Paul Thomas Anderson dropped out of NYU film school after two days. He made the decision after a screenwriting professor said “if you’re here to write Terminator 2, just leave now.”

His film education was “watching other movies” (and listening to the director’s commentary).

On a related note, I wrote about the day that Quentin Tarantino decided to quit working as a clerk at a video store and move to Hollywood.

The video store job was “dream adjacent” and “putting his real ambition to sleep”, so he made a change. readtrung.com/p/the-day-quen…

Quentin Tarantino says Paul Thomas Anderson is his “most cherished relationship with another filmmaker” and that the “There Will Be Blood” forced Quentin to “up his game”.

Just watched “One Battle After Another”. and the theatre ended up 2/3rd full on a Monday during lunch.

Proabably best film I’ve seen in 2020s and fave PTA flick after “There Will Be Blood”.

PTA basically made his version of “Terminator 2” (T2):

▫️Non-stop action
▫️Parent-child relationship drives story (instead of mom-son with Sarah and John Connor, it’s dad-daughter with Leo and Chase Infiniti)
▫️Chase is a bit of a young prodigy and rebellion leader in the mold of John Connor
▫️A third parent like figure hangs over main relationship (Arnold in T2 and Teyana Taylor in “One Battle”)
▫️They are chased by a menacing force (T-1000 in T2, Sean Penn and government military forces)
▫️Act III in both have a massive car chase
▫️The pacing is incredible…the plot really was one battle after another
▫️Since T2 was a sequel, the backstory is known….so PTA spends a lot of time in Act I setting up backstory before jumping forward in time to the main action
▫️T1 and T2 are 11 years apart (the jump ahead in “One Battle” is 16 years)
▫️relatedly, T2 is 2h17m while “One Battle” is 2h45m

Leo is such a good actor, his dad character is incredibly on point.

My favorite film last year was “The Wild Robot”, which also had a similar T2 set-up (but in a kids animated film).

The pacing of the hunter vs. hunted also reminded me of “The Fugitive” and “No Country For Old Men” (famously, the Corn Brothers filmed “No Country” in West Texas at the exact same time PTA was filming “There Will Be Blood”).

My guess is “One Battle” will sweep Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Leo), Best Supporting Actor (Penn), Best Supporting Actress (Chase), Best Score.

Could be recency bias — as in literally I just watched it — but it was that good (action, heart strings, very salient plot and funny…especially Benecio Del Toro and Leo riffing).

I was so happy that I bought 2 extra Dasani waters and a package of Sourh Patch kids after the film just to kick the theatre some more of that 95% margin concession money.

Go watch it in theatres.