{"id":5291,"date":"2025-09-18T15:24:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/one-battle-after-another-reviewed-sensational-dangerous-and-hysterical-take-on-pynchons-counterculture-yarn-151470\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T15:24:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:24:20","slug":"one-battle-after-another-reviewed-sensational-dangerous-and-hysterical-take-on-pynchons-counterculture-yarn-151470","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/one-battle-after-another-reviewed-sensational-dangerous-and-hysterical-take-on-pynchons-counterculture-yarn-151470\/","title":{"rendered":"One Battle After Another reviewed: sensational and hysterical take on Pynchon\u2019s counterculture yarn"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"post-preview\">\n<p>Once upon a time it felt like Hollywood had a monopoly on channeling the dream life of America, what <strong>Norman Mailer<\/strong> called \u201cthat subterranean river of untapped, ferocious, lonely, and romantic desires, that concentration of ecstasy and violence\u201d. Today that river is barely below the surface &#8211; it gushes right out of the sewers and straight down main street, via the relentless torrents of social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-content google-ld-json\">\n<div class=\"editable-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-100 is-style-3d\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-vivid-green-cyan-background-color has-background wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/shop.kelsey.co.uk\/uncut-magazine?offer=UNC1025&amp;source=UNC1025social&amp;channel=social#anchor-shop\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here and subscribe to Uncut<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-dissenting-voices-face-their-own-challenges\">Dissenting voices face their own challenges<\/h2>\n<p>Once upon a time it felt like Hollywood had a monopoly on channeling the dream life of America, what <strong>Norman Mailer<\/strong> called \u201cthat subterranean river of untapped, ferocious, lonely, and romantic desires, that concentration of ecstasy and violence\u201d. Today that river is barely below the surface \u2013 it gushes right out of the sewers and straight down main street, via the relentless torrents of social media.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"feOQFKv2Lw4\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"One Battle After Another  - Official Trailer - Warner Bros. UK &amp; Ireland\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/feOQFKv2Lw4?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Dissenting voices face their own challenges. Networks are pulling talk show hosts, newspapers are firing columnists, and distributors are so shy of antagonising MAGA that films like A24\u2019s <strong>The Sixth<\/strong> documentary, about the attempted 2021 insurrection, mysteriously vanish from schedules.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless a distinctive Trump II cinema is emerging. This year\u2019s best films \u2013 <strong>Nickel Boys<\/strong>, <strong>Sinners<\/strong>, <strong>28 Years Later<\/strong> \u2013 and even some of its not so good \u2013 the scattershot <strong>Eddington<\/strong>, the portentous <strong>The Brutalist<\/strong>, the hokey <strong>Superman<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2013 are in their various ways engaged in contesting or reframing the ongoing collective nightmare.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-a-film-about-terror-and-conspiracy-betrayal-and-redemption\">A film about terror and conspiracy, betrayal and redemption<\/h2>\n<p>Now <strong>Paul Thomas Anderson<\/strong>, who for thirty years has been the brightest hope of liberal American filmmaking, the one Gen X director who could maybe hold a candle to the raging bulls of Nixonian cinema, returns after detours into chamber pieces (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/features\/praise-jonny-greenwood-daniel-day-lewis-phantom-thread-103250\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Phantom Thread<\/strong><\/a>) and character sketches (<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/reviews\/film-reviews\/licorice-pizza-137129\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Licorice Pizza<\/a><\/strong>)\u00a0 with an honest to goodness $150 million, state of the nation blockbuster.<\/p>\n<p>Adapted from <strong>Thomas Pynchon<\/strong>\u2019s wistful, ominous 1990 novel <strong>Vineland<\/strong>, it\u2019s a film about terror and conspiracy, betrayal and redemption.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1400\" height=\"1050\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-151468\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL-696x522.jpg 696w, https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL-1392x1044.jpg 1392w, https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GB_OBAA_Montage_VERT_MAIN_2764x4096_INTL-1068x801.jpg 1068w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\"><\/figure>\n<p>Willa is a 16 year old girl growing up in the redwoods of North California with her paranoid dopehead of a dad. She has a hazy understanding that her parents were radical activists before she was born, but things become very real when she\u2019s spirited away from her high school dance by a woman who claims to be an erstwhile comrade of her mom, who informs her that she\u2019s being pursued by special forces. Turns out one particular agent \u2013 Col Steven Lockjaw (<strong>Sean Penn<\/strong>) \u2013 has a very intimate interest in her lineage, and will stop at nothing to establish the facts of the matter, even if Willa herself is collateral damage. She\u2019s on the run for her life, with a series of maniacs, paranoids and assassins on her tail.<\/p>\n<p>It is \u2013 appropriately, for a film concerned with the execution of strategic explosions \u2013 an absolute blast. <strong>Leonardo DiCaprio<\/strong>, playing Bob, the frazzled, hapless dad, capering across the rooftops in his ratty dressing gown, like a cross between The Dude and Tom Cruise, has not had so much fun since <strong>Catch Me If You Can<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-set-to-another-high-anxiety-jonny-greenwood-score\">Set to another high anxiety Jonny Greenwood score<\/h2>\n<p>Anderson, with the biggest budget of his career, clearly relishes access to what Orson Welles once called the biggest train set a boy could want, staging a series of elaborate high octane chase through the cities, suburbs and deserts of California, all set to another high anxiety <strong>Jonny Greenwood<\/strong> score. And the image of <strong>Teyana Taylor<\/strong> as the black power militant Perfidia Beverly Hills, eight months pregnant and spraying rounds from her Uzi, lingers long after the film has ended.<\/p>\n<p>Could it be possible that One Battle After Another is too much fun? Sean Penn, who plays Colonel Lockjaw as a white knuckle black ops chief\u00a0who can\u2019t quite discipline his own cock, seems to have drifted in from a slightly different movie (specifically <strong>Dr Strangelove<\/strong>). The country club white supremacists above him, whose ranks he longs to join, are played for queasy laughs.<\/p>\n<p>But most significantly in its breakneck pratfalls, shoot outs and madcap pursuits, the film doesn\u2019t spend quite enough time with the people at the heart of the film. Vineland the book arrived after a long silence in Pynchon\u2019s own career, at a time when he was issuing shy apologies for his earlier high concept doorstoppers. It was a book that for all its wandering across the borders between dreams and reality, life and death was rooted in the domestic realities of long, knotty, family histories.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-it-is-sensational-dangerous-and-hysterical\">It is sensational, dangerous and hysterical<\/h2>\n<p>Anderson says he waited patiently for an actor like Chase Infiniti before he could make One Battle After Another, but, short of widening those bush baby eyes, and kicking out furiously at a series of abductors, she\u2019s given too little to do. In particular, the relationship between Willa, Bob and the errant Perfidia (who disappears after the first half hour, barely to return), feels underdeveloped, so that the ultimate resolution might strike you as a little pat.<\/p>\n<p>But to tell that story might have required at least a couple of seasons of premium TV. As it is One Battle After Another is over two and half hours long, but roars by like a rollercoaster ride. It is sensational, dangerous and hysterical \u2013 the work of a director\u00a0in his prime, rising to the challenge of his times. \u201cYou know what freedom is?\u201d says the zen karate instructor <strong>Benicio Del Toro<\/strong>, before kicking Bill out of his speeding car. \u201cIt\u2019s living without fear.\u201d For all that it rolls off the rails and skids off the road, One Battle After Another is a fearless film.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/reviews\/one-battle-after-another-reviewed-sensational-dangerous-and-hysterical-take-on-pynchons-counterculture-yarn-151470\/\">One Battle After Another reviewed: sensational and hysterical take on Pynchon\u2019s counterculture yarn<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncut.co.uk\/\">UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time it felt like Hollywood had a monopoly on channeling the dream life of America, what Norman Mailer called \u201cthat subterranean river of untapped, ferocious, lonely, and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,3807,3808,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-leonardo-di-caprio","category-paul-thomas-anderson","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}