negative review of One Battle...?

[Mark Kohut]

Laura,

Don't you think DeCaprio, playing a Zoyd Wheeler-like Doc Sportllow-like
character does it with wonderful humor?

The movie reviews who only know movies bring up The Dude....

On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 5:19 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Laura,
>
> When Anderson, who I am very fond of as a director...and who we know is as
> pynchon-obsessed as this list is--or was---
> says that it was done with 'Pynchon's knowledge...and we know they are
> close enough that Pynchon''s son worked
> onInherent vice...then I say we will take a long time to know the extent
> of the collaboration but I am talking abou tit that way..
>
> And, I loved the humor in this film, so not in his others as you say....
>
> On Mon, 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
>>
>