First 'Them', now 'Goats'

[Dr_Baltar]

Clooney Will Stare At Goats
May 16, 2008

Oscar winner and recent nominee George Clooney has been set to star in Grant Heslov's Men Who Stare at Goats. The star and director are partners in the production company Smoke House, which will finance the film. The unusually-titled film is an adaptation of the book by British journalist Jon Ronson about the U.S. Army's First Earth Battalion, a unit that was designed to use paranormal powers. According to Variety, the title refers to the idea that a soldier could kill a goat just by staring at it. Should be interesting.

Men Who Stare At Goats was written by Peter Straughan and has been apparently been circulating around Hollywood for some time but buzz built up at the Cannes Film Festival this week and the market opened up for the film. Apparently, Men Who Stare At Goats was the number one unproduced screenplay on a 2007 Brit List. The film will be financed in partnership with several companies, according to Variety, including Winchester, BBC Films, and Mandate Pictures.

George Clooney has finished shooting The Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading, which will open this Fall, and is doing voice work in The Fantastic Mr. Fox from director Wes Anderson. Clooney was most recently seen in last month's Leatherheads and last year's Oscar-winning Michael Clayton. He also recently starred in Ocean's Thirteen, The Good German, Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck, Ocean's Twelve, and Intolerable Cruelty.



http://www.thedeadbolt.com/news/104550/clooneygoats_news.php

 

[James_H]

I don't know if there's a Jon ronson thread, but his latest documentary is on Channel 4 tonight at 10pm.

 

[GNC]

I don't know if there's a Jon ronson thread, but his latest documentary is on Channel 4 tonight at 10pm.

Did anybody else watch it? At first I thought the Reverend was a kook, but as it went on he came across as more and more dangerous. His female accomplice, who accepted payment for killing the suicidally depressed, was even worse.

The Reverend was so in love with the idea of the Afterlife (or "The Great Adventure" as he insisted on calling it) that he was willing to help those who had no real need for euthanasia die. No counselling experience or anything. He's the last person to call if you're suicidal. Very disturbing documentary.

 

[James_H]

Indeed, it was pretty scary. I'll always wary of how much documentaries can be 'plotted' to make things like the rev's increasing scariness more apparent, especially as I have read some of Jon Ronson's books, and he does tend to fictionalise a bit (some of the episodes from them can be compared directly with scenes from the secret rulers of the world).

 

[Dr_Baltar]

First trailer for The Men Who Stare At Goats:

http://tinyurl.com/lclykw

 

[GNC]

First trailer for The Men Who Stare At Goats:

http://tinyurl.com/lclykw

Oh dear, that doesn't look very good at all. Ewan McGregor as Jon Ronson isn't a bad idea, but they've got him with his dodgy American accent again. The documentary series was funnier than anything in that trailer, which looks like National Lampoon's Remote Viewers.