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Monumentally Slow

Watched a WWII era movie about a motley crew of artists, sculptors et al going into the war zone against the Nazi machine and steal back stolen art.

The entire cast is top notch but the 'Everything George Clooney' production unfortunately fell flat for me.  That it was a quiet evening with nothing much going on other than people clamoring over the highways to head out to a place that is worth a traffic jam for the Memorial Day holiday.

Side note - what jam goes well with 3 day weekends?  Traffic (not apricot you idiot).

So about this movie called MONUMNETS MEN - while it again purports to be based on a true story it did little to really sit up and take notice.  We all know Hitler was a crazy psychopath and he fostered other lesser psychos that worked for him (there are some certain parallels in corporate cutlure today).  But beyond that underlying craziness and the motivation of a gang of odd balls that get aligned behind their commander the movie did little to deliver a massive punch that one could have got from the likes of Damon, Clooney, Balaban, Goodman.  I think anything with Cate Blanchett actually ruins a film.   For some reason I cannot stand this actor.  Her general demeanor is stark and snooty.  Not just as the character in the film but I feel she comes across as pretentious and selfish (in some interviews of her that I watched).

Other than maybe a couple of funny lines in the entire 2 hour drama and some scenery (few seconds of long lens shots) of what may be parts of Northern Europe the movie is filmed in the dark and dungeony locales.

I am not sure if Clooney is now running out of ideas and milking the public for what it is worth purely on his cachet.

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