One Battle After Another And What's Making Us Happy
Pop Culture Happy Hour
NPR
4.5 • 11.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 September 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Rachel Martin. I'm the host of Wildcard from NPR. For a lot of my years as a radio host, silence sort of made me nervous. That pause before an answer, because you don't know what's going on on the other side of the mic. But these days, I love it. Oh, gosh. Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Think. Listen to the Wildcard podcast, only from NPR. |
| 0:28.7 | Aside from great performances, you never quite know what you're going to get with a new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. |
| 0:34.6 | Sometimes it's a twisted romance or a loose coming of age tale or even a sprawling |
| 0:39.1 | epic with biblical implications. His latest feature is one battle after another and this time he's |
| 0:44.9 | in action thriller mode. Once again, he's in fine form. Somehow, this is Anderson's first time |
| 0:50.0 | working with Leonardo DiCaprio, who's playing a stoned out dad searching for his missing daughter. The character does not have a very particular set of skills, but he does have a |
| 0:59.0 | history of raging against the machine. And in this case, the machine is unabashedly racist, xenophobic, |
| 1:04.9 | and corrupt. I'm Glenn Weldon. And I'm Ayesha Harris. And today we're talking about one |
| 1:09.8 | battle after another on Pop Quinterter Happy Hour from NPR. |
| 1:14.1 | Joining us today is freelance film critic and programmer Monica Costa. |
| 1:17.5 | Welcome back, Monica. |
| 1:18.4 | So glad to be back for this one. |
| 1:20.0 | Lovely to have you. |
| 1:21.5 | So one battle after another stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob, a washed up ex--revolutionary living quietly with his teen daughter Willa. |
| 1:29.5 | She's played by Chase Infinity. One day, his past comes back to haunt him, Colonel Lockjaw, |
| 1:35.3 | that is his actual name, he is the officer who effectively dismantled Bob's crew of militant |
| 1:40.7 | activists some 16 years earlier, and he's tracked him down and is after Willa now. |
| 1:45.8 | He's played by a very colorful and very sinister Sean Penn. |
| 1:49.7 | Bob seeks help from what's left of his old group, The French 75. |
| 1:53.4 | He's also aided by Willis karate instructor Sergio, played by Benicio del Toro. |
| 1:57.2 | And the ensemble also includes Tiana Taylor as perfidia, Beverly Hills. Again, these |
| 2:02.8 | names, Chef's Kiss, she's playing Bob's Love and Willa's Mom. One Battle After Another is in |
... |
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