One Battle After Another
Yesterday Madi and I saw One Battle After Another, the latest Paul Thomas Anderson film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
I have a few friends who are big PTA fans, and because of that there was a lot of hype for this movie in our group chats. I avoided any trailers or information about the movie before seeing it1 and so had very little idea what I was in for.
I could have done without (or with significantly less of) the first 30 minutes of the movie, but once we get into the main plot, I was pretty hooked.
Leo gives another great performance, which is unsurprising. This is his funniest role I can remember. Sean Penn is unbelievably hateable—in the best way—as the film's primary antagonist and Benicio del Toro provides a wonderful calming presence in a movie that is largely chaotic throughout.
In particular I liked the score of this movie. The music is great at building anticipation and anxiety in a number of drawn out sequences.
The themes and political commentary are obvious and extremely timely, so if you're looking for an escape from our current political moment, maybe wait a bit for this one. The multiple laugh out loud moments added plenty of levity though, and our theatre had a great crowd which made the experience even better.
Overall: 55
I use the 20-80 scale to rate things. For movies I just use one overall category, while for fiction books I have several sub-categories.
Going into movies blind is something I have been trying to do a lot lately. I feel like modern trailers spoil so much of the movie. I saw both this movie and Weapons with little to no information beforehand and I think it was a more fun experience because of it.↩