One Battle After Another: More Than Timely and Powerful and Quirky

My son (Simon Vozick-Levinson, Deputy Music Editor at Rolling Stone) invited me to see One Battle After Another with him (he wanted to see it a second time), and I'm sure glad that I just did.  Paul Thomas Anderson's movie (based on Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland, which I haven't read) opened in New York City and around the country last month, on September 25.  It tells the story of resistance to a fascist United States of America, a story which is becoming ever more like the reality of ICE and government agents pepper-spraying clergy, pulling innocent American citizens off the street for deportation without a hearing, that we see every day on television and social media.

The only difference is Federal police in One Battle After Another fire real bullets not pepper-spray.  But the dystopian movie -- this fictional film of a Hitlerian dystopia that is nearly here -- gives us a frightening portrayal of the racism and xenophobia of the rich white men and military who order ICE to go out and do their worst.  At the same time, the movie portrays those who are driven to violence to oppose what they rightly see as the destruction of America.

One Battle After Another indeed shows us two generations of opposition to fascist government in the USA.  This has two narrative dividends.  First, it enriches the narrative, exploring the family dynamics of the revolutionaries.  Also first,  it provides a truthful historical depth to the story: in our offscreen reality, fascism and its attendant racism didn't originate in the past ten or twenty years.  It has roots that go back centuries not decades to the birth of America, and its acceptance of slavery.

The movie is also brilliantly acted.  Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro never disappoint, and they all were outstanding in this movie.  Chase Infiniti, who was memorable in the TV series Presumed Innocent, was powerful in One Battle After Another, as was Teyana Taylor.  It was also great to see Wood Harris (The Wire) and Tony Goldwyn (Law & Order)  and Brooklyn Demme on the big screen. (Demme was interviewed on the Being Frank podcast this past April, in an episode that ended with Frank LoBuono playing my song "Alpha Centauri").

Speaking of songs, there was some excellent music, across a diversity of times. My favorite was "Soldier Boy" by the Shirelles, which was eerily satisfying to hear, given that it was on Top 40 radio in 1962, the happiest time in politics in my recollection, a time that sparkled with promise and progress, in such stark contrast to this wrought movie and our country today. And there was indeed some gallows humor that was pretty funny in One Battle After Another, which was also a tonic for what was happening on the screen. 

The action scenes were excellent, too. One of my favorite was Del Toro’s character Sensei Sergio St. Carlos escaping via a tunnel under his house, something I’ve always wanted to construct, and one thing I’ve admired about El Chapo. The car chases were exceptional, with one blockbuster chase involving three cars driving at lightning speed in hilly terrain, each driver having a separate agenda, something I've never seen before, even in a James Bond movie.

But the undeniable strength of this movie is its warning against what America is becoming before our very eyes -- a sober warning delivered with all manner of quirks and idiosyncratic characters that all too often border on gonzo -- which couldn't have been delivered at a better, more necessary time.

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Simon Vozick-Levinson's A Guide to the Revolutionary Music in ‘One Battle After Another’ in Rolling Stone, September 29, 2025

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Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles 5 of X: The Power of Yeah

Rob Sheffield's short chapter in his Dreaming the Beatles (actually, they're all short, which is good) is about "It Won't Be Long," and is about as fine a piece of music journalism, or rock 'n' roll analysis, or whatever you want to call it, as you can find. It's a holographic sample of why the book as a whole is so enjoyable and important.

The mini-essay begins with a meditation or disquisition on the role of yeahs in this song in particular and the Beatles music in general, replete with a count of the number of yeahs in this song, and which one is Sheffield's favorite (I've long agreed with his choice).

But it quickly turns out that this chapter is not about yeahs but about the Beatle's love of American girl groups, ranging from Rosie and the Originals (I love their "Angel Baby" so much I from time to time listen to the dozen or more excellent covers on YouTube) through the Shirelles, the Motown girl groups, and of course the Ronettes.  (The first piece of music journalism I remember ever being impressed with was a review - maybe in one of the student newspapers - of the Ronettes' appearance at CCNY, where I was a student,  around 1964, and how the jeans of every guy in the audience tightened as Ronnie began singing and moving.)

The Beatles expressed their admiration of these groups by injecting the girl groups' vitality into their (the Beatles') yeahs.  And in a brilliant analysis of a single line - one of Sheffield's specialities - he explains why the Beatles concluded "It Won't Be Long" with the line "Till I belong to you" rather than the more expected "Till you belong to me":  it's because the former is what a girl group would sing.

There's Brill Building, Ellie Greenwich (I mentioned my connection to her in my first review of this book), and all kinds of things that show Sheffield is adept not only in understanding the Beatles but the music that inspired them, and which they incorporated and ultimately built upon rather (than is often wrongly said) they replaced.

The next chapter is about why Ringo was crucial - and that deserves a review of its own, to come as soon as I've read the chapter, which won't be long, yeah.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

John from Cincinnati: Episode Five: Not the Night

Well, tonight's John from Cincinnati - Episode Five, Day Four of John's visit - did have a scene in the diner with Butchie and Tina (mother of Shaun). But the Shirelles' "Tonight's the Night" was playing, nothing by Journey, and I didn't see any guy in a Members Only jacket....

Now I like the Shirelles and "Tonight's the Night" well enough... in fact, it's one of my favorite girl doo-wap songs.

But Rebecca De Mornay's one-note shrill performance as Grandma Cissy is beginning to grate on me, there hasn't been any surfing in the show in I forget how many episodes, and there are far too many conversations to follow.

I thought I saw some prelude to maybe something who knows between John and Cass tonight, and that was nice, but, all in all, tonight was not the night.

Which is too bad, because the last two episodes had begun to show some real power.

I can't even think of a word like "dumping" or "boning" which caught my attention, or anything I learned about the characters and the overall story that I didn't know before.

Well, there's always next week...

See also reviews of other episodes ... Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two