THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS Post Release

[devincf]

http://chud.com/articles/articles/20...ATS/Page1.html

[joeypants]

Originally Posted by Devin's Review

Light as in you walk out of the theater, turn to your friend and say 'Let's get something to eat' and then never think about the movie again.

The trailer made me suspect this a little bit, but still... damnit. Was hoping for something more from such a great cast/premise.

[Peter Judson]

Great review. Despite the missed opportunity here I'll propbably being going to see this with my girlfriend in the theater. God knows she could use some light after what I subject her to (though to be fair we did take her son to see Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs). We both have a crush on Jeff Bridges, so this looks like a win win situation. I really do love his physical albility as an actor.

I may not have noticed this before, but are the forum "Post Release" threads where we can expect to find links to film reviews from here on out? It makes good sense.

Edit: And it makes good sense because that's the way it works. Shit, I'm stupid sometimes. Carry on.

[Princess Kate]

Great review, Devin. This looks pretty darn funny, I'll have to check it out. That said though, am I the only one disappointed that with all the investigation into physic powers done by our government all we're getting film wise on this subject is a comedy? There is a great deal of evidence that there is quite alot of science and fact behind the claims people gifted with extra-normal powers, and I worry a film like this might cement the "telepathy is fake" meme in the public consciousness.

EDIT: Just to clear up what I mean, there is evidence of foreknowledge of events that certain people are able to possess with a statistically unexplainable degree of frequency. I doubt it is possible to kill a goat with your mind (not saying it isn't, but I think it's unlikely. If it is possible, the individuals capable of this are likely so rare as to maybe themselves never even know they could do it since they'd not think to try)

[avoideverything]

I read the book a while ago but remember being surprised at how dark it got. Kinda naturally assumed the film would go that way too. As per this review however, I'll be giving it a miss. If I want Cloony fluff, there's always Ocean's 11.

[Ratty]

So I guess they avoid the whole tenuous Art Bell/Heaven's Gate cult connection, eh? That was the most riveting part of the book.

[CDI F. Kelly]

I'm a simple girl. I'm just excited to see Clooney and Ewan together. Mostly Ewan.

(Especially now that The Ghost may be delayed indefinitely. Is that insensitive of me?)

[Phil]

Review's pretty accurate. I was glad to see that Spacey has stopped trying to sell himself as likeable. Clooney was great in the younger scenes. Made me curious to read the book.

[Greg Clark]

Not a great movie, but endlessly likeable. Everyone's having a good time and so does everyone watching it.

Bridges' casual confirmation of what he put in the drinking water brought the entire theatre down. Haven't laughed that hard in a while.

[Scumbag]

Originally Posted by Princess Kate

I worry a film like this might cement the "telepathy is fake" meme in the public consciousness.

Not to go to off-topic, but the whole "telepathy is fake" thing isn't a meme. It is scientific fact unless legitimately proven otherwise.

[Ratty]

Devin kind of nailed it. It's consistently amusing, but so very inconsequential. Not remotely as compelling as the book.

Seeing Clooney in all that sand made me wish I was watching Three Kings again.

[Johnny Depth]

Very, VERY interesting movie. I'm going to disagree with everyone saying that MWSAG is "lightweight".

Prior to seeing this, I had a good idea that the tone was going to be irreverent and soft. The trailer indicated that it was suppose to be a breezy, yet bizarre, satire on the military's pursuit of any alternative combat. The advanced reviews I read from Devin and The AV Club even confirmed this.

What I didn't expect was to be chilled to the bone. This movie really got under my skin and creeped me the fuck out.

Here's where MWSAG gets interesting for me: my creeped out reaction to this is all due to my time in the military(heh, never been the subject of a mind control experiment, 'fraid to say.), but mainly it's because of the young officer that Spacey mentally tortures who eventually commits suicide in front of several companies.

This scene immediantly made me flash to the horrific events that just happened in Fort Hood, and I can't shake that accidental association. It's real morbidly fascinating to me. I wonder how I would react to this film if what happened in Fort Hood never happened.

Pardon this possible derail, but did anyone else have the same experience? Am I just bringing my personal baggage into this discussion?

[Phil]

I saw it three weeks ago, so I couldn't share that context, but yeah, that's gonna be interesting.

[Johnny Depth]

Another eerie parallel is that Major Hasan was a certified mental health worker. The difference is that his treatments were meant to bring comfort to Soldiers whereas the mind training in MWSAG was meant to be an unconventional approach to combat.

More I give this thought, the more MWSAG becomes much more (albeit inadvertently)poignant to me. This might be the first time where current events, however unpleasant, have enhanced a movie's quality for me.

[Greg Clark]

The shooting in the yard certainly had some unintended resonance purely due to the fact that it was released 24 hours after some lunatic did the same thing, but I didn't take it any further than "Woah, that's weird."

[Ratty]

Originally Posted by Greg Clark

The shooting in the yard certainly had some unintended resonance purely due to the fact that it was released 24 hours after some lunatic did the same thing, but I didn't take it any further than "Woah, that's weird."

I didn't even make the connection until about a half hour after the movie. Sure bet that scene would have been cut out, though, had the movie's release date been just a little later.

[PsycheOut00]

Yup, it does say a lot about those Overture guys' psychic abilities, huh?

Originally Posted by CDI F. Kelly

I'm a simple girl. I'm just excited to see Clooney and Ewan together. Mostly Ewan.

(Especially now that The Ghost may be delayed indefinitely. Is that insensitive of me?)

I don't think The Ghost got delayed infinitely. In fact, it does have a release date in Europe (around April, IIRC). Polanski might've been cutting it when he got busted, but something tells me someone might finish it by the time he hits court. Even earlier if he gets the shiv first.

[Parker]

Not a great movie, not a bad one. The performances are mostly good (McGregor is surprisingly bland and stiff and seems to read his lines in the exact same cadence throughout the whole thing). The film making fails to bring any real life to the story and the tone needed to be zanier, darker or a more extreme combination of both. It doesn't really play other than "quirky" and grows tiresome after the first forty minutes or so. The ending is a real disaster and manages to make all of Iraq seem like a small town where random strangers from the past run into each other on a daily basis. The whole interlude with Robert Patrick felt like it was going somewhere but then just turned into a joke (albeit one of the films better ones). Pretty disappointing overall. I'm getting a little sick of "wacky" Clooney. I'd like to see him tackle something a little more serious again.

[Ben Thomas]

Its a bland film, not a bad one - but the trailer offers you something that isn't really there. The thing is, the actors are all very good (though McGregor's accent is pretty atrocious) and the story is interesting. It just doesn't ever seem to find a point and then in the final few minutes tries to create one, which just doesn't ring true. There are individual scenes that are very good, but it never equates to being the sum of its parts and by the halfway point, I just wanted it to end.

Really disappointing. I expected this to be a winner.

If you've seen Jarhead, Three Kings and Buffalo Soldiers, there really isnt anything worth seeing this for, aside from a few goofy bits involving psychic powers. And Jeff Bridges. He's always worth it.

[Jeb]

Originally Posted by Ben Thomas

McGregor's accent is pretty atrocious

As I think someone else mentioned, the character he's "playing" (or at least standing in for), the author of the book, isn't American in the first place (he's Welsh). So why does McGregor's character have to be?

I'd have thought letting Ewan keep his accent would just make him more the "outsider," to be our eyes and ears exploring Clooney's weird world.

But, then, I guess they're afraid no one would understand him. They'd rather have us understand him, but just not believe him (to my ears, he seems to really struggle with accents, more so than many of his peers, and that seems to result in a blandness that I don't get in those few films I've seen when he's speaking naturally).

[agracru]

I'm going to be the hundredth person to echo the sentiment about how flavorless this film is, but for me that actually made it really, really terrible, not in a bad movie way but in a frustrated, "this should have been a slam-dunk" kind of way. The cast is terrific and the premise is pure gold. How do you fuck that up?

It's definitely not the worst movie I've seen all year, but it's really limp and simultaneously aimless, and the actors deserved a lot better than the material they were given.

[BTSMGL]

Originally Posted by Princess Kate

There is a great deal of evidence that there is quite alot of science and fact behind the claims people gifted with extra-normal powers, and I worry a film like this might cement the "telepathy is fake" meme in the public consciousness.

"Aw, great, now they're REALLY not gonna believe I can read people's minds!"

Scumbag said it best.

That's the stupidest sentence I've read in a looooong time.

[Phil]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I can't get my head around the Three Kings comparisons. Like, at all.

I also don't remember people having trouble with Ewan's accents in Velvet Goldmine or Down With Love. Why did it distract so much here?

[Doc Happenin]

Saw it last night and 'eh', as agracru said 'flavorless'. I kept looking at my phone, it felt long and meandering, and ultimately pointless. I wanted to like this; hell, wanted to love it. George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Ewan MacGregor and Jeff Bridges? Just so bland and dull. Highly disappointed.

[CDI F. Kelly]

Originally Posted by Jeb

As I think someone else mentioned, the character he's "playing" (or at least standing in for), the author of the book, isn't American in the first place (he's Welsh). So why does McGregor's character have to be?

I'd have thought letting Ewan keep his accent would just make him more the "outsider," to be our eyes and ears exploring Clooney's weird world.

But, then, I guess they're afraid no one would understand him. They'd rather have us understand him, but just not believe him (to my ears, he seems to really struggle with accents, more so than many of his peers, and that seems to result in a blandness that I don't get in those few films I've seen when he's speaking naturally).

Geezum, there's such a bandwagon for thinking his accent is bad. It's actually not. I know people from Michigan who said it sounded fine.

Plus, his recasting as an American is actually inspired - you need an American to convey the wide-eyed naivete of someone uncovering a world he didn't know existed. Ewan is like the Innocent Abroad, and that kind of openness is not, to my mind, a British sensibility. A Brit in the same role would be too skeptical, too suspicious of the wackiness of grown men believing they can walk through walls. (This world-weary aloofness is why Brits have always wisely left the movie musical to Americans -- we do guffawed optimism really well. And yes, I just reinvented guffaw as an adjective.) Ewan also has the mannerisms and look for the role - that sweet, boyish face is alternately impressed and befuddled by his partner's shenanigans.

The movie had some flaws, but Ewan's accent wasn't one of them. It skews more toward light comedy than satire, which is fine, but the seeds of great satire are there, just unexploited.

That said, I thought it was a fun time at the movies. Lots of good hearty chuckles, which is more than I can say for 98% of other "comedies" that are released.

[agracru]

Originally Posted by Phil

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I can't get my head around the Three Kings comparisons. Like, at all.

I also don't remember people having trouble with Ewan's accents in Velvet Goldmine or Down With Love. Why did it distract so much here?

His attempt at an accent here was just really awkward-sounding for me. Sorry, I wish I had more to say than "it wasn't convincing", but it wasn't convincing. He was just a Scottish guy trying to imitate an accent that he should be able to adopt pretty well; I felt like he was struggling with it.

[CDI F. Kelly]

Originally Posted by agracru

His attempt at an accent here was just really awkward-sounding for me. Sorry, I wish I had more to say than "it wasn't convincing", but it wasn't convincing. He was just a Scottish guy trying to imitate an accent that he should be able to adopt pretty well; I felt like he was struggling with it.

Probably better than Clooney's Scottish accent. :P

[agracru]

You got me there.