Review: Clooney’s ‘Men Who Stare at Goats’ Biased but Amusing

Give the military-industrial complex an unlimited budget, and it’ll find unlimited ways to kill people. From megaton nuclear missiles to Donald Rumsfeld’s allegedly humane, small-scale nuclear “bunker busters,” and from robot soldiers to Barack Obama’s beloved predator drone planes, our nation’s finest scientific minds will find ever-newer ways to obliterate anything that gets in the path of the American Way. 

Of course, our enemies do the best they can on the killing front as well, and at one point it was widely believed that the Soviets were engaged in training soldiers in psychic warfare. British journalist Jon Ronson stumbled across America’s response to those mental-murder programs and wrote about them extensively in his humorous nonfiction book “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” 

Now, with the help of screenwriter Peter Straughan, who has invented a streamlined story in which to connect the book’s hilarious and almost impossibly wild anecdotes, “Goats” has hit the nation’s movie screens. Fast-moving, funny, and supremely subversive entertainment of a kind that Hollywood rarely takes chances with anymore, it also arrives at a rich historical moment, as President Obama’s own decision on whether to surge or pull troops out of Afghanistan hangs in the imminent balance.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: army, Ewan McGregor, george clooney, Men Who Stare at Goats, Peter Straughan
Posted Nov 5th 2009 at 5:58 pm in Film, Reviews | 25743458 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ckozlowski/2009/11/05/review-clooneys-men-who-stare-at-goats-biased-but-amusing/Review%3A+Clooney%27s+%27Men+Who+Stare+at+Goats%27+Biased+but+Amusing2009-11-06+01%3A58%3A14Carl+Kozlowski

Let’s Not Offend Hollywood’s Delicate Geniuses

In 2006, while accepting the Academy Award for playing a husky, grizzled version of himself, George Clooney famously gushed, “…this Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I’m proud to be a part of this Academy. I’m proud to be part of this community. I’m proud to be out of touch.”

My apologies for bringing up old crap, but Clooney’s statement, especially the part about how he’s so proud to be out of touch, is one of the most bafflingly odd things I’ve ever heard coming from Clooney, who’s also famous for telling anyone who’ll listen that everybody tells him all the time how brave he was for making a black and white movie about the red scare. It’s very revealing that Clooney would say this, to cheers, a mere three years after a child-rapist was handed an award by that same Academy. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "Next Karate Kid", "The Sting", academy awards, Arrested Development, Atheism
Posted Oct 30th 2009 at 6:54 am in Celebrity News, Culture, Entertainment | 253134105 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ccannon/2009/10/30/lets-not-offend-hollywoods-delicate-geniuses/Let%27s+Not+Offend+Hollywood%27s+Delicate+Geniuses2009-10-30+13%3A54%3A17Cam+Cannon

Trailer: Clooney Mocks American Military **UPDATED**

With so many tales of military heroism left to tell, Clooney and Company choose this… (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ewan McGregor, george clooney, Military, The Men Who Stare at Goats, trailer
Posted Aug 28th 2009 at 11:18 am in Film, Military, Video | 213494150 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/08/28/trailer-clooney-mocks-american-military/Trailer%3A+Clooney+Mocks+American+Military+%2A%2AUPDATED%2A%2A2009-08-28+18%3A18%3A29Big+Hollywood

A-holes and Insects – or Mother Nature Doesn’t Care If You’re a Good Liberal

Decades before George Clooney began using “Darfur” to swat away the unfashionable nuisance of “Iraq,” the hollow eyes and distended stomachs of starving Biafran children gave America’s impressionable “me generation” a reality check during commercial breaks.  Parents shook their heads and wrote checks.  “We have so much,” went the refrain.  “The world is so unfair.”

My pretty fourth-grade teacher, who taught us everything from math and history to a dash of entomology (study of insects), didn’t think so.  One day, unprompted, she told her class of 10-year-olds that she wasn’t really concerned about the Biafran babies because mass starvation was just nature’s way of controlling overpopulation.  (My parents were mortified.)

Margaret Sanger

Hard to fathom how, less than three decades after the Holocaust, any educated person could harbor such cold acceptance of the cruel suffering of fellow human beings - much less voice it (and to children, no less).  But whoever said the human race is on a one-way path to progress?

It’s widely assumed that, in every moment we’re alive, we’ve reached a new pinnacle – of modernity, experience, knowledge, enlightenment – that we always move forward, never back.  But what if we don’t?  What if we’re fated to make the same mistakes (disguised with innocuous new names) over and over again? (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ahmadinejad, ants, Betty Friedan, Biafra, Census Bureau
Posted Jul 10th 2009 at 5:02 am in Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 164862210 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/07/10/a-holes-and-insects-or-mother-nature-doesnt-care-how-liberal-you-are/A-holes+and+Insects+-+or+Mother+Nature+Doesn%27t+Care+If+You%27re+a+Good+Liberal2009-07-10+12%3A02%3A16Charles+Winecoff

Lonewolf Diaries: Shut Up and Do Your Job, Dipstick!

Entitlement. It’s a silly notion. Almost as silly as the idea of “homophobes” or the “whitey,” yet it is still an idea that permeates the minds of much of America’s lower and middle classes today. Truth be told, I’m getting really tired of being made to feel guilty for other people’s shortcomings. When will people stop playing the blame game, suck it up, grow a pair and take control over their own lives?

I was at the Houston airport the other day and I couldn’t find my baggage carousel. I asked the employee there where it was:

“What does it say on the screen?” he asked grumpily.

“Well, it says Carousel 2 but…”

“Then that’s what it is. You should be old enough to know that,” he said as he went off mumbling about how they weren’t paying him enough.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Burgess Meredith, entitlement, fighting, george clooney, hugh jackman
Posted Jul 7th 2009 at 6:17 pm in Lone Wolf Diaries | 178726151 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/scrowder/2009/07/07/lonewolf-diaries-shut-up-and-do-your-job-dipstick/Lonewolf+Diaries%3A+Shut+Up+and+Do+Your+Job%2C+Dipstick%212009-07-08+01%3A17%3A13Steven+Crowder

The Stoning Of Team Hollywood

The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Academy of Motion Picture arts and Sciences, Ahmadinejad, Al Franken, Alireza Davudnejad, Ambush Bay
Posted Jun 19th 2009 at 5:45 pm in Entertainment, News, Politics | 1641062 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/06/19/the-stoning-of-team-hollywood/The+Stoning+Of+Team+Hollywood2009-06-20+00%3A45%3A26John+T.+Simpson

Ernest Borgnine: All-American Badass

Compared to the generic twerps the Hollywood machine pumps out today and labels as “stars,” at 92, Ernest Borgnine remains the real deal. He is to the genetically-engineered robots like the Zac Effrons and Robert Pattinsons of the world what a shot of straight-up Jack Daniels is to a watered down cosmopolitan served with a straw. Borgnine has lived a real life, full of ups and down, and his face shows it. In contrast, today’s stars look like they were raised in protective cocoons after being genetically engineered to perfect their bone structure, dark eyebrows and pouting lips. And that’s just the guys.

Look at his life. Borgnine was born to Italian immigrant parents in 1917, spent 10 years in the Navy, including all of World War II, then bummed around as a second string character actor for another decade before snagging an Oscar in his first major role. The closest thing to life experience one of today’s stars has is a three week stint at $5,000-a-day rehab resort getting seaweed facials and talking about how his daddy never told him he loved him during group therapy while secretly gobbling the vicodins he smuggled in inside the liner of his Louis Vuitton cosmetics case. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: " "ER, Bad Day at Black Rock, Budweiser, Ernest Borgnine, Ethel Merman
Posted Jun 17th 2009 at 9:04 am in Entertainment | 1601346 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/06/17/in-praise-of-ernest-borgnine-2/Ernest+Borgnine%3A+All-American+Badass2009-06-17+16%3A04%3A52Kurt+Schlichter

The Most Powerful Weapon

During the Cold War, a slew of movies came out that dealt with the possibility of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. This is not surprising since the atom and hydrogen bombs were the most powerful weapons ever devised by man. Well, almost.

I’ll get to that somewhat nervy assertion in a bit, but first a little background.

Among the cinematic slew released during those years of cold, are two of my favorite films, Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe. Both dealt with strikingly similar themes, unintentional nuclear holocaust, yet in entirely different tones.  But cold war themes weren’t that varied by their very nature, since inevitably the worst case scenario was the best case plot device and nothing brings down the house like bringing down the house.

With that said, still, there’s so much similarity between the two stories that law suits were indeed filed and production schedules slowed. This worked out to Stanley Kubrick’s advantage as his Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was released almost a year ahead of Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe. In my opinion Kubrick’s is a better film than Lumet’s and not due to slowed schedules, either. But both are magnificent, and because of their approaches to the topic, very different  and essential part of the genre. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: 2001: a space odyssey, a6m zero-sen, an american in paris, army motion picture unit, Auschwitz
Posted May 6th 2009 at 9:56 am in Entertainment, Politics | 1284064 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smann/2009/05/06/the-most-powerful-weapon/The+Most+Powerful+Weapon2009-05-06+16%3A56%3A35Schizoid+Mann

A Republican Platform For The 21st Century

I have been a proud conservative Republican my entire life. My father and Jimmy Carter saw to that. My first vote ever was for Ronald Reagan in 1980, and I have never voted for a Democrat. Ever. Even today, the reasons for my being so have not changed, despite the media’s and liberal Democrats’ tireless efforts to discredit my belief system. Though the times may change, core principles never do. I have also served this nation proudly in uniform for six years, and don’t regret a minute of it.

In the early 1980s, my military service brought me to some of the darker corners of the world. I spent time in South Korea and Marcos’ Philippines when both countries were under martial law. Knowing I could be shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time really woke me up to what exactly it is we have here in America. Seeing a thousand Vietnamese Boat People pulled out of the South China Sea in one day only reinforced my belief in America, Sweet Land of Liberty.

Today, the Party of Lincoln and Reagan appears to be in political disarray, which is why I am writing this OpEd now. Yet many promising developments, along with some huge mistakes by Congress and the Obama Administration, have opened many new doors for us. If only we will enter. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: abortion, Africa, Al Franken, amnesty, apology tour
Posted May 2nd 2009 at 3:13 pm in Featured Story, Politics | 12196215 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/05/02/a-republican-platform-for-the-21st-century/A+Republican+Platform+For+The+21st+Century2009-05-02+22%3A13%3A08John+T.+Simpson

Summer Movie Season: The Good, the Bad and the Maybe

No matter how frustrated, disappointed, or outright disgusted Hollywood makes me, all is forgiven during that brief moment just after the trailers finish and just before the film begins. When those lights dim the chip dissolves from my shoulder and all the filmmaker need do to win me forever is tell one helluva story.

Politics shmolitics… Just take me away.

For we hopeless movie lovers, each year hope (if you’ll pardon the expression) springs eternal with a fresh offering of pull-out-the-stops-studio-balance-sheet-in-the-crosshairs slate of tent poles. And for that reason, this is my favorite part of the movie year because all I want for my ten bucks is to get lost for a couple hours, and from May 1st through the end of August filmdom at least attempts to put the political nonsense on hold to do just that. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: 3, Bruno, Christian Bale, Denzel Washington, george clooney
Posted Apr 9th 2009 at 1:09 pm in Entertainment | 1017142 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/04/09/summer-movie-season-the-good-the-bad-and-the-maybe/Summer+Movie+Season%3A+The+Good%2C+the+Bad+and+the+Maybe2009-04-09+20%3A09%3A31John+Nolte

Adventures in the Scream Trade, Take One

If you’re wondering if I was about to opine on the craft of gut-twisting horror stories, you’d only be half right. I’m actually talking about real life here. As many of you may know from my earlier posts, I first flame-throwered onto the scene here at Big Hollywood about a month ago, on the occasion of Team Oscar’s could-not-be-more-ill-advised taking off for the unfriendly skies of Islamist Iran.

I knew they were going to get punked! They were going to Punkedville! In fact, I was so sure of it, I was the one who broke the story in the US off the French wires to Drudge and Nikki Finke.  One Hollywood Jihadi PR roadside bomb detonated. War Is Hell.

Look at their trip from my POV. I remember the whole balls-to-the-wall anti-Apartheid campaign from the mid-eighties. ‘I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City,’ remember? By the way, wasn’t Little Stevie great in that video? Love him! Point being, if the racist South African apartheid regime was unworthy of cultural exchange, why was the gay-hanging, women-stoning, child-executing, blogger-killing, hostage-taking fascist regime in Iran worthy of a gold-plated Academy PR kiss? (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: AMPAS, Andrew Breitbart, angelina jolie, Annette Bening, ben stiller
Posted Apr 6th 2009 at 5:58 am in Celebrity News, Entertainment, News, Politics | 9749410 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/04/06/adventures-in-the-scream-trade-take-one/Adventures+in+the+Scream+Trade%2C+Take+One2009-04-06+12%3A58%3A54John+T.+Simpson

The plight of 40+ Hollywood actresses; Don’t write off Julia Roberts because of DUPLICITY!

The movie business is not generally kind to women when they pass the age of 40, and Julia Roberts (now 41) is learning that lesson the hard way. The former Pretty Woman has returned to the big screen this weekend in Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (Universal), and one prominent blogger wrote this headline:

Duplicity soft: Julia’s Comeback? Audiences Say Go Back

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in the fun, smart DUPLICITY, from writer/director Tony Gilroy

Roberts’ last starring role was in 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile ($63.8M domestic), and since then she has become a full-time Mom. Overall, she has 8 movies on her resume that have reached $100M in the US with her as a lead (I’m not including the Ocean’s Eleven franchise). Her most successful string of movies started in 1997 with My Best Friend’s Wedding ($127.1M cume) and ended with her Oscar winning performance in Erin Brockovich ($125.6M cume). During that span, she starred in 6 movies, generating an average of $115M in domestic box office.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: 101 dalmations, 102 dalmations, 40+ actresses, ABBA, academy award winner
Posted Mar 22nd 2009 at 6:48 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, Media Criticism, Reviews, Steve Mason's Box Office | 8689872 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smason/2009/03/22/juliaroberts/The+plight+of+40%2B+Hollywood+actresses%3B+Don%27t+write+off+Julia+Roberts+because+of+DUPLICITY%212009-03-23+01%3A48%3A38Steve+Mason

Clooney’s Urgent Message to Obama

At last, the long-suffering people of Darfur should rest easy.  The International Criminal Court (ICC) has finally issued an unenforceable, meaningless arrest warrant to bring Sudan’s murderer of a president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, to justice.  In case you did not get a chance to read the fine print, the indictment actually exonerates al-Bashir from charges of genocide but does subject him to arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  This is the international community’s desperately awaited message that will send shivers down the spines of Sudanese thugs.  In fact, al-Bashir is already partying in public, mocking the ICC’s theatrics.  

Nonetheless, human rights groups and fashionable Darfur activists are heralding the development as a breakthrough.  And although I have yet to read any statements from actor George Clooney, he must be beaming with pride given his secret meeting with President Obama several weeks ago to discuss this issue.  While we do not know the exact contents of the Obama-Clooney discussion, al-Bashir’s indictment led me to speculate on how that conversation might have unfolded.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Darfur, gay marriage, george clooney, International Criminal Court, Obama
Posted Mar 10th 2009 at 7:41 am in Celebrity News, Political Humor | 7619842 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bjoshpe/2009/03/10/clooney%e2%80%99s-urgent-message-to-obama/Clooney%E2%80%99s+Urgent+Message+to+Obama2009-03-10+14%3A41%3A26Brett+Joshpe

One Critic’s Review of ‘Mr. Ganis Goes To Tehran’

If anyone wrote a script like this, no one would believe it.

But I already read the book.

That they even went to Iran in the first place was an abomination, especially given their three-hour gay rights infomercial called The Oscars just five days earlier.

And it only kept getting worse. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Alfre Woodard, Ali Larijani, Alireza Davudnejad, AMPAS, Annette Bening
Posted Mar 9th 2009 at 3:07 pm in Celebrity News, News, Politics | 7465419 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/03/09/an-open-letter-to-hollywood-and-gay-rights-activists-on-iran/One+Critic%27s+Review+of+%27Mr.+Ganis+Goes+To+Tehran%272009-03-09+22%3A07%3A51John+T.+Simpson

Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals, And Pandering Politicians Who Are Destroying America

FOREWORD: WHAT IS A CELEBUTARD?

ce – leb – u – tard (suh – LEB – yu – tard) noun:

1. A famous person with a grandiose notion of his own importance and contribution to the known universe.
2. A human being of sub-par intellect, oversized ego and colossal bank account, whose existence represents a drag on the food chain, waste of oxygen and severe annoyance.
3. An egregious moron. (Origin: from the Latin celebutardus Paris Hiltonus maximum Baldwinus

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: andrea peyser, celebutard, george clooney, madonna, sean penn
Posted Jan 30th 2009 at 8:14 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Media Criticism | 35950108 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/apeyser/2009/01/30/celebutards-the-hollywood-hacks-limousine-liberals-and-pandering-politicians-who-are-destroying-america/Celebutards%3A+The+Hollywood+Hacks%2C+Limousine+Liberals%2C+And+Pandering+Politicians+Who+Are+Destroying+America2009-01-30+16%3A14%3A24Andrea+Peyser

Calling George Clooney

Yesterday I mentioned the doc-sitcom Scrubs. Today, comes this news on the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page: “Hospital Scrubs Are a Germy, Deadly Mess.” In the last season of another medical drama, ER, will George Clooney have the audacity to return to the state of the emergency and expose this dangerous state of affairs? We can only hope.

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Betsy McCaughey, Emergency Rooms, george clooney
Posted Jan 8th 2009 at 7:34 am in News, Uncategorized | 115012 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kjlopez/2009/01/08/calling-george-clooney/Calling+George+Clooney2009-01-08+15%3A34%3A55Kathryn+Jean+Lopez