One Battle After Another (2025)

In this episode of Cinema Callback, Andy and Michael dive headfirst into Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest cinematic whirlwind, One Battle After Another. Told through the show’s signature voice note format, the conversation unfolds organically over time, with the hosts responding to each other’s ideas, challenging interpretations, and gradually building a picture of the film rather than delivering a conventional review. The result is a discussion that feels closer to an ongoing conversation than a verdict. Across a series of back and forth voice notes, they unpack the film’s kinetic, high octane energy and debate whether it recaptures the spirit of PTA’s early masterpieces like Boogie Nights and Magnolia, or whether it plays more like a deliberately chaotic remix of the director’s greatest themes. Key Discussion PointsThe Last Movie Star: Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as a seemingly washed up, deadbeat protagonist. Is he perfectly cast as the centrepiece needed to get a film this ambitious made, or does the role deliberately strip away too much of his natural charisma? The Teyana Taylor Factor: Why her magnetic, scene stealing performance creates a vacuum once her character exits the narrative, and how that absence reshapes the film. The Great Revolution Debate: One host sees a timely, pro revolutionary fable, while the other reads the film as a darkly comic satire about the way ideology, bureaucracy, and endless "admin" doom political movements from within. Cinematic Highlights: From the geography and staging of the breathtaking car chase to the unsettling propulsion of Jonny Greenwood’s score, the episode digs into the craft behind some of the film’s most memorable moments. Whether you are here for Benicio Del Toro’s effortlessly brilliant supporting turn, to untangle the film’s politics, or just to find out whether we ever located that elusive Modelo in the beer aisle, this is a deep dive into one of the year’s most energetic, ambitious, and hotly debated films.