This New Years' episode of SPS comes in two parts. In the first, co-hosts Pam N. and Itsï R. take up the Epstein files. What is this about? What does it have to do with the Left? And what does it have to do with political reality? We discuss. In the second part, Itsï and Pam sit down with Marco T. to talk about the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, One Battle after Another (2025). We treat the film as a work of art -- try to understand the world of the film and its nutty vision of paranoid cabals. We get into how it measures up to the rest of Anderson's work and what it reveals about the imagination of the last 15 years. And we comment on the reviews from Jacobin, the World Socialist Website, and the National Review.

That's a wrap for the SPS team in 2025! Thanks to our listeners for the great feedback and suggestions -- keep them coming. As always, if you like the podcast, share it, and leave us a review! It goes a long way to help us get the word out. SPS is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Soundcloud. If you want to send us a message, find us at [email protected] and on IG: @shitplatypussays.

Episode Links:

- Chris Cutrone on Venezuela (Sublation Media, December 2025)

https://youtu.be/EYdgYDMqG7Y?si=LIYIAOPAYVJxCSpF

- Spartacists on Venezuela (Workers Vanguard No. 1188, December 2025)

https://iclfi.org/pubs/wv/1188/venezuela

Published after our recording so we didn't get a chance to discuss it, but take a read!

- Jacobin review of One Battle after Another

https://jacobin.com/2025/09/one-battle-after-another-review

- WSWS review of One Battle after Another

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/10/04/xvwh-o04.html

- Armond White's review of One Battle after Another for the National Review

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/there-will-be-bloodlust-in-one-battle-after-another/

- Sunit Singh's review of The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008) (Platypus Review 12, May 2009)

https://platypus1917.org/2009/05/15/film-review-the-baader-meinhof-complex/

- SPS on Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

https://soundcloud.com/platypus-affiliated-society/ep19