I found the definition of Ragnarock on Wikipedia and before seeing the new movie “Thor: Ragnarock” today I never heard of the word Ragnarock before. The reviews for this movie are quite high, 93% on rottentomatoes and 8.2 on IMDB and I agree with the high ratings for the special effects that are very impressive, but not for the story which is all over the place, at times hard to follow and is lacking in continuity. This story jumps from one scene to another scene and more than a few times during these 2 hours you have no idea what is happening or who a new character is; case in point the character played by Idris Elba. I wondered if the producers of this movie assumed that the audience read the comic book before seeing this movie.

This movie stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor for the 3rd time in this franchise, not including the Avenger series. Cate Blanchette plays Thor’s sister and Jeff Goldblum as the leader of this strange planet that looks like a garbage dump for the universe. There are very good special effects and some fights including even the HULK character played once again by Mark Ruffalo. The most impressive performance in this movie was by Tessa Thompson who just may have had her breakthrough role with this movie.

Unfortunately, there is not much more to say about this film that I thought was average, at times boring and offered nothing that we have not seen many times before.

The message of “A Bad Moms Christmas” is as good as was the message for the original “Bad Moms”, that was released in July 2016. Being a mother is very stressful and at times can be quite overwhelming and depressing but when its Christmas, it all can get much worse. Then the screenwriters of this sequel added the arrival for Christmas of the mothers of the 3 main characters, played by Mila Kunis, Christine Bell and Kathryn Hahn and the result is a movie that is funny at times, at other times too raunchy and in the end not as good as the original Bad Moms which I thought was a very good comedy movie.

The standout actor in this comedy is Christine Baransky, who plays Mila Kunis mother as the exact same character she plays on the Big Bang Theory. She is outstanding as the mother who always makes nasty stupid comments that constantly belittle and puts down her daughter. Of course all of this because this movie is a comedy is played to the extreme and I did laugh out-loud in a number of spots during this film. This movie does make you wonder why some mothers just have to knock down their child and always try to undermine everything their child tries to do. Its a typical phenomenon of some parents and over a many years of this kind of a abuse during a childhood and adulthood can cause many relationship problems, some of which are brought out during some of the funny moments in this story.

There is a very small appearance by Christina Applegate who was also in the first Bad Moms and I thought it was unfortunate that her part was so small. Susan Sarandon and Cheryl Hines play the other 2 mothers in this story and I thought they were both good in their roles, but for some reason the screenwriters thought that giving Sarandon’s character the name Isis would be funny and I disagree that a name like this can ever be funny.

This movie was just OK, and unfortunately not as good as the original Bad Moms.

“Thank you for Your Service” is what we all say when we see an army Veteran, regardless of which war he was in. With all of the times I have said this to a War veteran, including even Senator John McCain, who I met in in April 2000, it has always felt like an awkward thing to say. Realizing that this statement that is the title of this movie; while sincere, always seems extremely inadequate compared to what many of these people have gone through. This movie is about the battle scars of war after these men return home and this aspect of the very harsh realities of war, was extremely well portrayed in this film.

Thank you for your Service is set in the year 2007, as the war in Iraq that started in March 2003 still raged on. Just about at the start of this film, 3 soldiers who are now close friends are on a plane returning home and what follows is a the story about the harsh reality of life and PTSD after fighting in a war. What this film did the best was to show the callousness of the Army officers these 3 soldiers encountered at the Veterans Administration that included stupid comments can be summed up by “Oh get over it”. As these 3 men desperately struggled to recover from horror, the anger and the guilt they lived through in Iraq, they were faced with living in squalor when they returned home with no chance to ever get a normal job and the facing the incompetence of an overwhelmed Veterans Administration that seemed was completely incapable of helping any of them.

Very few of us are able to step out of ourselves and identify with a major trauma another person has gone through with the ability to not only relate to their trauma and give them empathy that is in proportion to the damage they have endured. The famous expression “Walk a Mile in my Shoes” comes to mind. This is never more true with War PTSD as compared any other type of psychological trauma. For solders like this, who have gone through hell and might never get over reliving the horrible events they witnessed, hearing something like “Just get over it” just might be the most infuriating and damaging thing they ever hear from anyone. Getting over PTSD is proportional to the severity of the trauma, the length of time involved and the ability of that persons brain to heal and stop reliving the events and the pictures that flash in their brain they can never stop replaying over and over again. Getting psychological help for many of these soldiers, due to the lack of funding and inefficiencies within the Veterans Administration has been inadequate in this country for many years, including they year the true story of this film is set, 2007.

I thought the acting with Thank you for Your Service was outstanding starting with Miles Teller who plays the starring role, Haley Bennett who plays Teller’s wife,Beulah Koale who plays Teller’s close friend from the war and surprisingly, comedian Amy Shumer who is proving that she is a very good dramatic actor as well as an outstanding standup comedian.

I highly recommend Thank you for Your Service.