Slate Culture Gabfest: One Battle After Another, Long Story Short, and Broadway's Crisis

Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another"

• 🎬 The film is described as Paul Thomas Anderson's biggest and first action thriller, a sprawling story loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland."
• 🚀 It depicts a fictional revolutionary group, the "French 75," resisting an authoritarian regime, with themes of revolution, repression, white supremacy, and systemic fascism.
• 🎭 Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a former revolutionary, "Ghetto Pat"/"Rocket Man," now living under an assumed identity, whose past actions and drug use complicate his efforts to save his kidnapped daughter.
• 🌟 The movie is praised for being incredibly fun, enjoyable to watch, and a "fantasia on national themes," blending stoner comedy elements with a big statement movie.
• 🎞️ Its cinematography, Johnny Greenwood's score, and performances, particularly from DiCaprio and Shawn Penn, are highlighted as exceptional.
• ⏳ The film's manipulation of time, including a montage that's not immediately recognizable as such, and its loose connection to the novel's original setting are discussed.

"Long Story Short" - A New Animated Series

• 📺 Created by the minds behind "Bojack Horseman," this animated series follows the fractious Jewish Schwooper family in Northern California.
• 🕰️ The show features a complex temporal structure, jumping between different time frames from the late 90s to the early 2020s, with glimpses into the parents' childhoods.
• 😂 It's lauded for its brilliant structural genius, rapid-fire jokes, and unexpected emotional "rugpulls," often making viewers cry and laugh hysterically.
• 🎭 Voice performances, particularly from Paul Reiser, Nicole Byer, and Lisa Edelstein, are praised for bringing depth and humanity to the characters, even when playing on stereotypes.
• 🖼️ The animation style, with its stripped-down backgrounds and shifting visual vocabulary, is noted for its effectiveness in serving the story.
• ⚠️ The series' handling of sensitive topics, including the decision to omit discussions of Israel in the first season, is acknowledged as a potential challenge for future seasons.

The Dire State of Broadway Musicals

• 📉 A recent New York Times article highlights a crisis on Broadway, with many new musicals failing to recoup their significant investments.
• 💸 High production costs, with some shows costing at least $20 million, and high operating costs (the "weekly nut") make recoupment extremely difficult.
• 💔 The traditional model relies on long-running blockbusters to generate profits that can hedge against the risk of new works, but this model is becoming unsustainable.
• 🌟 Straight plays, particularly those starring movie stars, have seen more success recently, with some charging exorbitant ticket prices.
• 💡 Exceptions like the play "O Mary!" and the musical "Maybe Happy Ending" are discussed as potential success stories, though their models differ from typical Broadway blockbusters.
• 📈 The rising costs of materials and labor, coupled with high rents for theater spaces, are identified as major contributing factors to the financial crisis.