The Monuments Men - film review

Based on a true story, The Monuments Men (2014) stars just about everybody - George Clooney (who was also co-writer/director), Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean DuJardin, Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban, oh and Cate Blanchett who plays a Parisian.

It was like watching an interesting documentary but better, as the actors were masters of under-acting and seemed so natural . It was amazing to learn about the number of artworks that were stolen, stored or destroyed - and there was tons of gold stashed, too.

An enlightening and enjoyable film. If you want to know more, you can decode the following paragraph by pasting it into a text document and changing the font to something readable.

Guess which two of The Monuments Men team died - none of the Americans – just the Brit and the Frenchman!

Recommended. Give it a whirl!

FM soundtrack

I've never seen the film but I bought the double album of the soundtrack on vinyl in the late '70s and I subsequently got the CD. The FM soundtrack features Steely Dan (FM & Do It Again), Bob Seger (Night Moves), Joe Walsh (Life's Been Good), Boston (More Than A Feeling) - all favourites - plus tracks from Queen, Rolling Stones and more. It's a collection of some of the best artists of the day.

The full track list is below:
  "FM" - Steely Dan
  "Night Moves" - Bob Seger
  "Fly Like an Eagle" - Steve Miller Band
  "Cold as Ice" - Foreigner
  "Breakdown" - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  "Bad Man" - Randy Meisner
  "Life in the Fast Lane" - Eagles
  "Do It Again" - Steely Dan
  "Lido Shuffle" - Boz Scaggs
  "More Than a Feeling" - Boston
  "Tumbling Dice" - Linda Ronstadt
  "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" - Linda Ronstadt
  "Livingston Saturday Night" - Jimmy Buffett
  "There's a Place in the World for a Gambler" - Dan Fogelberg
  "Just the Way You Are" - Billy Joel
  "It Keeps You Runnin'" - The Doobie Brothers
  "Your Smiling Face" - James Taylor
  "Life's Been Good" - Joe Walsh
  "We Will Rock You" - Queen
  "FM - Reprise" - Steely Dan