Tuesday March 24th 2026
My Dear America:
Recently I watched the last three quarters of the movie, "One Battle After Another" on HBO. I had tried to watch the movie a couple of months ago on a Sunday night but I ended up doing something that I rarely do. I turned the movie off after about a half an hour because I was rather disturbed by the level of extreme violence that occurred in the beginning moments of the film. It just seemed to me at the time like something that I could care less about watching the whole way through so I bailed out and figured that I had just avoided spending a few hours with a really crappy movie. I didn't want to watch it and that was the end of it, I thought. Why in the hell had Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio signed up for this Dog of a Picture, I thought.
I felt fine with my decision not to finish watching "One Battle After Another" for awhile but then Awards Season came around and I started seeing that the movie and the Movie's Stars, Sean Penn, Leo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro and Teyana Taylor and the movie's Director, Paul Thomas Anderson all seemed to be not only racking up good reviews for the work they had done on the movie but were also being nominated for and also picking up some serious awards for their work on the film. I began to think that I had made a mistake in not watching the movie as the awards rolled in. I especially regretted my mistake when I watched the Oscars and saw "One Battle After Another pick up several Academy Awards including for Sean Penn, who wasn't there to get his award for Supporting Actor, for Paul Thomas Anderson for Best Director and the movie even won Best Picture.
Unfortunately, when I went to look on the listings I no longer saw it listed as a movie I could see on HBO.
But Then, Shortly after the Oscars telecast ,like a miracle, while I was checking out what movies were on this past Thursday night I found it already playing on HBO. I had unfortunately missed the first half hour but there were still two hours to go. I had missed almost the first half hour but then I had seen most of the first half hour in my initial excursion into the movie.
What the Hell, I thought, If its bad I can always turn it off again.
I didn't turn it off. I watched every minute that I could and I was, indeed, sorry for my first foolish move in not finishing watching what turned out to be a Great Film. I have seen many of the films that Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio were in and I truly believe that both of these fine actors were outstanding in their roles in "One Battle After Another". Both Leo and Sean played their roles, Leo as a burned out radical and Sean as a burned out Military Leader, with great intensity aided by a terrific script written by Paul Thomas Anderson.
The Movie was adapted from a Novel called "Vineland" that had been written by a Mysterious Sixties Cult Figure and Author named Thomas Pynchon.
The acting and directing in this film, as well in a few other films directed by Paul Thomas Anderson that I have seen was first rate. One thing that I noticed about this film was the variety of musical genres that the Director used in the film. The film ended and the credits started with the booming strains of "American Girl" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
I learned a couple of lessons from this film.
First of All, I learned to be careful about choosing when to bail out on a film.
Second of all, I thought that this film pointed out that Bad People are always around us. Both Leo and Sean played Bad Guys but neither one was all bad. The film was a bit disjointed and somewhat difficult to follow at times but although I never read Pynchon's book the Author did have a reputation as a mysterious cult figure who avoided publicity like the plague.
I think that in the time we are living in there are some sincerely important lessons to be gleaned from this excellent but intensely violent film.
We are watching in Real Time as our military under the direction of a bone spur draft dodger is being projected into dangerous endeavors all over the globe and we all need to be careful that the Bad Guys who are everywhere in charge of our corruption filled American Government do not lull us into thinking that it's not a big deal that Soldiers and Innocents are being killed in sometimes fantastic numbers.
Donald Trump and his Sycophants in the State Department and the Pentagon seem to be hell bent on doing what Putin did in his section of the world when he invaded countries like Ukraine.
There is no doubt at this point in time that the United States of America is being run by someone who is extremely unstable and whose view of power is that the world is like a video game to him and he is so powerful and so intelligent that the world should bow down to him and allow him to do whatever he wants to do in the world. That is a recipe for the kind of danger that will make the violence of "One Battle After Another" into Reality.
The more we know from the Epstein Files the more we can see that our President who likes to call Gavin Newsom "Newscum" is the real scum.
Although there really is not much we can do presently other than continue to speak the truth to Donald Trump's Lies, We can and should look around us and work on not letting Trump and his Republican cronies screw with our elections with the Save Act and make sure that all of us who can will vote for Democrats in the Mid Term Election and in all future elections.
I hope for all of our sakes that someday soon the Republicans that used to be like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger retake the reins of the Republican Party and turn it back into the party of decency that it used to be. What it has become has turned America into a country that we can no longer feel proud to be a part of.
Sincerely Yours
Jerry Gallagher
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