Thankfully, I was watching it at home, alone. Almost Famous For me, this movie hit right in that wistful desire to be right in the big middle of something significant. Of course, the hard part is defining what's significant to you, which some characters in this movie are still struggling with. It's just enough of a fantasy to have a reasonably happy ending, but without giving everything up to pure sentimentality. This is a horrible movie on so many levels.
Every single character comes across as stiff and completely inauthentic.
Then, to avoid an X rating, the one sequence that could have had promise was ruined by putting in bodies to block all the good fucking scenes. Magnolia I have a really hard time enjoying movies with as much misery as this one wallows in. Tom Cruise does do an excellent job as a real slime-ball, though.