The Men Who Stare at Goats — Jon Ronson’s nonfiction account of the U.S. military’s experimentation with the paranormal, The Men Who Stare at Goats, is a fascinating and often hilarious read, but it doesn’t exactly scream “soon to be a major motion picture.” Its digressive approach combined with Ronson’s quirky first-person viewpoint would seem to lend themselves more to an oddball documentary (along the lines of the one made from Ronson’s earlier book Them: Adventures with Extremists) than a George Clooney vehicle.
So it comes as no surprise that director Grant Heslov and screenwriter Peter Straughan have taken some liberties in an effort to pull a narrative thread from Ronson’s book. They aren’t entirely successful — the third act is especially problematic — but at its best, Goats maintains a giddy Dr. Strangelove-via-the-Coen-Brothers vibe, with a strong assist from Jeff Bridges as a Lebowski-esque Special Forces officer turned hippie acidhead.
Ewan McGregor and his shaky American accent play Bob Wilton, a journalist (and obvious Ronson stand-in) looking for the biggest scoop of his life. He finds it in Iraq in the person of Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a former Army intelligence operative who claims to have been part of a top-secret unit known as the First Earth Battalion. Under the command of New Age military man Bill Django (Bridges), Cassady and his fellow psychic soldiers (or “Jedi knights,” as he insists on calling them in the presence of the man who was Obi-Wan Kenobi) were trained in unconventional warfare techniques like remote viewing, walking through walls and yes, stopping a goat’s heart with their minds.
The project turns sour when the military brass begins applying Django’s “warrior monk” methods toward more nefarious means of psychological warfare, including the torture of prisoners. At this point (which is more or less when Kevin Spacey enters the picture as a smug rival of Cassady’s), Goats begins to lose its way, as the refreshing absurdist tone of the first hour gives way to unconvincing action. For the most part, however, Goats is such nutty, trippy fun that it’s easy to forgive its missteps.
A Christmas Carol — Technology can be used for either good or evil, and unfortunately Robert Zemeckis has chosen the latter, turning his Polar Express/Beowulf performance-capture software towards plaguing us with an animated adaptation of the Dickens classic populated almost entirely by Jim Carrey.
The Fourth Kind — If Paranormal Activity didn’t satisfy your insatiable hunger for genuinely fake “found footage,” this allegedly fact-based thriller starring Milla Jovovich as a psychologist investigating alien abductions in Alaska should do the trick.
The Box — Will Cameron Diaz press the button that will make her a millionaire at the cost of someone’s life? Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly follows up the disastrous Southland Tales with this Twilight Zone-ish sci-fi fable based on the short story by Richard Matheson.
