Monuments Men

[Imamacuser]

So I just watched Monuments Men last night, and I have to say I was kinda disappointed.

It was more like watching a documentary than a movie, and even though I love documentaries I didn't like this movie.

It didn't always flow smoothly, and the cuts seemed awkwardly placed.

On the plus side, I believe it was quite historically accurate based on my limited reading.

My impression from the first scene was that it was shot digitally, and throughout the movie there were shots that looked about a 1/2 stop over exposed and other shots that lacked DR. Honestly I thought Act of Valor did a better job of controlling DR and maintaining exposure. I was surprised to discover that Monuments Men was shot on the Alexa & film. Maybe they wanted that look in their grade, but in my mind, film and Alexa footage should look much prettier. To be fair, I was watching it on a Redbox DVD, but my TV is pretty accurately calibrated.

Is it just me or did other people notice the same things?

 

[Grug]

I know the film didn't get a lot of love from most people, but I got a lot from it personally. I think its message about the significance of culture, why it matters and why it's worth fighting for is incredibly timely in this age of disposable content.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

So I just watched Monuments Men last night, and I have to say I was kinda disappointed.

It was more like watching a documentary than a movie, and even though I love documentaries I didn't like this movie.

It didn't always flow smoothly, and the cuts seemed awkwardly placed.

On the plus side, I believe it was quite historically accurate based on my limited reading.

My impression from the first scene was that it was shot digitally, and throughout the movie there were shots that looked about a 1/2 stop over exposed and other shots that lacked DR. Honestly I thought Act of Valor did a better job of controlling DR and maintaining exposure. I was surprised to discover that Monuments Men was shot on the Alexa & film. Maybe they wanted that look in their grade, but in my mind, film and Alexa footage should look much prettier. To be fair, I was watching it on a Redbox DVD, but my TV is pretty accurately calibrated.

Is it just me or did other people notice the same things?

In terms of Historical accuracy... it was a bit more 'accurate' than "The Train"(1964) which had 'fiction' added to make the film seem more like an 'action/drama' than the real life events, which were mentioned in passing in "Monuments Men"(2014). But there were collapsing/coalescing of events and persons, and 'fictional drama' added to make it a 'film' rather than a 'documentary'.

The scope of the film also 'had problems', in that there were 5 or 6 story lines, and the film attempted to weave between them.

Otherwise it does dramatize a different aspect of WWII than most people were aware of.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

I was very excited for this film because I enjoyed the idea of the complicated and little known job of trying to stop artwork and architecture from being stolen or destroyed. I also was super excited for John Goodman and Bill Murray in the same film.

The pacing was all wrong, the drama was injected forcefully and often times very cliche or easy to see coming. They treated the few character deaths as though it was as if we, the audience, really cared.... but I more or less found myself not really attached to any character. The story didn't engage me and thus when someone died, everyone on screen was real sad about it, but I wasn't that invested. I occasionally tear up during films, so it's not really a matter of me being unable to empathize; it's just the film just didn't pull me in and I went into the film very wanting to.

I think it was too polished. I kept thinking this was some sort of "Ocean's 11: 1942"... I was wondering when Andy Garcia was going to show up as a Nazi to give everyone a lecture on Caravaggio.

There were good moments, but it was far and few between. At the end of the day, I felt the film was too 'hollywood'.