Posts tagged George Clooney
“The Monuments of Men” Hitler’s Museum
Feb 12th
“Hitler’s Museum”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE MONUMENTS MEN is based on the men of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the United States Army during World War II, as depicted in a fine new movie by George Clooney.
Based on the 2009 book by Robert Edsel, the men with special knowledge about art were recruited by the Army and charged with finding and retrieving works of fine art that had been looted and stolen by the Germany Army and to try to return the pieces to their rightful owners.
Clooney plays Frank Stokes, tasked with assembling the experienced men, and in 1944 we see him meeting James Granger, an art restorer and museum director played by Matt Damon, and asking him, “You want to get in the war?”
Also on the team are Bill Murray as an architect, John Goodman as a sculptor, Bob Balaban as a curator, Jean Dujardin as a Frenchman, and Hugh Bonneville as an Englishman, all with interesting back stories.
So, the men all go through rudimentary basic training, because they will be close to the front lines and in the midst of the fighting, even as the war is winding down.
They are told that they are fighting for their culture and their way of life, and they learn that Hitler has ordered that all the stolen art is to be destroyed by the Nazis if he dies or if Germany loses the war.
A running joke has Granger believing that his ability to speak French is much better than it really is, and he is sent to Paris, where he meets Claire Simone, played by Cate Blanchett, a Frenchwoman who was forced to help the Nazis catalogue all the pieces of art that they had stolen in and around Paris.
The team has enough trouble on their hands with fighting the Germans and discovering where they have hidden much of the artwork, but now the Russian Army is moving in from the east, and the Russians want to take whatever art they can find as reparation for all the losses that they have suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
The story has both comic elements and tragic elements as the team tries to retrieve the artwork that Hitler wanted in order to supply his own personal museum.
THE MONUMENTS MEN resonates to this day.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Monuments of Men – Movie Trailer
Feb 6th
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys – seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 – possibly hope to succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements. From director George Clooney, the film stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. The screenplay is by George Clooney & Grant Heslov, based on the book by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Produced by Grant Heslov and George Clooney.
“The Descendants” Is Complicated, Confusing, and Funny
Dec 3rd
“Complicated, Confusing, and Funny”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Descendants is the latest movie starring George Clooney, but more importantly it is also the latest movie written and directed by Alexander Payne.
Now, you might not be that familiar with his name, but surely you are familiar with at least some of his other films. Payne also directed the 1996 Citizen Ruth, the 1999 Election, the 2002 About Schmidt, and the 2004 Sideways.
Clooney plays Matt King, a lawyer on Hawaii who hasn’t been on a surfboard in 15 years, and one day he finds himself faced with a number of big problems.
He is the trustee for the ownership of 25,000 acres of the last huge portion of virgin beachfront land in Hawaii that is owned by him and his seven cousins, they are trying to decide whether to sell it for development, and if they don’t sell it, the trust dissolves in seven years.
Matt’s wife, Liz, is in a coma from a boating accident, and the doctors don’t know if she will ever recover.
Matt is ready to be a real husband and a real father to his two daughters, but 17-year-old Alexandra and 10-year-old Scottie are becoming more problems than he is sure he can handle.
And on top of all that, Alexandra tells Matt that she saw Liz out with another man, and Matt discovers that Liz was in love with this man and was going to ask Matt for a divorce.
So, when we hear Matt say, “I know I can make things right,” we are not so sure that he can, and therein lies this excellent and very funny movie.
Matt believes that there is something wrong with his daughters, but he starts to bond with Alexandra in ways that he never could before when they begin a mission together to find out who the man is that Liz was having an affair with. Matt says that he just wants to see him, but we have to believe that Matt might want to do more than just that.
And when Matt discovers who the man is and what he does, he also discovers that there might also be a connection that could affect Matt’s decision about selling that huge portion of land that he and his cousins own.
The Descendants is complicated, confusing, funny, and also very excellent.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”