'Monuments Men' made me want to punch film critics very hard right in the nose.

[byronius]

And what color blood came out?

I finally managed to see that film on the last showing of its last day in theaters in this area. I haven't seen a film like that in years; it was a work of art about art, and the significance of art to humanity.

Considering the stream of general crap coming out of Hollywood, I believe it was a social crime for a critic to say 'Meh' to this film. Yes, they live in the industry bubble. Yes, they have to critically analyze films. But this film -- this single film --

I blubbered through a lot of it. It deals with issues close to my heart -- WWII and art -- so it is indeed, clearly, Byron-bait. Freely admitted.

But every element of that film was so effing beautiful -- incredible performances, cinematography, timing, attachment to hard historical fact -- good lord, to crap on a film like that is like sneering at 'It's A Wonderful Life' or the 'Wizard Of Oz'. To sneer at a film like that and thereby depress theater attendance for it (I had friends who avoided it because the reviews were 'meh') is to damage the institution of film, to dumb down the world, to Starbuck the public taste even further.

Social crime. Because that film was a gorgeous work of art. And that film contained one of the most moving scenes I have ever witnessed onstage or onscreen, a Christmas moment between Bill Murray and Bob Balaban that should serve as an example of the perfect filmic technique. It was GODDAMNED BRILLIANT.

So, if I spend a few days in jail for assaulting a film industry politico too buried in their own ass to recognize GODDAMNED GENIUS -- it will be worth it. I'm not going to hunt one down, but if I ever meet one of those dissenting critics, perhaps just in passing, I'm going to be requesting an ice pack for my swollen knuckles from the confines of my tidy little white-walled cell.

George Clooney made this film. And that makes George Clooney awesome. And I'm buying the DVD first day out.

[Coventina]

1. It certainly didn't deserve the bad rap it got.

I did have one major issue with the film, which totally ruined the Christmas sequence for me.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a great tear-jerker of a song and was used to great effect until.......

They used the Frank Sinatra lyrics from 1957!!!!

During a WW2 movie!!!

The original lyrics are,

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Frank Sinatra changed them to:

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.


Now, please tell me: why not use the original lyrics? They fit better with the scene as it is!!!

It totally pulled me out of the moment which is what, as a movie-maker, you never want to do to your audience.

[byronius]

8. I did not know. Oy. Sometimes generational ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

[Coventina]

11. Yeah, obviously many people during and post-production missed that detail.

Although, I was born in 1968, so it isn't necessarily a generational issue.




I'm just sort of a fanatic about music history AND art history, and that anachronism really jumped out at me.

[villager]

14. I always thought the "muddle through" lyrics made for a richer, more poignant song, anyway

Wish more people would use that version when covering the song.

Thought a clip of Garland's original was used to pretty good effect in (the also underrated) "The Family Stone"

[Coventina]

16. Thank you! ITA!

Never understood the appeal of the "shining star" line.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. I haven't seen the movie yet and that will definitely bug me when I do. n/t

[yeoman6987]

23. I saw it at the theater first weekend

I thought it was ok, but I feel asleep about 1/2 way through and woke up towards the end. Maybe I was tired, but I thought it was slow and drawn out.

[Iggo]

57. That makes more sense!

[eppur_se_muova]

63. "Muddle through" was a phrase with special meaning to US soldiers ...

who picked it up from the Brits. So, in a sense, it was a "wartime lyric". I guess Sinatra changed it to reflect the fact that that awful war was over, and it was time for beauty and shining stars again. Just my 2 bits.

It would have been really cool, though, to have used the original lyrics in movie -- would have added some extra poignancy.

[lillypaddle]

2. Haven't seen it

but you made me want to. K&R

[pnwest]

3. I will see it based solely upon this review.

Thanks for taking the time!

[CTyankee]

4. I, too, loved this film. Clooney did a magnificent job on that screenplay.

I hope you have read the book it was based on. There are several on this topic. This movie was about the Monuments Men in Belgium, but there is another just on the MM in Italy.

I particularly like the fact that Clooney wisely concentrated the movie on two major works of art: the Ghent Altarpiece and the Bruges Madonna. I made a special art pilgrimage to Belgium in 2012 to see those two works of art. If you ever can, do go to see them. I simply took day trips out of Brussels on the train to go to Ghent and Bruges. I also went to Antwerp to see so many of Rubens' masterpieces, my favorite being the Elevation of the Cross in the Cathedral of Our Lady.

[byronius]

7. I'm about to read it. And what an awesome response. I'm a little jealous.

But thanks for that picture.

[CTyankee]

12. my pleasure. I have read every book I could lay my hands on about the Monuments Men...

this one is about Italy and it will make you cry: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6322547-the-venus-fixers

Also, don't forget Lynn Nicholas' "The Rape of Europa" which is all about the massive Nazi plot to steal the great art of Europe. Incredible story.

Speaking of crying, I did that when the British officer is killed trying to protect the Bruges Madonna. It was a terrifically moving moment...

I was struck by how beautiful that Madonna was when I saw it IRL! And how huge the Ghent Altarpiece is and how wonderfully preserved it is...

[Coventina]

15. "The Rape of Europa" was made into a GREAT documentary film.

I show it in all my art history classes that cover the period.

I saw it in the theatre and cried.

I often hear sniffles in my classes when I show it.

[CTyankee]

30. I'm so glad you are spreading the word on this to the younger generation...

at least the budding art historians and others who are just interested in history will be a new audience.

[Hissyspit]

41. I do, too.

[Coventina]

43. GMTA!

[aggiesal]

37. Thanks for the spoiler alert. n/t

[CTyankee]

56. Ack! sorry...

don't let my mistake keep you from seeing this movie. It is really worth if for so much more than we have discussed here...

[aggiesal]

60. I plan on it. Thanks n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

59. thank you

I put them on my wish-list.

One of my all-time favorite movies is John Frankenheimer's The Train, which I had seen once on TV many many years ago, then not again until a friend lent me a DVD a couple years ago. I watched it several times, and remain amazed. That film is based on the same historical events and sources.

It's a shame the same respect wasn't shown to the art and archives in Iraq. I remember reading one report of the looting of the Baghdad Museum; the reporter was in the street and bent down to pick up a piece of loose paper, something floating around like trash, and recognized it as written -- hand-written, not a printed version -- by T. E. Lawrence. The thought still brings tears to my eyes.

So "we" were the good guys in Europe, and there's no dismissing that. But I don't think we were so good elsewhere, and that's humanity's tragic loss.

[FSogol]

5. I liked it too. Clooney made a Frank Capra movie in the overly cynical 21st century and the critics

hated him for it.

[Aristus]

6. +1.

I don't know why the critics dumped on this film. I thought it was excellent. Very moving.

It was a perfect example of the heroism that results from ordinary people doing extraordinary things. While soldiers on the battlefield were fighting to save humanity from genocide, the monuments men were fighting to rescue the products of enlightened humanity from the same barbarous enemy.

[el_bryanto]

9. the movie has a lot of good points

and some amazing sequences. And of course a great message.

But it also can't settle on a tone, and Cloony tells more than he shows. I think most of the criticisms I read were more or less accurate.

The key problem is that it asks a question of whether or not great art is worth dying for - it doesn't hone in on that question as well as it should.

But a lot to like about it, as well.

Bryant

[CTyankee]

17. Your question is raised in every book I have read on the Monuments Men...

perhaps Clooney should have included the directive that Eisenhower had made that if it came down to a question of saving lives or saving art, then we should save lives. Still, it doesn't answer the question of why people risked their lives to save the art, as the French patriot Rose Valland did...

Don't forget that perhaps the major reason for the MM was to direct Allied bombers away from sites, if possible, where great art and architecture were located. Florence was particularly difficult, since the entire city is packed with some of the world's greatest masterpieces. In this effort, the MM were spectacularly successful. Without their knowledge and direction, we would not have those masterpieces saved today.

[Zorra]

13. The only film critic I trust anymore is Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. Like all MSM, it seems

to me that RW ownership is increasingly hiring shallow RW tools as film critics for propaganda purposes.

[geardaddy]

21. Yes, Travers is an artist as a critic

He know what he's talking about.

[Enthusiast]

26. +1. Righties would never want to give Clooney credit for anything.

Everything is seen through ideological eyes now. That's the way the Nazis do it.

[MosheFeingold]

45. My younger brother is an off-the chart neo-con

And he liked the movie. Of course, he's also a pretty famous sculptor and copies statues for churches and public buildings all over Europe (the original generally gets moves somewhere sheltered while his copy stays on outside public display).

I haven't seen it, since his usual idea of a "good movie" involves cars turning into robots

[Enthusiast]

62. Your brother is as rare as the proverbial two peckered hoot owl.

[LibertyLover]

18. I'm reading Edsel's book

The one that the film was based on and enjoying,it very much. I can't wait for the DVD to come out so I can see the movie.

[Hissyspit]

38. That's part of the problem.

I haven't seen the movie, but a lot of people are saying there was a great movie in that book, but this isn't it.

[rumdude]

19. Man, great review

I will check this movie out.

[Omaha Steve]

20. Marta and I are museum rats

She rarely wants to see war films. She loved it too. Blu-Ray buy for us on release day too.

K&R!

[CTyankee]

22. Ah, your slippery slope begins!

I was an art museum rat, then I "had" to go see the originals, now I spend any money I can spare on trips to Europe just to see all these wonderful works of art. I just returned from some remote Tuscan towns to see frescoes by Piero della Francesca...My poor arthritic spine can't take too many more towns with streets like this:

[fbc]

24. I thought it was watchable... wouldn't recommend it.

I thought it was boring. I found it disappointing considering the subject matter. It could have been a great movie, but it wasn't.

[Warpy]

25. "It's a Wonderful Life got panned at first

and "The Wizard of Oz didn't go all that well at the box office.

Hollywood has never recognized the true classics that hold up long after the world has moved on.

[liberal N proud]

27. It was an awesome movie

The day we went, there was an older couple who were in the audience. As we left, I was waiting outside the theater for my wife to use the restroom. As I was standing there, this elderly couple was visiting with someone associated with the theater and from what I could pick up, the gentleman either knew some of the Monuments Men or was involved in one of the art rescues.

I wish I could have heard more of the story.

The movie made me want to hear more about these men and what they did.

[CTyankee]

28. everyone in the audience where I saw it was elderly, too...

I sure hope younger people see it...but I have to wonder how interested they would be in seeing all this sacrifice over painted panels and one sculpture...

[hedgehog]

29. Thank you for this review! I was looking forward to seeing this, but was disappointed at the bad

reviews.

[cyberswede]

31. I loved it (and took my 13 y.o. son to it)

He loved it too. I thought it was a good opportunity to introduce him to WWII in a movie that wasn't as battle-oriented as other WWII movies might be. Plus, I wanted him to get an idea about why art is so important, too.

It gave us a chance to talk about Hitler, Nazis, fascism, greed, & war in general, but the movie wasn't gory or scary.

I'll definitely get the DVD.

[HERVEPA]

32. I agreed with the critics

I thought it sucked as a movie.
It was an interesting and important subject of course, and good to talk about the importance of art, but the film itself was a waste of a lot of excellent actors.

[Hissyspit]

36. 'I’ve substituted the word “puppies” for art.'

http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2014/02/the-best-artistic-response-to-monuments-men.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/george-clooney-saves-puppies-from-nazis/2014/02/06/d9e5a218-8a8e-11e3-916e-e01534b1e132_story.html

If you care about art, you are obliged to loathe the film “The Monuments Men,” a star-studded history drama that purports to tell the story of American efforts to rescue and repatriate art stolen by the Nazis in World War II. The film doesn’t lapse occasionally into cliché, it is grounded in cliché, woven of cliché and consists of nothing but cliché. Director, producer and screenplay co-author George Clooney may believe he is serving art, but “Monuments Men” serves only cliché, and cliché is the enemy of art.

“Monuments Men” is so bad I will save you the trouble and expense of seeing it with the following summary. To make the film a bit more coherent, I’ve substituted the word “puppies” for art.

Over in Europe, the Second World War is raging, and Clooney is very worried about the puppies. He takes this concern directly to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom we recognize from the jaunty angle of his cigarette holder. He explains to the President of the United States the basics of the allied invasion of Germany. He uses a big map with arrows on it, with the Russians coming in from the east, and the allies moving in from France and Italy. Caught in the middle of these armies are a whole lot of puppies. Clooney says he doesn’t want to live in a world without puppies.

Roosevelt tells Clooney to go save the puppies and there ensue several derivative scenes in which Clooney rounds up a rag-tag gang of misfit puppy lovers who all agree to help him return the puppies to their rightful owners. But when they finally arrive on the beaches of Normandy, a grizzled commander scorns their noble puppy quest, with a speech that goes something like this: “There’s a war on out there and boys are dying, and I’ll be damned if I have to write one more letter to one more mother telling her that her boy died to save some damn puppies.”

This isn’t going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. There follows a lot more derivative material, with some stock buddy-film comic scenes thrown in, and some stock bathos scenes of young men dying. There are two particularly cute puppies who help structure the rest of the film, and — spoiler alert — Germany loses the war and both puppies are rescued just in time from the mean old Russians who, when it comes to puppies, are almost as bad as the Germans.

[byronius]

39. Truly there must be something genetic going on.

'Cause those fellows a missing a link.

[Hissyspit]

42. Or maybe a movie about the power of art shouldn't be constructed of clichés?

I don't know. I haven't seen it.

I have seen the documentary 'The Rape of Europa.'

[byronius]

52. Thus the power of the jaded film critic to destroy a good film. 'Haven't seen it. Heard it's bad.'

Oy.

[HERVEPA]

64. Film critics cannot ruin movies.

[Hissyspit]

70. They should just shut up about their opinion?

[byronius]

74. No. But they savaged an important film.

And I'm pissed off about that. Because the industry rarely makes a film this good. And because, snarky, acid-tongued sarcastic people who pour out hatred on something good and decent are the reason films like this don't get made, and I should have the right to say so, out loud, in my own little way.

Fuck those haters. They're wrong about this film. It's a social crime, to tear this movie down and depress attendance. I take it personally.

[Logical]

67. Based on what? nt

[HERVEPA]

68. Lousy storytelling, disjointed, looked like a bunch of episodes rather than

a coherent product.

[Logical]

69. You sound like some film school student! nt

[Hissyspit]

71. So?

[HERVEPA]

72. You sound like a know-nothing. since you're into what YOU THINK is name-calling.

I'm a 65 year old professional who has seen a ton of movies in his life, doesn't always agree with critics, thinks for himself.

[Logical]

73. Ahhh, temper temper. nt

[CBGLuthier]

33. Remind me never to have a difference of opinion with you

If violence is what comes to mind just because someone does not like the same movie you do i have to worry.

[byronius]

35. I reserve such hyperbole only for the truly important issues. And to me, this was It.

And unless you're a jaded film critic helping to make sure 'Avengers' is the only box-office success, you have nothing to fear from me.

[Flatpicker]

34. I saw it

opening weekend as a fluke. Was going out with friends and it was right movie at the right time.

Didn't expect much but was pleasantly surprised.
Was terribly disappointed to see the reviews after the fact.

[toby jo]

40. I saw a preview of this with Matt Damon, I think it was.

He comes into a French woman's office, speaking to her in pretty fluent French. She turns on him and says something like, ' speak it in English, you're French just sucks." He looks stunned, then says, " if it weren't for us,
you'd be speaking German'. and she says, ' If it weren't for you, I'd be dead, but I would still be French.'

Cracked me up. Goddamn French.

Will definitely check this out, byronius, Clooney's pretty good in anything and the subject is a good one.

[kwassa]

44. My parents bought a house from a Monuments Man.

He was on the way to becoming a major art museum curator, and president. He was very important in the real story, but not depicted in the Clooney film.

Quite a radical modern house he sold us, too.

The Clooney movie is highly fictionalized, and there is apparently a very good documentary on the same subject. As much as I like George, I probably would like the documentary better.

"The Rape of Europa" is the name of that documentary.

[emsimon33]

66. Thank you. I'll look it up.

[applegrove]

46. I'm going to get it for my parents as soon as it comes out on DVD.

[Nye Bevan]

47. Meh. Sometimes I disagree with the critics too, but I never fantasize about punching them.

It's only a movie. And a review is just one person's opinion of the movie. Try not to take this stuff so seriously.

[Starry Messenger]

48. I really enjoyed it and was sad it had gotten so panned.

I encouraged people I know to go see it despite the reviews.

[MountainMama]

49. As a movie....

it's not a great work of art. But I felt it told an important story.

I was disappointed by the reviews; I feel it is better than most say. It has some lovely moments: the Christmas scene, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett's celebration dinner and Hugh Bonneville's death (already spoiled above).

I have since gotten the book, but I must say I'm having trouble getting into it. That has surprised me; the reviews for it are excellent.

I recommend it.

[cthulu2016]

50. Violence is, after all, the only sensible solution to disagreements about which movies one likes

[byronius]

51. Since I see no sarcasm icon there, I must caution you that I possess a Hyperbolic Poetic License.

Which took me thousands of years and billions of dollars to acquire. Normal people should not say such things, ever.

[elleng]

53. I saw it, and glad I did.

Not aware of reviews, was interested in the story.

[rhett o rick]

54. I saw it and liked it and compared to the garbage coming out of Hollywood, it was Great. nm

[AtheistCrusader]

55. Dunno. Inglorious Basterds was a tough act to follow.

[byronius]

58. Different Fish Kettle, man.

Basterds and Django strummed deeper chords. Revenge Fantasy chords.

[AtheistCrusader]

61. But it ends *in* a cinema! In france!

But true, very true.

[emsimon33]

65. I have been out of the country the last 4 months, but based on your review

I will buy the CD the day it comes out. Thank you!