Originally posted by Chris Knipp
This symphonic rondo ramble style has become an influence (-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.

I haven't said Magnolia or the narrative structure of it has become a "bad influence" and I'm not about to do it. I would agree that parts of it are "brilliant". But I strongly disagree with calling it an "original". The modern-era model would be Altman's Short Cuts, or perhaps his even more masterful Nashville. Films like Two Days in the Valley ('96) and Magnolia are both products of an established narrative tradition. My favorite films which utilize it are much older: Mikio Naruse's Late Chrysanthemums and that seminal work of film art called Greed, which crosscuts furiously between thematically-linked subplots to breathtaking effect.