Dan Conley

The new Paul Thomas Anderson film “One Battle After Another” opened to rave reviews and is being talked about as an Oscar frontrunner. A story in Variety today hailed it as the rare movie that might break into the national cultural and political conversation, mostly for the way it “exposes

As a prelude to the recap, I want to express my alignment with Romek in the previous episodes, even though I know he has brought unnecessary pain to himself and his partner. To recall why the action played out like it did, remember that his doctor/friend suggested that he

Romek gets out of a cab. We are expecting him to arrive home without his car, but he’s not leaving the cab at his apartment complex, he’s being dropped off in front of his mother-in-law’s apartment. He looks up and sees a light on. So, Romek understands

Building off of my essay on eros, centering on the philosophy of Byung-Chul Han, I came across this quote from him today: Depression can be understood as a pathogenic development of this modern ontology of the self. It is, as Alain Ehrenberg puts it, fatigue d’être soi tiredness of

There is a vitality in surveillance, a sense of power from attaining information that was not yours, whether it was hidden or not. Romek, who has literally been robbed of his masculine power, is seeking a way to restore his authority. Finding the physics notebook, and then the phone number,

I’ve underrated this episode in the past, and I now think this segment ranks as peak Kieslowski. He’s displaying some of his keenest psychological insights through the strange story of Romek and Hansa. Having lost the ability to use sex as the balance in their relationship, both of