Movie Details
| Title: | One Battle After Another | |
| Director: | Paul Thomas Anderson | |
| Year: | 2025 | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.17.25 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (8)
- Boogie Nights
- Inherent Vice
- Junun
- Licorice Pizza
- The Master
- Phantom Thread
- Punch-Drunk Love
- There Will Be Blood
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.17.25 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2025 An ex-revolutionary in hiding has trouble come looking for him and his daughter. DiCaprio is the ex-revolutionary and Sean Penn is the trouble. Sometimes, when you watch a lot of movies, you might catch yourself checking where you're at to see how much time is left in the movie because you're ready for it to be over. That's usually a bad sign. Other times, you catch yourself checking where you're at to see how much time is left in the movie because you don't want it to end. Even at two hours forty minutes I didn't want this movie to end. It's so much fun. Such a... I don't want to say achievement because that sounds too technical. It's "what if PTA made an action movie?" PTA making an action movie isn't like Tarantino making a WWII movie. You kinda know what you're gonna get there. Yes there are some surprises but you expect surprises from Tarantino. You expect the movie references, the playful use of time, the needle drops, the familiar faces. It might not make you less excited to see it, but all of his trademarks translate to that genre just fine. But what are PTA's trademarks? beautiful magic hour lighting? deep, well-developed characters? Jonny Greenwood score? What would a Jonny Greenwood action score sound like? Yeah, it makes you scratch your head a bit to think about. It might not work, right? This movie worked so well for me. I'm gonna get into spoilers so if you're here for the festival run-down and haven't seen this movie yet I'll mark where the spoilers end. Just scroll down a bit. SPOILERS BEGIN I... where to begin? It's hard to talk about in specifics. Guess I'll just go all over the place. Let's start with Benicio Del Toro. How good is Benicio Del Toro in this movie? Yeah his performance is pitch-perfect but how good is his character? So calm, so balanced. He's a sensei! "Bob, Bob, Off the tatami." The unfolding of his character is just so amazingly well done. Every sequence is amazingly well-done but Benicio's in particular. Moving from room to room, wrangling cats, multi-tasking, calm, balanced. What time is it? It's 8:15. And in the end he's heard of French 75. Sympatico. And I kinda don't want to type out the inciting incident of this plot because of how I know it reads, but I have to. Sean Penn, Colonel Lockjaw, wants to join a Christmas-themed secret society of racial purists so he lies about being with a black woman then has to use the full force of the US government to track down this girl to see if she's his daughter or not and kill her if she is. Sean Penn is so unbelievable in this movie. Talk about commitment. I don't know if I've felt this way about a villain since Alan Rickman in Costner's Robin Hood. The danger is real but he's also so completely unrepentantly ridiculous that he's also hilarious. The way PTA shoots the back of Penn's head, his walk, his posture... the way Penn licks his comb in the elevator. It's funny that he does it at all but the WAY he licks it is... imdb trivia says that was taken from real life and shown in Fahrenheit 9/11 but Penn's loose lips elevate it to something truly special. And jesus christ how Jim Downey or any of those actors got through any of that Christmas Adventurers Club dialogue is beyond me. They probably didn't have blaring Christmas music playing on set but still. "Hail, Saint Nick!" The actual scariest guy in the movie is the interrogation dude. imdb says he's a non-actor and real interrogator which I believe. This tonal shifts feel so dangerous to me. And the VistaVision! I watched this on my monitor in 1080p so I can't claim any religious experiences, but I can still look at the shot compositions and know they took full advantage of the larger format. There's still plenty of hand-held though with fantastic lighting throughout. The harsh brightness in the dojo, the baking sun in the desert, the reflecting police lights in the riot. Everything's as beautiful as it could be juuuuust shy of distracting. And the score. So much drums and percussion, really up my alley. But with loud lush strings too, Greenwood style. Idiosyncratic, unique, enhancing. Leo... DiCaprio is a good actor. He's a movie star and a good actor. He's so funny in this movie. So I loved Licorice Pizza when I watched it in a previous dvrfest, but I felt the meat of that movie were almost disconnected vignettes. Scenes that could play in any order. Amazing funny scenes like Bradley Cooper's performance as Jon Peters, that casting agent lady meeting with Alana Haim, the flight they take out to that tv show taping, the local convention. It feels in my memory now that all those scenes are connected with them running around the valley. The plot itself is secondary to the characters, which I think you could say about all PTA movies. This one though, each scene feels like a result from the previous and causes the next. Even the weird stuff never gets so weird as to make you forget what's happening, where all the characters are at, and what everyone is trying to do. For me this is like the flip side of Inherent Vice. I need to watch that again but all the insanity and bizarre shit that didn't really click for me in that movie totally clicks for me in this movie. It's juuuuust enough while still retaining a base of realism and propulsive plot to make these forays into absurdity or humor work. And that intro. It's like 30 minutes? The trailers were a little unclear where the time skip was going to happen but I'm glad it has the balance it has. PTA got to use a lot of interesting people to play French 75 members, that apparently are also almost all musicians. I thought junglepussy was Santigold for a minute, then learned she's herself. Teyana Taylor is AMAZING. She's got a lot to do in such a short time and she has a lot of help with the photography and costumes but don't you just believe people would get obsessed with her? Don't you just believe she's too wild for motherhood? That she's so wild her mom saw it? Those single long eyelashes are craaaazy. The hat brim with her jawline is craaaazy. This is my first exposure to her but I get it. Regina Hall's also very good, much more muted obviously but a nice counterbalance. Chase Infiniti is very good. PTA's great with young actors and got a good performance here. I guess I'm just listing all the actors now. The final chase scene with all those hills. Masterfully shot. But the story resolves in a very Coen Brothers way. I'm thinking more and more this is less of a PTA action movie and more a PTA Coen Brothers movie. SPOLERS END I guess that's all I got for this first viewing, without going through scene by scene. I'm just very taken by it. I think it's a home run of a movie. The time flew by, I stayed up way too late watching it, the next day (as I write this) was rough, but it's all worth it to end the fest on an incredible movie. Ok... that's that. Now for some numbers. 25 movies seen in the past week (3.57/day), 31 movies seen in the past month (1.03/day), 46 movies seen in the past year (0.13/day), 3568 movies seen in the past 21 years (0.46/day). That's 3278 movies seen 3568 times. The niche genres are falling away as my viewing habits continue to be minimal and pedestrian: top genres are 328 dramas, 325 comedies, 322 documentaries. If I could write this site again from the ground up the top thing I'd change is making genres multiple rather than single but oh well. Top directors: 18 Steven Soderbergh movies seen 21 times, 17 Oliver Stone movies seen 17 times, and 15 Werner Herzog movies seen 15 times. It feels like a while since I've seen an Oliver Stone or a Herzog movie so that's pretty stable although I'm surprised I haven't seen JFK more than once in the past 20 years. Top venue is still Netflix with 811 although Internet's catching up with 656, leaving Alamo South Lamar (and all those Fantastic Fest movies) at 473. I don't think I'm tracking separate streaming services including Netflix streaming so I bet 'Internet' takes over sooner or later. Most viewed movie is still and forever will be Snakes on a Plane at 11, although Zodiac's getting up there at 7 and Christmas Vacation is 5. I love me some Zodiac. but Christmas Vacation was a holiday tradition long before this journal started so... I dunno if it would top 11 but that and A Christmas Story probably comes close. The 2000s tops the decade list with 1021 (likely a product of me seeing basically everything that came out between 2005 - 2007), with 2010s following at 878, and a precipitous fall to 412 1990s movies and 339 1980s movies. Anything pre-2004 means new viewings weren't tracked though so these numbers make sense. I wish I could've started this a few years earlier to track my TCM and film noir phases... the 40s and 50s would be much better represented than the 60 and 65 I have logged. And in terms of calendar years, Barring me winning the lottery or retiring early, nothing will ever beat 2006 when I saw 679 movies, 2007 when I saw 534 movies, and 2005 when I saw 496 movies. 9 of the last 10 years I've watched less than 100 movies, with most years falling in the 50 - 70 range. I could give excuses about watching more TV, playing more video games, but the numbers don't lie. 4 months of this year I didn't watch any movies. I think that's the most movie-free months in any year of this journal's existence. I gotta watch at least one movie in December. So that's that. Another DVRfest in the books. If I ever go back and re-read these I hope it's fun and at least somewhat legible. I don't check visitor stats but I can't imagine anyone else is checking this too much these days, especially with Letterboxd taking off. I'm still chugging along though. I haven't made The Last Picture Show, or any movie, but my journal's been going longer than Bogdanovich now. Maybe these entries will make a book someday. Like Boyhood except with poorly-written thoughts no one cares to read. Most people don't read others' journals or diaries though (unless you're Anne Frank), so for myself it's certainly the longest running project of mine, and as a way to get myself to stick to journaling for longer than a month I'd say it's a success. To those that read to the bottom, see you next year! |
