director who doesn't know how to tell a meaningful story.
In the wake of Pulp Fiction, cinema experienced a great change in filmmaking. Films began to tell stories through new eyes and different perspectives. Magnolia, like Pulp Fiction, is a movie with many interweaving storylines. While it isn't told out of order, the scenes act like vignettes, lasting for minutes with long shots and heavy monologues. Each scene feels like it is so important, and building piece by piece to something special. Magnolia uses all the great cinematic techniques to concoct beautiful shots and interesting scenes, however it is missing everything that made Pulp Fiction great. Imagine Pulp Fiction stripped of all the comedic moments, the interesting thrill and action and perfectly structured conversations and you're left with Magnolia; rambling dialogue, poorly crafted conversations, no action or drive to the story and lots and lots and lots of acting. Each scene felt like it wanted to be great, and have something interesting to do or even move the story forward. But all we find are voidless zooming into characters faces, and actors staring off far too many times, and far too early in the film before the audience has made a real connection with the character.

These vignettes also are built and maneuvered for two purposes; they should be telling their own story and doing that while intertwining with the other stories. The opening section and narration leads us to believe that all the stories that are to come(and then the narration at the end speaking of the stories we just saw) are supposed to be mysteriously connected, and not just by coincidence. Except what Anderson doesn't understand is that in pointing this out, and even without the pointing out, we know he has written this story by himself to try and make art that is supposed to magically connect. When you can see the strings all magic is lost. Movies that point themselves out is a gimmick, and one used usually in a comedy. But in a drama, when you are told that there will be connections, and make the audience assume those connections will be fantastic, they better be. They can't just be people randomly meeting each other on the streets of LA, or working together or related by blood. It isn't magical; we can see your writing, PT Anderson, all over the screen, from the opening with the cop and black kid to the frog scene. Are we supposed to think that this is smart writing, when you have everyone living in the same vicintiy and have a black kid that wanders the streets bumping into the cop and later Julianne Moore, and then everyone is tied somehow to a kid's gameshow?
And then the stories by themselves, none of them come even close to being fully flushed out stories. And yet even bunched together into one movie they go no where. Let's break down the stories to see if any of them have any meaning or are compelling.
Wait! I was going to write out the stories to show that they went no where, but it turned out too long. I even went so far as to write the cop's whole boring story. Basically, every single storyline goes no where. I'll skip to the endings.
The cop makes the girl laugh, I guess? But what about the bodies in the closet? And the black lady? Why did the black kid rap that he knew something, but he never met him again. The gun fell from the sky with the frogs?
The show host ends up not killing himself after revealing he may have molested his daughter. Alright, so a frog stopped him, then what?
The blond girl still does coke and the cop made her smile. Okay?
The male nurse - he kind of was just the motion for the other stories. So in the end he was sad...because the old man died? Or because Tom Cruise killed a dog by drop kicking it after it got too close? Or frogs just make him sad?
Julianne Moore is in the hospital and she's gonna be okay. Great, and Tom Cruise is going to start having feelings because of it? Who knows.
The whiz kid - what was his story again? There was no story, it was like a flashback part of a Lost episode, except even the flashbacks of Lost have a point. This story ends with him telling his dad to be nice to him. No hug, no "shut the F up," all the Dad said was for him to go to bed. Plus, the kid was out till all hours of the night, why isn't the Dad pissed about that?
And the old whiz kid. His story was the most pointless. He wanted braces to impress the bartender. Then he puts the money back and that's the end of it. Nothing happened!?

I could go on, but hopefully the point has been made. This film was three hours long and nothing happened. Except it's not a nothing happened like a beautiful European film. This was like nothing happened as in PT Anderson thinks he's an artist and can tell a story. Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood aside, PT Anderson cannot tell a story. He's a kid that grew up in the San Fernando Valley watching videos of great films and thinks he can do it himself. Except, like American cinema is apt to do, he makes imitation of art. We see it in the beautiful composition of the shots. He dollies in to great framing and uses a crane to show William H. Macy's emotion. It's like he knows from all those videos he saw, when you want to show that an actor is thinking hard, you zoom in real close.
The whole film is like one long build up. The music and the zooms all make the audience think that something important or interesting is happening. But what's really happening? Some coke head is having coffee with a cop in her house. That's it. They actually aren't saying anything interesting, the scene isn't going anywhere, and the story is only connected because they say it is. Oh but, the meaning. The meaning! Won't someone think of the meaning? I'm sick of meaningless meaning. Frogs falling from the sky are not subject to interpretation, they are meaningless, just like every other scene. Sorry to all the hipsters and artists that have been scammed by this film. It's not art. PT Anderson wrote it in a cabin when he was afraid of the snake outside.

Just like Up, the film is manipulating the audience into buying into the story with their emotions. Except, this film uses strong dramatic music and long slow takes and the actors stare off, then act their hearts out. It's as if Anderson was saying just before the take, "Okay, Tom, now act better than you've ever acted before." "Okay, Juliane, cry like you've never cried before, then yell like they do in Network."
I thought it was interesting that in the film diary it shows Anderson screening Network for his crew. Although Magnolia is evidence itself that it is trying to be art, and comes off as an imitation, this shows where Anderson got his style and tone from. It shows through in the film, it has a tone similar to Network. People are really emotional, there is even a relation to television, and there's some yelling. But the difference is that Network may be one of the smartest scripts of all times. And one of the best. Magnolia is not smart. In fact, it's worse than Crash, another interweaving episodic film that shoots for the moon, dramatically.
Magnolia definitely shot for the moon. Any film where the cast sings along with the music playing to only the audience and concludes with frogs falling from the sky is definitely shooting something...
1. Themselves in the foot?
2. And definetly missing?
3. The audience in the face?

You make the call.