Brad Pitt appears to be making this World War II thing a bit of a niche. In recent years he went from Inglourious Basterds to the superior Fury and now to Allied. I wish I could say that he's getting better, but Allied marks a step backwards for the actor in more ways than just the performance. It's an unfortunate aspect of Hollywood that sexy rumors and scandals sell more theater tickets than a good movie. Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have called it quits, and the scuttlebutt is that it was Pitt's fling with Allied co-star Marion Cotillard that caused the split. I don't know if any of that is true and honestly wouldn't care a hill of beans if it were. I only bring it up because if Pitt was having some kind of on-set torrid romance, it's a shame that none of that passion ever made it to the screen. These two have about as much romantic chemistry as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Too soon?) If only that were all there was to sink this period drama.

Max Vatan (Pitt) is a member of military intelligence during World War II. He's dropped into French Morocco to take down a high-priority target. The inside contact for the mission is the famous French liberation legend Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard), who poses as his wife. Together they complete their mission and return to England where their fake romance has blossomed into a real one. They are soon married with a child. Both are enjoying a break from the spy world as the war continues to rage about them. It's wedded bliss until Vatan is told that his wife might not be who she says she is. She might be a plant and a German spy. Needless to say his world tumbles down around him as he tries to stay one step ahead of his superiors to discover the truth.

In the summer of 1974 The Paper Lace released a song called Billy Don't Be A Hero. It has the distinction of being the first and perhaps only hit record to top the charts twice in a year by different bands. The second release in 1974 was by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. For some reason the song was playing over in my head as I watched Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. I'm not sure if it was because the title characters share the same name or because both deal with war. The song was written about the Civil War but was thought by most to be about Vietnam, likely because of the release dates. Vietnam was an unpopular war, and the same can be said for the war in Iraq. The similarities continue. The song ended up fading as summer candy pop music, and the same is likely to be the fate of this film.

Billy Lynn (Alwyn) became an unexpected hero during a firefight in Iraq. The enemy had shot and was attempting to take away his commanding officer. He ended up killing an enemy combatant in hand-to-hand combat. Washington, sensing a growing impatience with the war among the American people, decides to parade Lynn and his company on a two-week goodwill tour. The final stop was a half-time show at a Cowboys game with Destiny's Child. During that few hours Lynn has flashbacks of not only that moment in the war but his family. His sister, played horribly by Kristen Stewart, is trying to get him to go AWOL and to a psychiatrist so that they can make a point about the war. Lynn's torn between his duty and his sister. Throw in a fling with a Cowboys cheerleader just for giggles, and you have the makings of a rather disappointing film.

“I'm writing a book about magical creatures.”

The wizarding world J.K. Rowling conjured for her “Harry Potter” series captured the imaginations of children (and many, many adults) throughout the globe because it was precisely that...a fully realized, living and breathing world with its own lingo and lore. So while spinning off a corner of that universe might seem like a blatant cash grab, Rowling's imagination has provided particularly fertile ground for new franchise opportunities. (OK, OK...the part where Warner Bros. agreed to make five of these before the first one even came out *does* feel like a cash grab.) For example, this latest crowd-pleasing stab at a billion-dollar series is based on...a fictional textbook mentioned in Rowling's “Potter” saga.

Howard Hughes used to be a very big deal for a very long time. Warren Beatty was a big deal for a long time as well, and they have a lot in common. They were both renowned horndogs. Hughes was not only extremely rich, but enormously famous. The Hughes Tool Company, which was instrumental to the oil industry, was the original source of his wealth, but Howard Hughes became better known for his forays into the movie business and aviation industry. There has already been a movie about Hughes called The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but Warren Beatty has been working on a Hughes movie since the 1970’s when he frequented the Beverly Hills Hotel where Hughes had multiple bungalows. Beatty lived a similar kind of fantasy life and identified with Hughes. Beatty has become notorious for taking a long time between projects because of a nearly legendary perfectionism. It has been 18 years since Beatty’s last film. He has been rumored to have done many projects over the years but rejected them all. This may be Beatty’s swan song, since he is now 79 years old. Beatty looks pretty good and seems as sharp as ever. And one of the things that becomes clear immediately is that Beatty understands that both Hughes and Beatty himself are pretty much past history.

The focus of the movie Rules Don’t Apply is two young lovers. One is Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich, a huge hit in Hail Caesar and the star of the upcoming Hans Solo movie) and Marla Mabrey (Lilly Collins, The Mortal Instruments, Mirror, Mirror). Collins is the daughter of Phil, by the way. She also is a dead ringer for a young Elizabeth Taylor at times. Mabrey is one of numerous ingénues that Hughes has acquired much like he acquires companies. Forbes is one of Hughes staff drivers with aspirations for much greater things. Forbes is assigned to driving Mabrey immediately after her arrival in Hollywood with her mother. This is 1958 Hollywood, which coincidentally is about the same time that Beatty had arrived to make his mark. The loving depiction of the time is clearly personal for Beatty. The depiction of 1958 is perhaps more vibrant than I would have imagined possible, and during the course of the movie which takes place over a number of years into the 1970’s we get a similar loving look at numerous world locations.