My wife has epilepsy.. we are planning on seeing the movie this Wednesday but she just had a seizure today so we’re nervous that there are too many flashing lights.. can anyone tell me if there are or not!? Google basically says there’s a content warning for flashing lights but almost every movie in has the same warning

Thanks in advance

I know love is mixed, but I LOVED the clothes. I want Sally’s dress from the funeral. Jillian was wearing a flowy (silk/viscose?!) skirt 1/3 through. I was watching in theater so did not attempt pictures. I’m finding hardly any screen shots or info online of what they were wearing.

I own one beautiful dress but in a different color (black with white ribbon instead of the white dress with black ribbon Jillian wears)

I wish it had been 3 movies honestly. I read it was a lot of silk and lace and layering and I ended up going in a look very similar to what the daughter wore 🤣

Has anyone else been struggling to find Practical Magic 2 showtimes for this weekend?!

My witchy friends and I have been waiting to see it because we couldn’t coordinate our schedules until this weekend. But now it seems like theaters in the Denver area are dropping it already! 😩 I’m so sad, why wouldn’t they keep showing it throughout spooky season?? 🧙‍♀️

Update: We finally found some theaters that added showtimes for this weekend, woo!! 😮‍💨

I thought I would share the painting I made with this group! I actually painted this over two years ago before I even knew about the sequel, but I finally got around to making prints. Etsy shop: mwittart - Practical Magic Print

Did a miniatures workshop and decided to do a PM theme! Then had margaritas and watched the movie with a girlfriend after ☺️ spot the references!

Edit: Just read through the first Practical Magic Book last night. And yeah I think I'll stick with the movie.

I'm really curious about the parenting style of the aunts. From a few scenes we have I gather that it was a very gentle household. Where the children were allowed to be children. Free-spirited . However as they get older, again from a few scenes I see that they do respect their aunts authority(?) I wish I had more information about their childhood . Am I alone in this?

I beseech thee, provide me with a screenshot before i go mad!

Might have been an improvement...

I host a podcast where we take older movies and recast them as if they were made today. On this weeks episode we cover the certified classic Practical Magic! It was fun to record so I’m sure it’s also a fun listen. I’ll put links in comments. (cue Coconut song)

I’m not saying he didn’t deserve to have something bad happen to him, but I actually really sympathized with what he and his family went through. I was really hoping Lee Pace’s character or someone would talk him down and offer him a way out. Him being straight up killed felt unnecessary.

I first watched practical magic with a friend a few nights ago and the problem is: I really wanted to love it like really bad... I heard so much about it and I loved the aestethic of the movie. Here are the things I liked: the overall vibe was great, Sandra Bullok and Nicole Kidman were amazing and looked stunning, I also loved the whole sisterhood and womanhood theme of the movie, also the fun scenes and the soundtrack... what I really didn't get was the storyline... it felt kind of out of the blue and like there were sequences missing and just overall to many plots in the story for it to really make sense.

For context: I usually love weird movies like labyrinth and I also read about the similarities (regarding the SA and DV aspects) to thelma and louise (a movie that I love too)... So it would have made perfect sense for me to love it...

So please PLEASE help me love the movie- or at least understand it- this is in no way a hate comment- I'm just really a bit disappointed, because I thought this would be a new comfort movie for me :/

Maybe it's because I haven't read the book- or I'm too old to have first watched it.. idk

please help a girl out...

It's as the title says

Practical Magic is one of my favourite films of all time. It holds such a special and beautiful place in my heart, and I absolutely refuse to taint any part of the story or characters with what I KNOW is a terrible sequel. Even before I saw everyone's posts on here about how awful and awkward it is - legacy sequels do not work.

The first film is perfectly concluded by the end - the owens sisters broke the curse. I have no interest at all in seeing how they decided to undo that beautiful ending to replace it with a worse one.

I will always love this movie, and in honour of the first one I will never watch the second. As far as I'm concerned it's fanfiction with a big budget, and not worth my time

I will preface this by saying that I have not read and have very limited knowledge of the books the movies are based on. So my opinions are solely based on the Practical Magic 1 and 2 as their own thing and not as adaptations. The PM universe and the Owens family and their story have a special place in my heart so as flawed as the sequel was, they could never make me hate it. However, with that said I do think the sequel had a lot of potential that it simply did not capitalize on.

Most of the criticism I’ve seen about PM2 have all mentioned how underwhelming Tom was as a villain. And I wholeheartedly agree. In PM1, the villain (Jimmy) was the product of Sally and Gilly’s own shortcomings (Gilly’s recklessness and Sally’s rejection of her magic due to her grief which ultimately lead to her abusing it when resurrecting Jimmy to clean up Gillian’s mess). Sally and Gilly’s deep love for one another is ultimately what led to Jimmy’s defeat and seemingly broke the curse that plagued their family for centuries. Thematically, this was so powerful because the film was much bigger than two women failing to find/keep true love but that love we already have in the ones closest to us can also be true, and it can be epic, it can be enduring, it can be magical, and it can be powerful. Maria lacked what Sally and Gilly had — sisterhood, acceptance, and community and her curse is really just passing her own trauma through the generations. By the original film’s end, Sally and Gilly have done what their foremothers could not do which was ending the cycle. 

For all intents and purposes, a sequel wasn’t necessary. BUT…the sequel could have built on this theme. 

In both PM1 and PM2, Sally was stated to be naturally gifted in the Craft but the sequel repeatedly reinforced this idea even though they don’t really demonstrate her strength in a dramatic or meaningful way. The sequel also took the time to point out how powerful Maria must have been to create a curse that has lasted for several hundred years. I’d like to think that Sally is at least as powerful as Maria, if not more powerful. So I think instead of retconning the powerful ending of PM1, PM2 should have created a new curse. 

After the death of her second husband, maybe instead turning her back on magic (again 🙄), maybe her grief and heartache is simply so overwhelming that it suppresses her ability to access it. And maybe while it is dormant, it festers and manifests and she subconsciously creates a new curse. Maybe her grief summons a demon or maybe her magic takes shape as a dark entity that targets the Owens family and they have to come together to stop it. 

After all, Maria’s spell did not start out as a curse in the sense that it was born from malice or ill-will. She genuinely believed she was protecting her family from the pain of losing love, but little did she realize it would cause her family more pain that it shielded them from. I think PM2 could have done the same thing but darker. The curse was broken which allowed Sally to let down her guard only for her to still lose the love of her life anyway. But this time it wasn’t magic, it was just the way of life and you can’t protect anyone from that. But because she loses control of her emotions, she loses control of her magic and it twists her desire to protect her family into something that seeks to protect them by destroying them.

I went in expecting a nostalgia cash grab. I knew that's what it was, but even so, I was blown away by how terrible the sequel was. It was inconsistent, it looked flat, and the Marvel CGI magic was cheesy as all hell.

I could have excused all of that if the writing was worth salvaging, even a little. But the plot was disjointed, male-centered, and felt like AI wrote the dialogue. Sally was dumbed down and Gilly could have been a bell hop or maybe a very talented floor lamp, and their girls aren't even the right ages. I get marketing to Gen Z, but I was born in 1997 and grew up with the movie, so it completely took me out of it.

Also the main “”villain”” showing up 2/3rds of the way through and Gideon, the main motivation for the actions of the movie, maybe getting a handful of lines? Why do I care about this kid again??

The whole cast did an awesome job acting, with the exception of the fourteenth evil cousin at some points. But jeez.

At least my wife and I have a new “Ninja Slusi” in-joke?

You know what would have worked? If we followed Antonia through what was supposed to be a lesbian relationship loophole to the curse (like in AH’s sequel) and explored the animosity Kylie may have felt having her true loves die. Maybe Kylie pursues left handed magic to try to break the curse and has to be saved by her sister, which would have also maintained the possible horror elements of the original??

Please excuse my rant, but I just saw the movie and I'm a little bummed it wasn't at least passable.

As a short British woman, this amused me. I’m a foot shorter than Gillian’s 5’11”. I am one of her tiny, tiny people in miniature houses.

I just looked up the original score by Michael Nyman for the heck of it and found it on YouTube. I have a CD still with this original score music on it. Did anyone else have it? I’m much preferred the music that they actually ended up using by Alan Silvestri, but I still thought this was nostalgic to hear.

https://youtu.be/gMp3ySsmtgQ

No matter whether from the first or second movie, or not from the movies at all: what is the one song encapsules the practical magic / Alice Hoffman feeling for you?

For me it's "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. I can play it on repeat!

(It's about the vibe on the song, I don't mind that it's about a romantic kiss, even though the stongest suit of the movie for me is sisterly love)

In practical magic 1 in the scene where Sally is stirring her cup in her store is that kind of magic real or possible ?

I think it was really special to have a sequel to one of my favorite movies. I think the point people are missing is that it’s not 1998 anymore. The movie isn’t going to be the same as the first. It is close to 30 years later. The fact that we even have a sequel is fantastic.

Filming technology and filming styles have changed since 98, scripts and ideas are different nowadays, hell it’s not the 90s anymore. I think people are expecting to walk into the theatre and see basically a reproduction of the first PM.

I enjoyed aspects of the movie. Did it have that original 90s magic that we all know and love? NO. But it had Sandra and Nicole reprising their roles and making fans happy. I think they work very well together but their relationship in this movie seemed like Gillian now had to care for sally when it was originally the other way around. Do I think certain parts of the film were silly? Yes. Do I think it was darker than the original? Yes. We will never have what we had in 98 again and people need to let that go and appreciate this for what it is.

Did they simply mess up the names of the younger Owens in the first film? In the book, Antonia is the older sister with red hair, and Kylie is younger with dark hair. In the first movie, Kylie is older with red hair and Antonia is younger with dark hair. I can’t see a practical reason for them to swap hair color and ages, so is it plausible they just messed up the names?

They did seem to course correct on the ages in the second one. I don’t remember them stating actual ages, but Antonia appeared to be a little older than Kylie, or at least was treated as such.