Monuments Men (2014)

Frank Stokes (Clooney) summons a crew of men with an expertise of fine art and architecture to brave the extreme front lines of war torn Europe. There is a close race to rescue the continents heritage from both the Nazi and Soviet Party.

The Famous faces that were spread across the film posters for this second world war escapade it is hard to decipher whether they are meant to be stone faced art enthusiast or smirky school children, also struggling to decide just how seriously the matter is at hand. The plot is also promising a group of old friends hunting down lost pieces of fine art in dangerous territories of Nazi ridden Europe, to stop them destroying the culture of humanity – paintings, books, sculptures and icons. The main question in this film is a work of art worth more than a Human life. Is IT really though?

The film is made up of moments with sections of Bill Murray's (Campbell) hearing a recording on a tanoy of his family at Christmas. Matt Damon’s (Granger) hanging a painting in an abandoned Jewish home in post-occupied France. Also when Jean Dujardins (Clermont) and John Goodman’s (Garfield)  discovery of a thoroughbred horse, but then becomes a dangerous discovery of something else.

These moments tend to fall short ever so quickly and so does Clooney. Theres No extravagant rescue of fine Art just montages where the group split up almost very representational of Scooby doo. This shows very little chemistry to group until the last 20 minutes. I also find the editing is sloppy and the extra story line added in there with ‘lets always have Paris’ this spurious-romance between Damon and Cate Blanchett (Claire) its very pointless and manipulated.

With its sparkling and wonderful cast this film would have been better as a mini series with more detail and story to each rescue of art, where its threads seemed cut off so frustratingly short. 

They had so much substructure to build from like ‘the Train’ (1964) which is intensely engrossing account of the sabotage of the Nazi endeavor to smuggle a trainload of art treasures

Unfortunately the film is inadequately constructed due to the dazzling cast.

The film felt like a slow rush.

George Clooney

Frank Stokes

Matt Damon

James Granger

Bill Murray

Richard Campbell

John Goodman

Walter Garfield

Jean Dujardin

Jean Claude Clemont

Dallas Buyers Club (2014)

A true tale of Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) a straight but extremely  promiscuous lowlife discovers he is HIV positive in 1985 Texas. Protesting to accept the worst, Ron Woodroof turns to a black-market medicine and becomes the unlikeliest savior.

Ron Woodroof is a pure Texan Trailer-trash through and through, he is an oil company electrician trading former rodeo glories for cheap sex, hopped on numerous crappy drugs impetuous to his declining health until a accident lands him in hospital. He is awakened by doctors who informs him he has less than a month to live. He is HIV positive a diagnosis he chooses to ignore but then defies, To realize Woodroof Deterioration, McConaughey has exposed to a Christian Bale-in The-Machinist extremes, the ultimate artistic gesture of self-distortion, he looks frail and ill, a complete dissemblance to his eau du cologne self.

However who he becomes discarded by his cheap friends, fired from his job, Woodroof ventures to Mexico to score contraband drugs and alternative treatments that suspend the disease. Woodroof realises he can make a “good buck” which is a manifestation of heroism, creating the Club of the title, a sly legal dodge in which desperate flanks of AIDS sufferers at his door do not buy the illicit medicine but pay a monthly fee for membership where the drugs are a perk and you are given security with the membership.

Matthews McCohnaugheys latest categorization of his newfound serious acting talent, Magic Mike and Mud risked tipping the renaissance into overkill. This was a full-engrossment illness trip which was Hollywood’s passkey into many awards ceremonies this year. A journey of self-discovery in which the disease might destroy a body but a soul can be healed. McConaughey has turned the impression of a victim narrative inside out with a perfect and convincing portrayal of a bitter but  indestructible spirit.

With Shooting around dilapidated backstreets of Dallas, jean-marc Vallee with a sport film reminiscence with knockdowns and comebacks with a engaging effect the delicacy of incidental detail distracting our attention fro dramatic liberties as homophobia turns to hope. Plotting his melodramatic days-days still spent alive Events develop into a battle of wits between this wily Robin Hood, running his shenanigans from a fleabag motel, and the Federal Drug Agency suits dogmatize over fine print. Yet there are magical, contemplative pauses — Woodroof at a Mexican clinic in a tank of butterflies struck by the wonder of life’s touch. At other times, it gains a goofy, capering note as he dodges customs disguised as a priest and (hopelessly) romances Jennifer Garner’s doctor with a twinkle of the faded Lothario, but it is another relationship that shapes the story.

To steer his Dallas Buyers Club, Woodroof gains an unlikely guide in Jared Leto’s urbane transsexual Character Rayon, another AIDS refusing to be victimized it’s a inconceivable meeting of opposites with the two keeping tragedy and despair just at bay. You might describe this film as feelgood-feelbad.

Terrific performance By Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto elevate this socio-medical drama out of the realms of the ordinary into something quite remarkable.

• Matthew McConaughey 
  Ron Woodroof
  
  
  Jared Leto
  Rayon
  
  
  Jennifer Garner 
  Dr. Eve Saks
  
  
  Dallas Roberts 
  David Wayne
  
  
  Steve Zahn 
  Tucker
  
  
  Griffin Dunne 
  Dr. Vass