what happens when you take sci-fi and turn all of its gestures and language into something that isn't speculative, but rather uncanny and even restorative? technology and the institution of tech as a means of self-growth, but not in the way we've come to know this kind of arc. nestled somewhere on, or perhaps a little off to the side of, a spectrum between August in the Water and For the Plasma. which, for an extremely small group of people…

first impressions... at once PTA's most straightforward/classically minded and yet also his most confounding in some ways. the psychology of its characters is always shifting ever so slightly – you think you have them and the film itself figured out and then it steers subtly towards different avenues. his use of music montage is probably the most mesmerizing it's ever been – Jonny Greenwood is one of the real stars here in a way he hasn't been before. all of…