Excellent Movie - Monuments Men

For our Valentine's date last night we went out of dinner (Cheesecake Factory with a gift card!) and to see the movie, Monuments Men.  We don't often pay for first-run movies, because quite frankly too few movies are worth first-run prices these days.  We like to watch movies at the Dollar Show or On Demand, but we maybe catch a first-run movie 2 - 3 times a year.

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Signed,
Cheap and We Can Wait 4 Months

But we had heard enough good comments on Monuments Men that we thought perhaps it would be one we would catch now.  And our friends who recommended it were right!

A little back story first.  Here is a link to the Monuments Men Foundation, the folks upon which this true story is based.  These folks were not your typical solders going into battle - wait, is there really any such thing as a typical soldier really?  Sorry, what I meant by that is these were museum curators and architects and painters who were enlisted in the army, who went through basic training but who were not sent to fight in the usual sense.  Their job was to recover stolen works of art - to essentially steal back from the Nazi's what the Nazi's had stolen in Hitler's quest to rule everything, including art.  It is an atypical war story - war as told from the perspective of different casualties - the casualties of the lost stories that art tells us, the casualties of lost history, the casualty of prizing "ownership" over the art itself.  For in Hitler's desire to rule and own everything, he had decreed that if the 3rd Reich fell, if the German army was losing, if he died, all of the art that they had accumulated should be destroyed.  How sad is that?  He didn't prize the art; he prized his control; he prized glory for himself above all it seems.  And he was successful, in fact, in having many pieces destroyed.  The Monuments Men were able to recover a lot - they were also successful, more successful than Hitler, thankfully, but they were not able to recover all.  One interesting thing in the above website is their section on pieces that people are still hoping to find today.

Talk about a cool story!

If I haven't sold you on seeing this movie yet, click on this IMBD link with the trailer for the movie.  George Clooney.  Matt Damon.  Bill Murray.  John Goodman.  Hugh Bonneville (from Downton Abbey). Bob Balaban (look him up...you will recognize him from stuff even if you don't know where from.)

So we have that starting line up.  10 minutes into the movie, I am hooked.  I lean over to G and say, "I like it already."  You already start to care about each of these folks.  With George Clooney leading the cast and assembling the men, it is reminiscent of Ocean's 11 - putting together a group of men to steal from the "bad" guys - although this time, it is on a whole other level.  This isn't about greed or stealing for a personal vendetta.  This is stealing for all the "right" reasons - returning priceless, irreplaceable treasures that actually belong to the world back to their rightful places.  There are a couple of great lines in a letter as one of the men is attempting to protect the Bruges Madonna from the Nazi's about how the Madonna belongs to him as much as it belonged to Michelangelo as much as it belongs to the world.

I don't want to include any spoiler alerts, but suffice it to say that this movie has mystery, love (for art and for each other), action, glory, tragedy, comedy (you will find yourself laughing out loud at times in part because apparently Canadians can't speak French...).  It is really one of the best movies we have seen in a while.

Wait a minute - I just realized that I've done two movie reviews on this here blog and both this one and that one have been George Clooney movies.  I haven't ever thought of myself as that much of a George Clooney fan, but perhaps I am more so than I realized.  Hmmm...

Anyway what else do I want to say about this movie?  I guess this - Go see it!  Go!  I can't imagine that you will be disappointed.  If you have a love for art or love a good story or love some good action or a good mystery, you will enjoy this movie.  I just about guarantee that you won't walk away from the theater thinking "that's 2 hours of my life I will never get back."

Sorry...one more link.  This is a review of the movie by the real-life son of one of the members of this group.  Matt Damon's character is based on this man's father.  Such an interesting mission - one so full of potential - potential to be misunderstood, potential to be rallied around, potential for success and the potential for failure.

Ok, now I'm done.  But go see this movie!

I give it 5 Michelangelo's out of 5!

5 Picasso's out of 5!

5 Rembrandt's out of 5!