This week, on Thursday (23), a test screening of the new Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, happened in Phoenix and some people were invited to watch it. The blogs World of Reel and The Film Stage shared some of impressions and the possible final title for the project: ‘One Battle After Another’. Check out the articles below:

We finally have some concrete details about this one, which garnered positive reactions. Obviously, as with all such screenings, it’s very hard to measure just how good (or bad) a film is going to turn out, so I’m not even going to bother with any of the in-depth reactions I’ve been hearing about.

What I will say is that our initial hunch has proven to be correct. This is, more or less, Anderson’s take on “Vineland,” but in the most mainstream way imaginable. The story is taken straight out of Thomas Pynchon’s novel, although the character’s names have been changed, and there are enough differences for the film to firmly stand on its own.

As far as the title goes, it’s definitely called “One Battle After Another.” Based on what I’ve heard, that’s a very apt description of the entire film which goes from one big elaborate action set-piece after another. It’s a “huge crowd-pleaser” with “lots of stunts and car chases.”

Sean Penn plays Col. Steven J. Lockjaw and he’s a “white supremacist” who somehow had an affair with Teyana Taylor’s character. She ends up leaving him, taking up with with Leonardo Dicaprio’s “Bob” and that’s when Lockjaw tries tracking both of them down. It’s a 3-hour chase movie, but despite its dark themes, is very funny, filled with comedic elements, including slapstick.

According to one source, the best way to describe “One Battle After Another” is as a “big action comedy,” and one can very much witness Jonathan Demme’s influence, especially his great 1988 film “Something Wild,” which itself was a hybrid of action and very dark humor. Anderson’s films seems to have taken Demme’s template, and blown it up into a 3-hour epic.

As far as the performances go, Leonardo DiCaprio is his usual great self, but it’s Sean Penn who seems to steal the show as Lockjaw. Sporting a greyish buzzcut, Penn’s Lockjaw is described as a “great villain” that’ll be giving you some real nightmares once you’ve finished watching the film.

Warner Bros. greenlit PTA’s latest for the whopping sum of (at least) $140 million. The film is said to be PTA’s most “mainstream” film to date.

“I need to start figuring out what the f— to say,” Paul Thomas Anderson recently said when it came to his biggest project yet, a $115 million Warner Bros. summer tentpole with a cast featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Alana Haim, Benicio del Toro, and Chase Infiniti. The promotion has not begun yet ahead of its August 8 release, but the film, which runs just under three hours, held its first test screening in Phoenix, Arizona at the Harkins Theatres Norterra 14 with the director in attendance and we have the first details.

Speaking with a lucky attendee at the screening, Anderson confirmed the film––which is titled One Battle After Another––is nearly finished, helping squash those unsubstantiated reports of the film being delayed. As early rumors hinted, it is indeed a modern take on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland. While Donald Trump isn’t mentioned, the film does feature white supremacists, notably Sean Penn’s menacing character Col. Steve J. Lockjaw (aka Brock Vond, for those familiar with the book), who gets the second-most screentime after Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, whose name is reportedly Bob but he goes by “Ghetto Pat.” The film captures Lockjaw’s hunt for Teyana Taylor’s character after she leaves him to be with DiCaprio’s character.

While on-set reports revealed a small portion of the tentpole-level spectacle on display, an entirely new arena for PTA, the film itself has even more than expected, with “loads of action and car chases,” including a “phenomenal” car chase in the climax and the “closest we’ll ever get” to a full-on PTA action movie. Our source says “it’s quite batshit crazy,” and don’t expect anything like PTA’s last Pynchon adaptation, Inherent Vice. “It could definitely appeal to a lot of people, starting with Leo and the scale that is present,” they note. Jonny Greenwood’s score also felt complete, one they call “chilling, but very big with techno elements.”

In terms of references, the film’s mix of thrills, humor, and “very moving” emotion recalls Jonathan Demme’s 1986 screwball comedy road movie gem Something Wild as well as Alex Cox’s 1984 sci-fi black comedy Repo Man. Our source confirmed the film does feature sci-fi elements and expertly handles weaving together its multiple tones with a feeling that “you just live in” the movie.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s underappreciated,” Anderson said of Alex Cox back in 2014. “I was 13 or 14 years old and I recognized the world [of Repo Man]. There such abandon in this movie––it’s focused, it’s funny, it’s outlandish. It’s talky in a way that never feels like a stage play ’cause it’s always moving. Quentin [Tarantino] I’m sure loved this movie, we’ve never talked about it, but there’s Quentin fingerprints all over the way these characters talk to each other.” Speaking of Repo Man‘s night scenes, he added, “I’m always trying to get night exteriors to look the way Robby Müller shot them. I can never do it. I never know how he did it. It doesn’t look like there’s any lights on, it looks like how it really looks and back then — there’s gotta be a million lights on… As long as I keep [making films], I’ll try and get night exteriors to look like Müller.” It sounds like he may have finally succeeded with his latest project.