The “One Battle After Another” Flowchart Quiz
Find out if you should see the new action movie “One Battle After Another”
After two decades in development, auteur Paul Thomas Anderson’s (PTA) 10th feature film, One Battle After Another, has finally arrived.
Colossal, exhilarating, and propulsive, the nearly 3-hour-long epic, which follows an ex-revolutionary searching for his missing daughter, has drawn universal acclaim. Some even say it’s a lock for 10 to 11 nominations at next year’s Oscars, as well as the frontrunner for Best Picture.
As such, many movie lovers—myself included—would call you silly, ridiculous even, if you intended to skip it.
But maybe you have a good reason. Or maybe you don’t. Let’s figure this out together.
So arm your explosives and memorize those secret codes, because it’s time to take the One Battle After Another Flowchart Quiz!
Have you seen the new action movie One Battle After Another?
Yes→Go to Question 2
No→Go to Question 3
How many more times are you planning to see it in theaters?
As many times as possible→Whoa! Who let this extremely cool, extremely attractive person past security? Haha, no, but seriously. Get out of here, because you have completed this quiz.
None more times→Go to Question 4
Okay… so what are you going to watch this weekend instead? That stupid-ass movie A Big Bold Beautiful Journey? If you want a big, bold, beautiful journey, just watch One Battle After Another!
I don’t want to spend money to see a movie in theaters when I can just wait for it to come to streaming→Think of it this way: The director made this movie with the intention of audiences experiencing it in theaters. Therefore, watching it at home—or, God forbid, on an airplane—is equivalent to Googling a picture of the Mona Lisa. If you’re still confused, meet me at Question 5.
But I would like to see A Big Bold Beautiful Journey instead. It looks sweet→You’re kidding, right? The trailer literally has a voiceover guy saying the title of the movie, which is how you know it’s gonna be straight ass. Be honest: Were you charmed by that part of the ad where Margot Robbie does an impression of Colin Farrell’s accent? Look, I almost was, too, but I didn’t let that brainwash me. Use your common sense, I beg you! Reread Question 3 and choose the first answer option. If that feels disingenuous to you, know that it’s okay to lie to yourself if it’s for your own good.
Goddamn it. Here we fucking go…
No, no, no! I liked it! I thought the story was cool and the acting was great. I just don’t really need to rewatch a 3-hour movie where—→Listen, I’m going to stop you right there. Don’t need to see what again, exactly? A movie where Teyana Taylor humiliates a commanding officer at an immigration center by forcing him, at gunpoint, to walk around with an erection, or where Leonardo DiCaprio plays a deadbeat stoner dad, running around in a bathrobe looking for an outlet to charge his phone, or where Benicio Del Toro plays a sensei who runs a “little Latino Harriet Tubman” operation, or where débutante Chase Infiniti goes toe-to-toe with two Best Actor Oscar winners (Penn and DiCaprio)? You don’t want to see that movie again in the theaters?? Go take a breather and return to Question 2.
Yeah, I didn’t like it→You know how the best chefs in the world know exactly how big a plate should be? They’re able to craft the perfect dining experience by matching up the duration between courses and course calories to ensure that each guest leaves the table satisfied1. That’s what PTA, one of the best directors in the world, has done here, only instead of a meal, he made a movie. Pretty much everyone is chemically predisposed to come away pleased. I guess if you can’t connect with that, there’s something seriously wrong with you. Needless to say, you have finished this quiz.
Okay, I took some time to cool off between Question 3 and now, but I still have something I want to get off my chest: Movies like One Battle After Another only come along once every 10 years or so. That is to say, movies that are so timely and so urgent—instant masterpieces we will be talking about for the next half century. Such movies deserve to be met on their terms—in the theater, surrounded by others, gasping and shouting and losing their shit together. You know what I mean?
You have totally changed my mind. Please tell me what to do→Go see it in the biggest format possible: IMAX, 70mm, VistaVision (if you are lucky enough to live near one of the four locations in the world that still show movies in Vista). But if you can only manage digital, then amazing, wonderful, excellent. So long as you throw money at this movie.
I lied. Really, I don’t want to be surrounded by annoying film bros saying shit like what you just said→Okay, first of all, I’m not a film bro—I barely understand that thing I just said about film formats. Second, yes, I admit that the film bro thing is a valid concern. During my screening (which I saw in 70mm), my girlfriend and my friend’s girlfriend were the only two women in the 100-or-so-person audience. Also, one of the guys in my row was bragging that he saw one of the trailer movies at Telluride, a thing he repeated at least four times. That all being said, I can confidently say that most, if not all, the film bros have already seen this. You’ll be surrounded by lots of people, like you, who probably took this quiz, having succumbed to my bullying, forcing you to watch a 3-hour movie on a school night.
Or maybe this is just something The Menu made up.