The Monuments Men Director: George Clooney
Writers: George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Cate Blanchett Columbia Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 118 Minutes
Release Date: February 7, 2014
Co-written and directed by George Clooney, and based on the book of the same name by Robert M. Edsel, The Monuments Men is a World War II drama about an Allied platoon of over-the-hill museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and historians who are tasked with an unusual mission.
The platoon, which consists of Clooney, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin (The Artist), and Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), must enter Germany during the closing stages of the War and rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners.
The final member of the platoon, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Matt Damon), is sent to France to gain valuable intel about the location of the stolen art from Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), a French art historian and undercover member of the French Resistance. The scholars-turned-soldiers, known as the Monuments Men by military brass, find themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of one thousand years of culture and protect mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.
Fans of Hellboy, B.P.R.D. Secret Origins, and FUBAR should definitely straighten up and pay attention! The latest addition to the horror-and-mythology-meet-WW2 family – and arguably the most beautifully rendered of the lot – is Breath of Bones: A Tale of the Golem from Dark Horse Comics.
Set in Poland just before the German invasion, the story unfolds around a Jewish boy named Noah who watches all of the men in his village “” including his own father “” march off to join the Allied forces in an attempt to hold back the enemy. Noah stays behind with his grandparents and has only the regular radio broadcasts to keep him informed of the battles that are drawing closer every day to the peaceful countryside he calls home.
After the long wait for his father’s return to the village with no word of his condition, Noah and his grandfather brace themselves for news of his death. This moment of emotional bonding between the boy and the old man quickly takes a turn when an Allied fighter plane roars overhead and crashes just outside the boundaries of their village.
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press