The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

[Dude]

I just watched this movie,
I really liked it,
it's about this reporter who gets mixed up with these crazy guys who work for the psy-ops division of the army.

at the beginning it says something like - more of this movie is true that you could imagine, or something like that.

so I decided to see how much was true, so I searched google and found out that there was a 3 show documentary series that ran in the UK.

it was called "Crazy Leaders Of The World"

so I found the 3 shows and watched them...
almost the entire movie was from these 3 tv shows, about all they did was have George Clooney and Jeff Bridges replace the people in the documentary, and they added a couple scenes to make the movie funnier.

anyway, I thought this was a really good movie.

[Webscout]

Is there a movie "Men Who Stare At Women's .....'s" ?

[Dude]

that wouldn't be very nice, because the idea was that they were trying to kill the goats. :D

one more thing, I found the first earth battalion manual (http://arcturus.org/field_manual.pdf) that was printed by the Army.

[penny]

Thanks for the recommendation. I really liked this movie and wasn't going to see it because I thought the title was stupid. But, what a pleasant surprise.

[Dude]

I thought the same thing about the title,
but then I really like Jeff Bridges movies, and George Clooney is pretty good too,
so I thought I would give it a chance.
and I thought it was a great movie.

I was reading online about the part when they were filming the goat falling over,
the director wanted the goat to fall in a way that looked funny,
and not in a way that people would worry about what happened to him.
I thought that was really interesting, :lol2:

after I had seen the movie, I read a lot of reviews that people didn't like it because it was about the military, and about war. I just thought geesh, those people completely missed the whole point of the movie.

anyway, glad you liked the movie.
I love off beat movies like this one.

if your really interested, stagevu.com has the 3 tv shows, which are basically the movie done by different people with a lot of extra scenes thrown in, and it's not as funny.

[Webscout]

In that case I will watch and then critique your 'I liked it comment' :D

I did not plan watching this one due to the reviews. Generally they are quite close.

There are some genres that I tend to like and I will watch regardless....like mafia...WW2..... I often say .."how bad can it be"..."well sometimes PRETTY BAD" :)

[penny]

I thought it was cute the way it was critical of the Bush war in Iraq, but in a very subtle way. Like when they looked into the room with blinking lights and Barney music, Clooney said, "It's the Dark Side" in reference to Cheney saying the American government had to embrace the Dark Side. I liked the whole film because it was a very subtle poke and assumed the audience was smart enough to get it....apparently not.

[Dude]

I think this is one of those movies where either you get it or you don't.
If you get it, then you will think it's a great movie,
if you don't then you will hate it.

I just love it, and then when I found out that most if it is a true story then I just loved it that much more.

in the documentary they talked to the guy who wrote the Barney music, and asked him what he thought about his music being used to torture prisoners. :lol2:
just thinking about that cracks me up.
He said... well when I wrote the music "Barney loves you" that really wasn't my intent for to be used to torture people. LOL.
Then he talked to a composer friend of his about what kind of royalties he could ask for, she he charge for torture by the person, or by the hour?

the whole thing is just so absurd that it makes it hysterical to me.

I love things that seem unbelievable that turn out to be true,
for example, the other day my wife said she read something silly that could not be true about a bridge that started throwing cars off because of a little wind. She found a video and said it had to be fake.
Then I told her that while rare it does happen ever once in a while where a low wind will have the exact harmonics to cause a bridge to basically turn into a sign wave,
and it can move 10 feet or more and can easily throw cars off.

[penny]

I also loved Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan, Jedi Master, constantly being confused by what a Jedi was...too funny and fantastic casting.

[Webscout]

Ok...is this about Star Wars or Goats? :haha: what AM I staring at?.

[Dude]

A Jedi would know how many lights were in the room without looking.

He would also know what color the chairs were in the bar.


I was just going to watch the very beginning again, but I ended up watching the whole movie again.

[penny]

I found "Mars Attacks" like "Men that Stare at Goats", in that few seemed to 'get it'. I saw "Mars Attacks" in the theatre and almost nobody laughed, except my sister, her husband and me. There are so many 'subtle' references to 1950's sci-fi movies that I thought it was brilliant, but WOW did it get trashed.
Then movies like "Avatar" get rave reviews and it was about as subtle as a hammer to the head.

[Dude]

I liked Mars Attacks, but I can't remember it. :confused:

geesh, no wonder that movie came out in 1996, it's been 14 years since I went to see that movie. I am going to have to watch it again.

[Webscout]

I had a Mars Attack yesterday. Mars make good Chocolate Bars