Come on, man, the rain of frogs is absolutely ridiculous! Not sure it's "justified"? You're being too serious. I am convinced that Anderson is a genious, pretty much a prodigy--and that closing sequence really avoids getting too maudlin, too linear, or too tendentious; it's also incredibly audacious, which is what a prodigy is.. He gets incredible performances out of his actors in Magnolia. Cruise's isn't just a comment on his persona, it's the most edgy and daring and selfless thing he's ever done. You could just go down the list of the cast one by one. I don't get that the scenes are too short. I never thought that. Yes, you can see it as MTV-generation attention-span pacing (why not just call it the energy and impatience of youth?), but all I know is that indeed this was a time when I watched a first run film in a packed mainstream NYC cineplex and nobody moved, and the three hours streaked by. That's all I can say. It works. This symphonic rondo ramble style has become an influence (I think manyh have copied it, possibly Gabriele Muccino in The Last Kiss is one of the more successful examples--so to say one doesn't like it becomes irrelevant, though what one can say is that it has been a bad influence. But when something becomes a bad influence (if that's even true) that doesn't fault the brilliant original.