Silence of the Goats

Ok, I think I just spoiled the best joke in Men Who Stare at Goats, the new comedy that is in theatres now. It has a great cast, George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. And having those guys on the screen is almost enough to carry this film without worrying too much about the plot or characters or a screenplay. Men Who Stare at Goats was directed by Clooney BFF Grant Heslov who wrote the screenplay for Good Night and Good Luck. That was a great movie. But Men Who Stare at Goats is Heslov's first time out as a director. Before this he has mostly been an actor and producer. The screenplay such as it is was written by Peter Straughan. Heslov should have written it. It is adapted from a "non-fiction" book by investigative reporter Jon Ronson. It's hard to know how much of Ronson's book is actually true, but the movie is a heavily fictionalized version of the book.

Ewan McGregor plays some version of Ronson in the movie, and Jeff Bridges plays a character based on Jim Channon who actually did write the First Earth Battalion Manual. In reality, it was never put into practice, but in Men Who Stare at Goats it is. Bridges trains a military outfit, including Clooney and Spacey, in New Age mumbo jumbo and also tries to build up their psychic abilities. This is where the title of the film comes in. Clooney is the best "goat starer." The fun really starts when McGregor runs into Clooney in Kuwait during the Iraq War. He tags along on Clooney's mission, which turns out to be using his talent for "Remote Viewing to find his former commander (Bridges) who has gone missing. Beyond this, there is not much point in relating the plot because it makes no sense.

There is some quite funny stuff in the movie. I like Ewan McGregor and I really like George Clooney and I love love love Jeff Bridges. Kevin Spacey, I used to like, but now not so much. He always seems to be just playing Kevin Spacey and not doing it very well. Men Who Stare at Goats is just the first part of the George Clooney full court press this fall including Fantastic Mr. Fox (voice only) and the film I am really waiting for, Up in Air where Clooney plays a million-mile frequent flier.

In Men Who Stare at Goats, Clooney is in his total wacko comedy character which is very amusing. There's a nice running gag concerning the fact that Clooney keeps crashing his car even though he is supposed to have clairvoyant powers. And the men in Bridges' outfit are referred to as Jedi. Ewan McGregor, you may remember, played Obi Wan Kenobi in the most recent Star Wars Trilogy, so they milk this joke for all it's worth. And it's funny the first two or three times. The rumor is that Heslov hired McGregor not knowing that he played Obi Wan. Mostly, the comedy in Men Who Stare at Goats is total slapstick. They get a lot of mileage out of people high on LSD doing goofy things. My favorite bit in Men Who Stare at Goats is "cloud bursting," where you stare at a cloud and make it disappear using your psychic powers. I've done this myself. It really works. Try it!

A Serious Movie Fan

Ok, I was a bit busy writing my NSF proposal so I decided to wait a week to see the new Coen Brothers movie, A Serious Man. But it turns out that this movie by the guys who made Raising Arizona, Fargo and many others, including No Country for Old Men which won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, played for exactly one week in Baton Rouge, A.K.A. the whirlpool of despair. Ok, no worries, I thought. I can still see it in New Orleans. although this is somewhat harder than it used to be since my favorite Indie theatre, Canal Place, is now closed. It was still playing at the AMC Elmwood Palace 20, but when I checked the listings, I noticed that Thursday was its last day!  So that's why I drove 75 miles Thursday night to see a movie that wasn't called New Moon. I saw the second last show in all of Louisiana. Now the closest theatre playing A Serious Man is in Houston.

A Serious Man tells the story of a very serious man, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), seen above, who is a physics professor in Minneapolis, MN. At the start of the movie, all is seems well for Larry and his family, but very quickly things start to fall apart. First, the good news. Larry is about to get tenure at the university and his son is about to have his Bar Mitzvah. Now the bad news, Larry's wife (Sari Lennick), seen below, announces she is leaving him for another man (Fred Melamed), his melancholy, gambling, whoring brother is arrested, a foreign student tries to bribe Larry to get a passing grade, and someone is sending nasty anonymous letters to the tenure committee. And to top it off Larry's son (Aaron Wolff) is always complaining that he can't get good reception on the TV when he is watching F Troop. You may think that I am spoiling this movie for you but this is just what we find out in the first half hour of A Serious Man. There is much worse to come.

This movie is all about the Undertoad, that strong feeling of foreboding one gets from time to time. To set the tone, the movie starts with a vignette somewhere sometime in eastern Europe that tells a folk tale about a family who is visited by a Dybbuk. A Serious Man is a very Jewish movie. It's a Woody Allen movie with a Coen Brothers spin. There are lots of quirky Jewish characters and a lot of angst. Larry's lawyer (Adam Arkin), seen below, is eventually handling Larry's divorce, his brother's arrest, and Larry's dispute with his strange cranky neighbor. But it's not all gloom and doom. There is some hilarity provided by Larry's son and his transistor radio. The cast other than Adam Arkin (Life, The West Wing) is mostly unknowns. Michael Stuhlbarg who plays Larry does a really great job. Other standouts are Richard Kind who plays Larry's depressed brother and Aaron Wolff who plays Larry's son.

A Serious Man is a bit like Fargo or No Country for Old Men. In these movies, the Coen Brothers follow the John Irving playbook by subjecting some fairly normal people to more and more abnormal events until something explodes. I live with Undertoad every day, so I quite enjoyed this movie. At first, it seems almost boring in its banality, but it sucks you in and soon you get caught up in the desperation of Larry's life and hope that he can at least improve the reception of F Troop. But you also know that isn't going to happen because this is the Coen brothers not Woody Allen. The last scene is amazing. You'll have to go see the movie to see why. As Larry tells his physics class as he is describing the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, you can't tell if Schroedinger's cat is dead until you look in the box.

As Samwise says at the end of LOTR, "Well, I'm back." Where have I been? It's hard to explain. Perhaps, Rip Torn explains it best in Defending Your Life:
Daniel Miller: Where were you? I'm just curious.
Bob Diamond: I'd tell you, but you wouldn't understand.
Daniel Miller: Don't treat me like a moron. Try me.
Bob Diamond: I was trapped near the inner circle of thought.
Daniel Miller: I don't understand.
Bob Diamond: I told you...

A lot of you have noticed that I haven't been writing movie reviews for a while. Actually, I haven't written one since Christmas. But I've been seeing movies. I plan to do the new Geoff at the Movies as a blog. I probably can't catch up on all the reviews but I will blog about the best ones. So far, the best of 2009 are, Star Trek, Julie and Julia, The Hurt Locker, Bright Star, Public Enemies, and District 9.

There are lots of good movies coming out between now and Christmas and I'm going to try and keep up. Just saw a great trailer for Invictus. This is the latest movie by the most active director in Hollywood, 79 year-old Clint Eastwood. His list of films and Oscar nominations and wins is amazing. He had two movies last year, Gran Torino (2008), and Changeling (2008). His new film, starring Morgan Freeman (as Nelson Mandela) and Matt Damon, tells the story of how Mandela used the National Rugby Team to help unite South Africa. But first up and opening in Baton Rouge this weekend are A Serious Man, the new Coen Brothers film and Men Who Stare at Goats, a comedy about the CIA which has an amazing cast including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. More later at Geoff at the Movies....