Manohla Dargis in the NYT... wow. Why books and films matter.....

[J Tracy]

"
Interesting reaction	by Dargis. I don’t know how many others will react that way, though I think it was the kind of reaction intended by Anderson.  I hate to say too much until others comment on the film which I saw Friday at a 3 30 matinee in Pittsfield Mass, another troubled but reasonably prosperous city with major ecological issues left from a large GE  manufacturing center.  It’s a good size city.	There were 3 other moviegoers. all sitting together, all elderly, overweight and moving slow..  I sat in the middle in one of those cushy faux leather lounge chairs now popular in some theaters. Comfy in a way but hard to sit up straight. Ludicrously they had given me a ticket with a seat number, which the lady insisted was important despite  knowing there were only 3 other people  there. Where does this allegiance to pretense  come from?  I ignored it after a brief wrestle with what ? conscience?, absurdity?  Movie theaters seem to be another dying part of middle america.	Sean Penn played himself  quite credibly, superbly actually,  but was renamed  Lockjaw for the silver screen..  	
  										

> On Sep 26, 2025, at 6:43 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” is an exciting, goofy and
deadly serious big-screen *no* — a no to complacency, to oppression, to
tyranny. It’s a carnivalesque epic about good and evil, violence and power,
inalienable rights and the fight against injustice; it’s also a love story.
The film speaks to the failures of the past and of the present but insists
on the promise of the future. It’s brilliantly directed, but what makes it
exhilarating is that it engages with its moment as few American fiction
films do. It *feels*shockingly urgent. It’s also snort-out funny, even when
its laughs tremble with rage.
> 
> --
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