One Battle After Another (2025) | REVIEW

Leonardo DiCaprio trying to figure out a rendezvous location over a payphone call in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) — Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson.

One of the most anticipated major auteur works of 2025 has been released. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s postmodern 1990 novel Vineland, One Battle After Another marks the 10th narrative feature from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (often abbreviated as PTA) and the first team-up with the renowned and immensely popular thespian Leonardo DiCaprio. The film follows Bob Ferguson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a paranoid ex-revolutionary, who has gone into hiding from the government to protect his now-teenaged daughter, Willa (played by Chase Infiniti), who has yet to fully understand what he and her mother went through when they quarreled with the government during their time as prominent members of the far-left revolutionary group the French 75, who, among other things, broke out detained immigrants from militarized detention centers. However, on the day of a school dance, it becomes clear that the government — personified by Colonel Steven Lockjaw (played by Sean Penn), who has personal reasons for seeking out Bob and Willa — has finally found them. When Lockjaw and the military’s presence becomes known, Bob goes in pursuit of his daughter, with the hope of getting to her before Lockjaw can, but he needs the assistance of the cool-headed local community leader, Sergio St. Carlos (played by Benicio Del Toro), if he is to have any chance of navigating both the chaos around him and the paranoia inside of him, as well as getting to his daughter before it’s too late. 

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Christopher Reeve’s Superman Films | REVIEWS

Christopher Reeve as Superman in SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE — PHOTO: Warner Bros. (Still image from trailer).

With a new film in theaters titled Superman, now feels like an appropriate time to take a closer look at the primary films that inspired it, namely the Christopher Reeve era of Superman films in the 1970s and 1980s. Below you’ll find reviews of both Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. But, as a special treat, I’ve also reviewed the 2006 Richard Donner cut of Superman II.

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First ‘Batgirl’ then ‘scripted content’: Warner Bros. Discovery’s recent decision-making is worrying

Photo: Chris Yarzab / Flickr

In recent days, it was revealed that the Warner Bros. Discovery merger had already had a huge impact on upcoming releases and the extremely popular streaming service HBO Max, arguably the service with the best content library. First, it was revealed that the upcoming Batgirl film, which had finished production, had been canceled. It was no longer to be released in theaters or on HBO Max. Then, we found out that the Scoob! sequel, an animated film due to be released later this year, had also been thrown away entirely.

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REVIEW: King Richard (2021)

Will Smith as the titular character (right) with the Williams sisters (played by Demi Singleton and Saniyya Sidney) in KING RICHARD — PHOTO: Warner Bros.

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green — Screenplay by Zach Baylin.

Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard tells the story of how Richard Williams (played by Will Smith) helped to shepherd and develop the Williams sisters — Venus (played by Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (played by Demi Singleton) — on their journey to tennis stardom. His determination to make a better life for his daughters brought them far, but in order for them to take the final steps to superstardom, he had to learn how to step back a bit.

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Goodbye 2021: Vaccinations, Variants, and Streaming

Sometimes once a year comes to an end, I like to close it out with a few thoughts on the year that is about to be behind us. Just last year, I spent a lot of my Goodbye 2020 article on the state of the film and movie theater industries during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it certainly seems like this edition of these New Year’s Eve articles will have to have a similar focus.

Because while I do think it’s possible to see a light at the end of the tunnel since most people are accepting the vaccines, it is also true that the world isn’t completely out of the woods yet (in part due to the various different variants of the contagious disease that has dictated our lives for a very long time now). But what has all of this meant for the aforementioned industries and, more broadly, the ‘movie year’ that was 2021? Well, let’s talk about that.

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RETRO REVIEW: The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Keanu Reeves as Neo in THE MATRIX RELOADED — Photo: Warner Bros.

Directed by Lana & Lilly Wachowski — Screenplay by Lana & Lilly Wachowski.

Released four years after the original science-fiction action modern classic, The Matrix, the Wachowskis returned to the story with which they had made their names in Hollywood. This continuation was filmed concurrently with the trilogy conclusion Revolutions, which was, incredibly, released in the very same year as Reloaded (half a year later). The Wachowskis tried to recapture the spirit of the original film and to continue its story in a way that would both up the ante narratively as well as with the inventiveness of the action. While I don’t think this first sequel is a complete miss, I must, however, say that I think Reloaded missed that mark. I think it is an underwhelming sequel with unexciting subplots and action that fails to be as breathtaking as in the original film. However, although it is a mixed bag, it is certainly not without some notable bright spots and some memorable sequences.

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RETRO REVIEW: The Matrix (1999)

Carrie-Anne Moss as ‘Trinity’ and Keanu Reeves as ‘Neo’ in THE MATRIX — Photo: Warner Bros.

Directed by Lana & Lilly Wachowski — Screenplay by Lana & Lilly Wachowski.

Sometimes you need a good excuse to rewatch something that was released decades earlier. It could be a re-release, it could be a remake, it could be an anniversary, but, as was the case with The Matrix for me, it could also be a fresh trailer for a new chapter in its franchise. In a couple of months, Lana Wachowski and Warner Bros. will release the fourth film in the Matrix-film series, and, to be perfectly honest, its first trailer got its hooks into me. After watching it, I felt compelled to rewatch the 1999 modern classic, The Matrix, and, let me tell you, I’m glad I did. This movie was much better than I remembered it being, and I think the film, its central ideas, the action, and the overwhelming world-building holds up.

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REVIEW: Dune (2021)

Josh Brolin, left, as Gurney Halleck and Timothée Chalamet, right, as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s DUNE — Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) — Screenplay by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth.

When science-fiction neophytes first lay their eyes on the marketing material for Denis Villeneuve’s latest science-fiction film, Dune, they should be forgiven, if they immediately remark that it looks like an imitation of Star Wars — or other similar films. Obviously, they would be under a false impression, but, after all, it is a little bit strange that one of Star Wars‘ most obvious sources of inspiration — Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune — has not previously generated a widely known or appreciated adaptation.

In fact, the Dune property is perhaps especially renowned for being difficult to adapt. Famously, Alejandro Jodorowsky tried but failed to get an adaptation off the ground, while David Lynch’s adaptation from 1984 was critically panned. Those ‘failed’ attempts are, in fact, more widely known than the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series that the franchise also spawned. Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have now entrusted auteur Denis Villeneuve with the job of adapting Frank Herbert’s rich, influential, and dense source material, and I think that was a very smart decision.

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REVIEW: The Suicide Squad (2021)

David Dastmalchian, John Cena, Idris Elba, and Daniela Mechior in THE SUICIDE SQUAD — Photo: Jessica Miglio / Warner Bros.

Directed by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) — Screenplay by James Gunn.

Over the years, I have certainly not tried to hide the fact that I think 2016’s Suicide Squad, which was directed by David Ayer (though he has repeatedly made it clear that the film was essentially taken away from him as a result of studio interference), is, to put it mildly, one of my least favorite films ever made in the superhero genre. That 2016 film certainly reeked of studio interference, it was an almost incoherent mess, it was needlessly grimy and at times quite ugly, it used a decent soundtrack as a crutch and in a way that became incredibly tiring, all the while failing to get you to care about the characters or the relationships they were building. There were some decent things about it, but, on the whole, it felt like someone had tried to turn Ayer’s vision into a shameless imitation of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and that just didn’t work for the film that Ayer had envisioned.

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REVIEW: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman (left) and Chris Pine as Steve Trevor (right) in Wonder Woman 1984 — Photo: DC Comics / Warner Bros.

Directed by Patty Jenkins — Screenplay by Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and Dave Callaham.

The highly anticipated sequel to Patty Jenkins’ 2017 film, Wonder Woman, has finally arrived in Denmark. The film was released in theaters around the world (and simultaneously on HBO Max exclusively in the United States) in December of 2020, but, a week, or so, prior to the theatrical release in Denmark, all Danish theaters were ordered to close due to the second wave of the Coronavirus global pandemic. At the time of writing, theaters are still closed. This also means that Wonder Woman 1984 eventually skipped Danish theaters entirely.

In the mean time, frustratingly, the film was not made available for premium-video-on-demand in Denmark, and it took the distributor this long to release the film on HBO Nordic. That’s right, almost exactly three months after it was released on a streaming service in the United States. But now, thankfully, that wait is over. I’ve finally had the chance to watch the sequel to the hit 2017 superhero film led by Gal Gadot. Unfortunately, while I appreciated the original film, this sequel just feels misguided.

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