negative review of One Battle...?

Wed Oct 8 16:41:27 UTC 2025

I no longer see my posts on the p-list, so I'm copying you just in case.

I think the movie could lose an additional 40 minutes without losing any
coherence.There's no story (just a situation) and the characters are all
underdeveloped, which means most of the scenes aren't pulling their weight.

On Mon, Oct 6, 2025, 12:49 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would agree...and I wonder how much might be Pynchon not quite liking
> Anderson's ultimate vision here....dunno...but I think there is a lot of
> Pynchon's vision....
>
> and I haven't been getting your posts nor Tracy's, whom I must have
> blocked and a quick glance at his 'they are clcihes: and "they ignore what
> is going on around them" shows why I won't read his posts----he doesn't
> take the vision on the screen straight but sees it with his baggage of
> preconception but I do miss your comments,Laura....
>
> But I have alos been too busy toeven send out this: there is in at least
> two theaters in the greater DC area which are showing a truncated edited
> version of the movie now----the first of them did not when I first saw it
> there on opening weekend.....
>
> The truncated version cuts all of the great 'black as night" ,BASNIGHT)
> 10-12 minute beginning...it begins on the bridge..
>
> On Mon, Oct 6, 2025 at 12:13 PM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The IMDb writing credit has been altered yet again. It now reads:
>>
>> Paul Thomas Anderson (written by)
>> Thomas Pynchon (inspired by the novel "vineland" by).
>>
>> Keep in mind that PTA's page on IMDb is controlled by his people, though
>> it's possible Pynchon could alter his own listing on the page. The
>> lowercase "v" and the clumsy wording suggests the change was probably made
>> hastily by an intern or someone else deputized by PTA, presumably at
>> Pynchon's request.
>>
>> The fact that there have been several changes of Pynchon's credit since
>> the
>> official listing appeared suggests (to me, anyway) that Pynchon is a
>> little
>> ambivalent about the film. It clearly has a connection to Vineland, but he
>> may be bridling at some reviewers calling it an adaptation.
>>
>> LK
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 5:42 PM J Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Laura
>> > I find your critique very astute and section 6 is a particularly good
>> > summary of my overall disappointment. DiCaprio makes some kind of
>> sense as
>> > a revolutionary gone to pot, but who loves and fights for his daughter.
>> But
>> > their story is cliched and seems to ignore the suffering all around
>> them.
>> > He is also not Zoyd the musician in any way and hardly represents the
>> > nature of any social movement I am seeing. There is a green movement in
>> > Humboldt county  and across the country which could have provided much
>> more
>> > to go on and could have  elaborated the labor rights family connections
>> we
>> > see in the Traverses.  The   black revolutionaries felt like the worst
>> > possible caricatures of the Panthers  and we never get a sense of what
>> > their communities are actually suffering. Also 16 years ago there wasn’t
>> > much going of violent revolution. More like occupy wall street,  cops
>> > beating up black people  and the coup in Ukraine.
>> >   The cult like connections of the Christmas Club  don’t reach far
>> enough
>> > into the role of government, FBI, empire, ICE, or media and don’t read
>> like
>> > the tech moguls, Blackrock type investment banks or neocons driving the
>> > empire in recent decades.
>> >
>> > One thing he got right was to replace the centrality of TV with computer
>> > surveillance, showing how incredibly hard organizing revolutionary
>> > resistance of any kind has become.
>> >
>> > I feel Orson Welles and other filmmakers of that time showed that you
>> can
>> > be very intense without doing propaganda. Also I don’t feel
>> > Frank Capra can be written off for his more hopeful picture of what
>> > america could be.
>> > OK , starting to ramble. Hope others will speak up..
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sep 29, 2025, at 3:33 PM, Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Note: Joseph, my posts haven't been showing u on the P-list, so let me
>> > know if you get two copies of this.
>> >
>> > I'm not a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan, though I loved Boogie Nights
>> and
>> > thought the Phantom Thread was interesting. I don't think he's whom I'd
>> > choose to adapt Pynchon's books, because humor isn't his strong point.
>> Ah,
>> > if only Kubrick could have done it! Maybe the Coen brothers?
>> >
>> > A month or so back, Pynchon wasn't credited as a writer on the film's
>> IMDb
>> > page. It's since been added, though a little equivocally. "Written by"
>> > credit is given to PTA, after which is added: Thomas Pynchon (novel
>> > "Vineland"). So there's no acknowledgement that this is an adaptation.
>> >
>> > But it's certainly more than just a nod to Pynchon. Should the
>> screenplay
>> > be nominated for anything, it would have to go under the "adapted
>> > screenplay category." The big question for me is what did Pynchon
>> consent
>> > to? Was he involved in the film at all, even in terms of reading the
>> > script? Did he withdraw his blessing, but then give it after seeing a
>> cut
>> > of the film? I guess we'll never know.
>> >
>> > I think we're seeing, and will continue to see, the rise of an
>> anti-Trump
>> > cinema, which I'm all for. But I don't think anyone's clinched it yet.
>> The
>> > two films that most stand out are this one and Eddington, written and
>> > directed by Ari Aster. They have remarkable similarities, down to being
>> > over-long, over-funded projects by not exactly humble writer-directors.
>> >
>> > SPOILERS to follow if you haven't seen both:
>> >
>> > 1. Both are present-day (Eddington takes place mostly during Covid)
>> > sprawling works that introduce anti-Trumpian elements. In the case of
>> > Eddington, it's the fight about Covid regulations, along with unfettered
>> > AI; OBAA focusses mostly on immigration.
>> >
>> > 2. Both have caused genre confusion for reviewers. Eddington is
>> currently
>> > listed as Comedy/Drama/Western; OBAA gets Action/Crime/Drama. I've read
>> a
>> > number of rave reviews calling OBAA a comedy, and the audience seemed
>> to be
>> > laughing through a lot of it.
>> >
>> > 3. Both have underdeveloped characters. I'd have to keep a cheat sheet
>> > nearby to even discuss them by name. It's not always clear who the
>> > protagonist is because the films cover a broad panorama. The presumed
>> > protagonist of Eddington acts in such a mystifying way mid-movie that
>> > there's just no going back to anything like rapport. In OBAA, Leo
>> DiCaprio
>> > is supposed to play the protagonist, but he behaves more like a
>> supporting
>> > character. In the beginning, he's the snitch's sidekick. In the
>> > present-day, PTA seems to have no idea about how to make him an active
>> part
>> > of the story and so he turns him into Lebowski, bathrobe and all, and
>> > relegates him to stoner comic relief for whatever else is happening.
>> >
>> > 4. Neither tells a particularly coherent story. In the case of
>> Eddington,
>> > the anti-mask Sheriff of a small town(who seems to be the protagonist
>> whom
>> > we're sometimes supposed to root for and at other times root against)
>> > decides to run against the pro-mask Mayor. He has a deep-seated grudge
>> > against the Mayor over a woman, which causes him to explode in to a
>> > murderous rampage, which gets superseded by an apparently well-funded
>> > antifa false flag operation, which obliterates even more people.
>> >
>> > OBAA collects assorted political movements of the 60s/70s (The Weather
>> > Underground, The Panthers and maybe the Symbionese Liberation Army)
>> into a
>> > weird amalgam personified by a gun-happy Black woman who's also a
>> > Frenesi-like snitch. Loosely based on Assata Shakur who just passed away
>> > this week? Then instead of leaving the story back in the 70s, he
>> > superimposes it into a struggle for immigrant rights, back in the early
>> > Obama period. The struggle enters the present day when the snitch's
>> fascist
>> > sex partner decides to join a white supremacist group and decides he
>> has to
>> > hunt down the daughter he may have fathered with the Black snitch.
>> Mayhem
>> > ensues, and plenty of plot-holes, but not much story. After the initial
>> 40
>> > minutes or so, there are few scenes that have to be there to make the
>> story
>> > coherent. But there's a lot of dragged out walking down hallways,
>> > repetition, etc. Absolutely no way the movie had to be 2 hours and 41
>> > minutes long.
>> >
>> > 5. Both films shy away from being heavy-handedly propagandistic, and
>> both
>> > employ the same methodology: making the "good guys" unlikeable. In
>> > Eddington, it's not enough to have the originally sympathetic Sheriff
>> be an
>> > anti-masker. The film spends a lot of time mocking the BLM movement and
>> > progressives in general, while showing that the "progressive" Mayor is
>> > actually colluding with the Big AI tech company. It may be an accurate
>> > portrayal of the present political situation which is overrun with
>> villains
>> > and scant on heroes. But it doesn't make for a very compelling film.
>> >
>> > In OBAA, we're basically told that the struggle against Obama's
>> > immigration policies is the same as the current struggle. That certainly
>> > doesn't ring true on a gut level, and it softens the present-day
>> struggle
>> > to just another battle rather than something exponentially different.
>> > Unlike Eddington, the violence and hate are personified in the Brock
>> > Vond-ish Sean Penn character (and I have to decry the casting here:
>> Sean
>> > Penn is so old and ugly, neither Frenesi or the Snitch would be able to
>> > look at him, let alone fuck him). SO PTA doesn't have to work very hard
>> to
>> > make the good guys look good. At worst (aside from the Snitch) they're
>> > bumbling and ineffective.
>> >
>> > 6. In Eddington, the bad guys have a complete victory. In OBAA, there's
>> a
>> > partial victory, but la lucha continua. Both films leave the audience
>> > feeling ... what? Entertained? Exhausted? Assuming that AA and PTA had
>> the
>> > same motivation for making these films: not wanting to stand idly by
>> while
>> > this vulgar, stupid, narcissistic fascist dismantles the concept of
>> human
>> > rights. And knowing that they had the backing to make a BIG STATEMENT
>> film.
>> > But all they've done is chronicled what's going on, as if we don't know.
>> > Neither seems to have any idea of what they're calling for. At the end
>> of
>> > OBAA, the daughter joins the resistance - going to a demonstration or
>> > action to support or denounce something. But stuff like that is already
>> > happening in the real world, and it's clearly not enough. If OBAA
>> inspires
>> > people to - what? - take up arms? protest? vote? - that's all for the
>> good.
>> >
>> > But I think both these films just add to the confusion. Think of
>> > Casablanca, that hokey, studio schlockfest that Bogie and Bergman were
>> > snickering over while they ad libbed through it. It's lasted not
>> because of
>> > the romantic triangle or exotic location or explicit wartime
>> propaganda. It
>> > lasted because people saw Claude Rains decide to go over to the good-guy
>> > side, and it didn't feel gratuitous. If he could do it, maybe your
>> racist
>> > uncle could too. That's powerful at the gut level. It makes you feel
>> that
>> > maybe things can change. Neither of these movies made me feel that way.
>> >
>> > These are two examples, but there are two more: Weapons (2025), Superman
>> > (2025). Go down the list and see if these two don't tick the same boxes,
>> > down to being written and directed by a white male director with a solid
>> > track record. Civil War (2024), which I consider the best of all these
>> > movies, was more of a warning than a testament, but has a fair amount of
>> > overlap.
>> >
>> > LK
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 10:18 AM J Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I got a reference in either my inbox or my Pynchon list mailbox to a
>> >> negative review of One Battle After Another and now that email is gone
>> and
>> >> I can’t remember the publication.  Did anyone else see it, read it? I
>> >> thought the review touched on everything that was unsettling to me
>> about
>> >> the movie but also left out certain aspects.  I still have very mixed
>> >> feelings about the movie, and am hoping other list members will post
>> >> something. The acting was strong. The reference to the current
>> fascists at
>> >> the top is bold and properly creepy, and the questions about the
>> >> possibility of revolution in such a time need to be talked about.
>> Overall
>> >> though, I think the film misses the mark.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>