Probably in many massive warehouses around the world, there are the stored vehicles, airplanes, clothing and millions of artifacts from the years 1939-1945, arguably the most significant 6 years in human history. You have to admire that when you see a vintage World War 2 film like Allied, the producers and directors of a movie like this are able to gather together all of these old cars and war planes and somehow get them all to run and look like they did 70 years ago. There are many scenes in Allied that show many cars and planes from this era as this movie takes place in occupied France in the 1940’s and then England. Perhaps one day it will no longer be possible to make a World War 2 movie because the old machinery will just be too old to get to run again and perhaps building cars from that era would be too costly, but that is where computer animation comes in. I also thought about how many thousands of movies around the world have been made about the most important 6 year period in human history and that has to be a very large number.

As far as the movie Allied I thought it captured the period during the early 1940s in France and England very well, and the special effects showing air raids and plane crashes were quite impressive. The story of this movie is about 2 spies for England who are stationed in occupied France to spy on the Germans, what follows are many scenes of espionage, spying and paranoia and then a love story between the two spies played by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. As one would expect, a love story and eventual marriage and child between two spies in World War 2 would cause massive complications and as far as that aspect of the story, I thought it was well done. There are several love scenes between Cotillard and Pitt that are rumored to be one of the reasons for Brad Pitt’s recent divorce from Angelina Jole and from these scenes it is believable that this could be one of the causes. This movie is very well directed by Robert Zemeckis.

This is not a great movie about World War 2, just a good one and I do recommend it.

One thing that separates people who aspire to be funny either as a writer or a stand-up comedian is that some people are fascinated by why something is funny but most people just don’t really care, they just laugh never appreciating or knowing why they laughed. Why is something funny and something not funny? Is this something that can be figured out, or is too complicated to figure out?

Over the years there have been many raunchy foul-languaged laden movies that have come out and most are just not funny because of the simple fact that constant cursing and being raunchy by itself is not funny. There has to be something more. So why is Bad Santa and the sequel Bad Santa 2 so very funny? Is it the fact that Billy Bob Thorton is just a great comedic actor or does he deliver the sounds and personality of a broken down drunken loser of a person capable of non-stop and believable cursing and raunchy sexual behavior better and funnier than anybody ever has? Is it the writing and the comedic timing and the perfect comedy chemistry of Billy Bob Thorton who plays Willie Soke, and Tony Cox who plays Marcus Skidmore? Willie and Marcus are partners in crime in this movie, almost exactly as they were in Bad Santa, released a long 13 years ago in 2003. Both of them are criminals who pose as Santa Clause in order to commit some sort of robbery at the company they work for. In this movie, Willie’s mother played very well by Kathy Bates gets involved with Willie and Marcus latest scheme to rob of all things a charity in Chicago. Kathy Bates portrayal of Willie’s horrible mother, leaves no no doubt as to why Willy turned out so badly in his life.

From the beginning of this movie, the dark and horrific squalor of Willie’s life as a drunken and miserable person who has no money, somehow translates, only because of the skill of Billy Bob Thorton, as a comedic scenario that at its lowest level of darkness, actually becomes funny in a very unusual way that has never been approached by any other comedy movie that I have seen. In my opinion, the most important ingredient as to why these Bad Santa movies are so funny is because of the use of extreme contrast. For me, the main reason why this movie works is because of the polar differences between the disgusting and miserable demeanor of just about everybody else in the film and Thurman Mermon, played by Brett Kelly. In both films, Thurman is an innocent, naive, and depressingly stupid kid who follows Willy around like he is the greatest person and friend in the world, only to be rudely pushed away and cursed at time after time. There is something about the tirade of foul mouth cursing that Willie does around Thurman that is so funny because of this extreme contrast between the two characters. The pathetic differences between Thurman and Willie is the main ingredient that has had me laughing as hard as I ever have in any comedy movie I have ever seen. Not only is the cursing effective, but the tirades are so long and at times so insane, you just can’t help but laugh. Not a normal laugh, but a low-level diaphragm-like laugh that is so rare in life and definitely the great majority of comedy movies.

Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2 are not movies for everyone, and perhaps not even an acquired taste. There is a ton of foul language, some disgusting acts and raunchy sexual scenes, but in the end, both of these extremely well done and unusual comedy films reach a level of funny and unusual that is worth seeing.

I highly recommend Bad Santa 2.

The movie “Bleed for This” is about the boxer Vinnie Pazienza who has probably the most amazing comeback story in the history of boxing and perhaps in all of sports history. After going through a difficult boxing career with highs and lows and then turning things around to win the lightweight boxing championship, Vinnie broke his neck in a head-on car crash. Despite everybody telling him he should get his spine fused so he could walk again and everybody telling him his boxing career was over, he defied all the odds and returned to boxing again, winning another championship at a much higher weight class against Roberto Duran. From the beginning of Pazienza’s boxing career, you had to wonder why he was even allowed to be a boxer because he just did not have a nose for the sport and his nose was broken in just about all of his fights. How any person can continue to fight considering the pain of a broken nose that is being hit over and over again during a fight and the obvious problems this would cause with breathing is an amazing feat in itself. Pazienza was a very tough fighter who paid a huge amount of dues to be a boxer and lived in his parents home during most of his boxing career. From his surroundings where he lived and trained in Rhode Island, it seems he did not make that nearly enough money during his career considering the dues he paid and his fame within the sport of boxing. Pazienza also had a severe gambling problem during his career, that caused him many financial problems along with so many other boxers who followed the same path.

The part of Pazienza is played very convincingly by Miles Teller who is a great up and coming actor whose breakout role was in Whiplash where he played an abused drummer in a high school band. Overall, I thought this movie was well made and the acting was good. You have to admire the athletic trek that Miles Teller had to go through to get into boxing shape for this movie, proving that acting is not always the imagined easy path of just memorizing your lines and hitting your marks. The actor Aaron Eckart does an effective job of playing Vinnie’s trainer, Kevin Rooney, who was the same trainer who trained Mike Tyson.

This movie is an above average and well-made boxing story and I do recommend it.