FILMS ARE BETTER IN THEATERS –
Dec.3, 2025- It was another great year for the movies and another horrible, hair-on-fire year for the industry, as each month brought more bummer box-office news. The bigger picture is always more complicated, and it’s worth repeating (again!) that the business, and that avatar known as Hollywood, isn’t synonymous with cinema. 2.
‘One Battle After Another’ (Paul Thomas Anderson)
As American as apple pie and anti-authoritarianism, Anderson’s carnivalesque film opens on a ragtag group of would-be revolutionaries (among them Teyana Taylor’s dynamo) liberating migrants from a detention center. The shock of that scene reverberates throughout this beautifully directed and acted film, which narrows on one burnout member (Leonardo DiCaprio). Roused to action, he stumbles out of his cannabis-infused stupor like the ghost of radicalism past for yet another battle, one that others have been fighting — and will fight — far better.
