Old Knudsen Reviews The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men is a movie about Frank Stokes who goes to the US president with an idea of saving priceless works of art from being destroyed or stolen during the last months of WW II. They have to save the paintings and sculptures because what kind of future would we have if yadda yadda yadda, they like art and think that you should too.

It turns out that Frank Stokes is based on George Leslie Stout who happens to be the second cousin, three times removed of George Clooney and they both had mustaches. Clooney wrote, directed, produced and made the tea for this film so I guess that means that he can be the lead.

The historical accuracy according to Clooney is 80% correct but in reality there were about a few dozen officers and men rather than seven and it wasn't just created in 1944 by the Americans with a Brit and a Frenchie as tokens, the British had been working at saving art since 1942 .... as usual yer late again America.

As mentioned in the movie, Clooney is a little too old to be at the front but since most of the fighting has been done they might make it through.

Clooney envokes the Oceans 11 movies and one by one enlists a team via a corny montage to go to Europe. Matt Damon is recruited as his eye candy and some older, more decrepit but expendable faces become the team of American, British and French art lovers.

    Nailed it.

Cate Blanchett is seen as a French woman who is working for the Nazis, her finer moment was when she was told to fetch a champagne glass for one of the Nazis and when she gets it she spits into it then offers it to another gurl to spit into ..... cut to scene of Nazi enjoying his champagne unawares. 

Blanchett is perfect as usual with a thin layer of civility hiding her anger and contempt of the art stealing Nazis. Hitler is losing the war but thinks he can still have a really good museum if he puts his mind to it..... maybe an amusement park with a water slide too. 

She has to trust someone if she is ever going to have the works of art returned to France but with the Nazis and the Russians stealing everything who can she trust? 

The eye candy is sent in to get her trust so he can find out where the Nazis might have hidden the art. A good line is when Damon says, "If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German" Blanchett replies, "No, I'd be dead but still speaking French."

Not enough to save the movie though, what a slow paced, boring, indulgent piece of shit and Old Knudsen likes Clooney, Damon and Blanchett. 

Clooney's make up was just weird, his face was all Caucasian flesh coloured with his makeup quite heavy yet his forehead was the usual brown and leather like. He isn't aging on screen very well as they keep getting him at the most unflattering angles in his recent movies.

They did the obligatory standing on a mine scene but it was Damon standing on it, would they really blow up Matt fucking Damon?    

 The real monuments men looking a lot more able than those in the movie.

Only the Brit and the Frog gets killed .... like I said, expendable. The older gentlemen who we are to believe went through boot camp play their military service for laughs as they dander around clueless as if they are in their garden rather than a cuntry at war.  John Goodman is too fat for war and looks like a walking heart attack, Bob Balaban is too old and frail for war as is Bill Murray, all three are in their 60's but seem a lot older. 

Life is too short for this movie, I gave up caring if any art got returned. Clooney is asked if a Madonna statue was worth the life of the soldier who died (in a really stupid way) trying and save it, Clooney said that the soldier would have thought so .....  me? I'd say no but a Cher statue would be.

Did Clooney kill off his people in stupid pointless ways to illustrate how terrible war is? maybe they just weren't famous enough to live. 

Five million pieces of art were rescued at the end of the movie, I didn't stay to watch the end as I felt as if I had personally spent a year of my life watching this slow paced film with it's phoned in wooden acting. 

        

Elephant In The Room

 

 Vampires love elephant blood.

If you see the author Michael Morpurgo please punch him in the back of the head. His latest book An Elephant in the Garden is set during WWII in Germany and is a house of lies!

Lizzie lives with her family in Dresden and her father is sent to the Russian front to kill Russians an shit. Lizzie's mother, Mutti, to fill the gaps of employment left by the men leaving goes and works at the zoo.

 Can you remember what I did last night cos I was blootered.

An order is sent to have all the animals put doon in case they escaped during a bombing. Mutti gets the elephant she is in charge of Marlene saved and takes her home but when those nasty allies bomb the fuck out of evil Dresden they all take off to the countryside and I'm sure hilarity ensues.

The story is loosely based on the story that a baby elephant Sheila was saved from being put doon at the Belfast zoo like some of the other animals during the war and was walked down the road by zoo keepers to a red-brick house on the Whitewell Road where a woman gave her sanctuary in her back yard for several months until the bombing was over.

Sheila lived until 1966 and died at the zoo, the identity of the woman who looked after her has been lost through time. 

The book was set in Dresden because Belfast couldn't possibly know what it was like during the war. Also we have to feel guilt at bombing Dresden so badly.

Fuck off Morpurgo, if that is indeed yer real name. You must really be very English if you dress like that.  Ghey or just English? Hes married and has children, maybe hes a Timelord.

Fact was that it happened in Belfast .... not Dresden, they would have killed it for not being blonde or starved it to death like the Japs did because their poison didn't work on the elephants. Don't go making the people of Dresden out to be saints, they kept the German war machine going, if we hadn't of bombed them the war would have been even longer. Maybe the Germans like war but we can't be arsed.

If anyone reads this sentimental shite just remember that it was some ol milly in Belfast, not wee imaginary Lizzie or her Ma that looked after the elephant so give credit where it is due.