Here are two clips from the series where you can actually hear Jon Ronson explaining what's going on. The documentary aired on Channel 4 in Britain and was made up of three parts, "The Men Who Stare at Goats", "Funny Torture" and "Psychic Footsoldiers." Above is a clip of a man claiming to have stared down a goat, and below is another clip from the documentary where the Predator is being used. Followed by a clip of George Clooney demonstrating the same weapon from Goats.

Compare The Two:

In Men Who Stare At Goats, Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton a reporter who's trying to escape from his boring life, so when he gets wind of a secret military program from the 1980s to create "Jedi" soldiers, he follows the story. At first, you think that he's just a very off-beat embedded journalist, following the semi-retired Jedi Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) around, but it becomes clear that Wilton is getting more out of this than just a story: He's becoming Cassady's Padawan and learning to become a Jedi himself.

McGregor, of course, played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the three Star Wars prequels, and the film winks at this fact a few times, when Clooney says McGregor knows nothing about being a Jedi. But actually, in many ways, this is the Star Wars movie I wish McGregor had starred in before — it's about learning the ways of the Jedi, and seeing the contradictions inherent in the phrase "warrior-monk."

In Goats, which is based very loosely on the real-life story of the New Earth Army, we discover that the U.S. Army developed a secret program, following the humiliation of Vietnam, to fight a new way. And this involved developing psychic powers, but also letting in some of the counterculture's spirit of anarchy and playfulness. Drugs, long hair and crazy paintings. Unfortunately, one of the leading Jedi in this organization was secretly aligned with the Dark Side (this is actually explictly said at least once) and he corrupts the organization, tarnishing the other leading Jedis and turning one of them into his henchman of evil. So in the end, McGregor is the movie's Luke Skywalker, learning the Jedi legacy and ultimately helping to restore the light side.

Along the way, Clooney doesn't just teach McGregor how to burst clouds with his mind: he gives McGregor a grounding in the spiritual discipline behind the Jedi way, with a mixture of battiness and sageness that's actually kind of intoxicating.

All of this is played with tongue pretty firmly in cheek, but at the same time, it's made pretty explicit. And the movie is as charming as McGregor, Bridges and Clooney can make it. Bridges, especially, brightens up the screen every time he turns up as Bill Django, the founder of the Jedi organization.

There's a parable, here, of the ways in which America itself has turned away from opportunities to become more peace-loving, more creative, and less exploitative of our natural resources and of each other. And the failure of the "Jedi" program to meld the hippie "peace and love" ethos with the military's buzz-cut culture doesn't just expose the fact that you can't be a soldier and a monk (in our military, anyway.) The culture clash also aims to say something about America, and the ways in which we've betrayed the promise of the 1970s peace movement.

Here's a personal share: I have an alarmingly low tolerance for Baby Boomer nostalgia and, after several years in the Haight Ashbury, my hippie kitsch allergy is at a permanent level of anaphylactic shock. And yet, there is something beautiful and hilarious about the scenes where Bridges transforms his army unit into a group of shaggy-haired, dancing oddballs. And something heartbreaking about seeing the Dark Side destroying the Jedis. Mostly, this is because Jeff Bridges and George Clooney are so much fun to watch, you don't care.

And like I said, Star Wars sits at the center of the movie's themes. At one point, Clooney says that the Jedi program flourished in the 1980s because Ronald Reagan was such a big Star Wars fan. Reagan's Star Wars, of course, was a missile defense program that many scientists claimed was impractical, but Reagan never let go of the idea. Star Wars is so many different things to different people: a glorious war story, a window into one man's personal growth, a parable of controlling your hatred and choosing peace... part of why the original trilogy was so powerful was that it spoke to so many people in so many different ways.

And in a way, Men Who Stare At Goats is as much about the legacy of Star Wars as is it as about the legacy of woo-woo New Age hippie culture. Our culture was so heavily shaped by Star Wars, it opened up different ways of thinking about the way of the warrior, as well as offering some of the most exciting battle scenes ever committed to film. How you view Star Wars says a lot about your outlook on the universe in general.

Goats is often hilarious and sometimes chilling, but it's not a perfect movie. In particular, the pacing is a bit lead-footed at times, and the story loses some of its impact as a result. The movie's mix of absurdity and scary war scenes definitely won't work for everybody — I liked this film quite a bit, but Entertainment Weekly gave it an F. But all in all, I found it an entertaining, thought-provoking ride — of all the oddball films that have come out lately (including The Box and Fourth Kind) I'd say Goats is the most fun, and the most entertaining. Mostly, it's Jeff Bridges and George Clooney obviously having a blast playing another pair of larger-than-life characters, and that's a goat ride I'm always willing to take.

In Men Who Stare At Goats, in theaters today, Bridges plays Bill Django, a Vietnam veteran who founds a group of "psychic soldiers," who are warrior-monks steeped in the counterculture. And the film follows him from the 1970s to the present day. Meanwhile, George Clooney is Lyn Cassady, the best of Django's psychic soldiers, who takes a young reporter, played by Ewan McGregor, under his wing.

Both Bridges and Clooney manage to play their characters in the 1970s (in Bridges' case) and the 1980s (for both actors), as well as the present day. It gives you hope that Bridges really will be able to pull off his role as two different Flynns, an aged version and an ageless copy, in Tron Legacy.

So how did they manage to make Bridges and Clooney appear to span a few decades in the movie's flashbacks and present-day sequences? Heslov explains it was a tough decision:

We spent a lot of energy on that, even when I was just starting casting and George [Clooney] and I were talking about him doing the role, I was [wondering], "Do I have a younger guy play George in the past, and then George plays himself in the present? Or do I have George do it all?" And the more I thought about it, the more I hated the idea [of another, younger actor stepping in.] It's always hard to jump back and forth in time. I just felt like, if I had another actor playing George, the audience would be questioning, "Does he look enough like George?"

So once they had decided to use the same actors throughout, "it was just a question of how to back it up," and where to place the actors' current ages in the narrative. And how to use wigs and mustaches, among other things, to make the actors look younger in their flashback sequences.

For the 1970s sequences, they pulled Jeff Bridges' face back, to tighten the skin. "They use this kind of tape," explains Heslov. "They basically pull back under the hairline, and they tape it and pull back a little more, and then they use strings." The make-up people "use all sorts of gadgets" to get rid of Bridges' wrinkles, which sounds a bit painful. "It was fun, but it was time-consuming." Luckily, Bridges is "kind of a perfectionist," who "loves all that character-detail stuff." some actors don't want to be bothered, but Bridges will obsess over every aspect of his characters, including wardrobe, hair and makeup.

Also, for scenes set in the past, Heslov used as much soft light as possible, and in the present, "it was all about as much harsh light as we could use."

Escape From The Valley Of Elah

The majority of Goats' present-day sequences take place in Iraq, where Ewan McGregor's character travels to try and cover the war. So I asked Heslov if he was worried that his film would be lumped together with Iraq movies like Valley Of Elah and Stop Loss, which have bombed at the box office.

But Heslov says that he doesn't think of Goats as an Iraq war movie. "It has very little to do with Iraq, except that that's the backdrop of where the story takes place." The movie does touch on modern-day issues like torture and the military's habit of hiring huge contractors like Halliburton to take care of basic security and other functions, but "it was never my intention to make an Iraq war movie."

Counterculture meets military culture

One of the most striking images in Goats is the way Jeff Bridges' character brings a hot-tubbing, Zen, druggy counterculture influence to bear on the 1980s military. The merging of two opposite cultures in the "warrior monk" program is so loopy and weird, it feels like an alternate history. We asked Heslov if he thought the counterculture and military culture ever could really coexist, or learn from each other like that.

Heslov said he really does believe that the military is always exploring alternative ways of fighting wars. And he definitely does believe that in the wake of its experience in Vietnam and the 1960s and 1970s in general, the military was "beaten down by that experience, and they were searching for ways to change it up." But at the end of the day, Heslov thinks it would probably never have worked out, even if the individuals involved had behaved differently. Plus, if the military really learned to win without killing people, then it wouldn't really be war any more.

A debt to Dr. Strangelove.

Heslov says the weird blend of comedy and horror in his movie owes a lot to influences like Dr. Strangelove, M.A.S.H. and Catch-22. Certain directors, like Altman and Kubrick, have been very influential to him, and he did think about their works as he was creating this film.

Heslov says he tried to keep Goats from falling too far into horror or comedy, by keeping it as grounded as possible. Even at the most absurd points of the story, "I tried to keep it as real as possible, so the absurdness of the actual" situation would come through. Things like George Clooney trying to burst clouds with his mind, or people trying to run through walls, were played straight instead of playing up their silliness. "I hope that by maintaining that real tone, you could slide back and forth" between the absurd and the real.

The Avengers:

More on Edward Norton's will-he-won't-he dance, with regards to returning as the Hulk. It doesn't sound like Norton's had any talks with Marvel, and he says he has no idea where they're at with this project. Nor is he terribly interested, unless Marvel comes to him with something especially fascinating. (But I'd be shocked if Marvel doesn't have Norton under contract for one or two more movies, in which case his interest, or lack thereof, would be irrelvevant.) [AICN]

Resident Evil 4:

Milla Jovovich Tweeted from the set of this film, and mentioned that the final shot of the film is a 3-D shot from high up, so they had to hoist a 3-D camera using a custom-made rig. And there's a scene where she lands a plane on a boat, and it looks like it's crashing — hundreds of neighbors called 911 to report a plane crash. And Alice and Claire fight the Executioner, an eight-foot-tall boxer toting a huge axe. They fight him in a prison shower, and every time he swings his axe, showers explode, so it's sort of raining. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Red Dawn:

The China-invades-America movie involves blowing up all of downtown Detroit, says Josh Hutcherson. And he describes his character, based on C. Thomas Howell's from the original: "In the story, I start out as not a geek, but sort of a tech guy. And by the end, I'm a total warrior, drinking blood from the animals and going crazy." [MTV]

Ghost Rider 2:

This movie will be darker and "more existential" than the first movie, but won't be a reboot, says writer David S. Goyer. Not that much is changing from his old screenplay, which is available online somewhere, but it'll be toned down to get a PG-13 rating. And it takes place eight years after the first film, when Ghost Rider is in a darker place. [MTV]

Doctor Who:

OMG new trailer for "The Waters Of Mars." So scary. [Oh No They Didn't]

And here are three whole minutes of the episode, of which about two minutes are new. Cannot. Wait. [Guardian]

And here are the episode descriptions for the (incredibly poorly) animated adventure "Dreamland":

Episode 1: Dry Springs, Nevada, 1958. The Doctor befriends a young waitress, Cassie, and her friend, Jimmy, at a diner. The Doctor activates an alien artefact and, after finding further signs of alien activity, the US Army intervenes and takes him and his new companions to the mysterious Area 51 in Roswell, where they find out about Operation Fallen Angel. Will Operation leader Colonel Stark succeed in making the curious trio forget what they have just seen?

Episode 2: Seeking refuge in the abandoned town of Solitude, Jimmy stumbles across a disconcerting discovery and the trio encounter Viperox royalty.

Episode 3: The Doctor cannot understand why the Alliance of Shades' mop-up team are more concerned with the whereabouts of a piece of space flight hardware than the hordes of Viperox pods hidden underground. Things start to fall into place when Jimmy's grandfather, Night Eagle, introduces the Doctor to Rivesh Mantilax.

Episode 4: Captured by the US Army, Rivesh is finally reunited with his wife, Saruba Velak. Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers the unsettling truth about his real identity.

Episode 5: The Doctor and Saruba have to confront the mysterious alien force in the vault housing her space ship if they are to save her husband and stop Lord Azlok from rousing his sleeping army.

Episode 6: As sunset falls, the Viperox drones start to attack the US Army base. Can the Doctor find a way to halt the seemingly unstoppable aliens in their tracks?

[BlogtorWho]

Fringe:

In tonight's Broyles-centric episode, Broyles will step on quite a few toes to solve the case that's personal to him. And there be cosmonauts and cover-ups, and we'll discover the CIA's extraterrestrial connection. [EW]

Also, turns out the Broyles in the alternate universe is a happily married man. [TV Guide]

Here are a few characters we'll meet in episode 2x13, from a casting call. [SpoilerTV]

[ALFRED] Mid 30's to early 40's male, blond hair and blue eyes, with a slight German accent. He's a young Aryan with a bad boys vibe. Guest Star

[NANA] Nana is 80 with a slight Eastern European accent. Really good Co-Star or possible Guest Star.

[ELIZA] Mother of the groom in her 60's. She's warm and sympathetic. Really good Co-Star or possible Guest Star

A few new set pics show our heroes hanging out by a police car. [SpoilerTV]

And a couple sneak peeks:

The Box:

The early reviews for this Richard Kelly tripfest are out, and... they're not very positive, sadly. But there are spoilers! Apparently, the box with the mysterious money-making, stranger-killing button is somehow connected to Arthur (James Marsden)'s work with NASA's Mars mission. The couple traces the license plate of the limo carrying around the burnt-faced Frank Langella to NASA, and then one of Arthur's NASA colleagues kills wife. Children get kidnapped, zombie civil servants chase the couple around, and then there are hints that aliens are behind the whole thing. There are bleeding noses, and Norma (Cameron Diaz) hires a babysitter without checking her references. Oh, and Arthur and Norma aren't broke, like in the original version of the story — they're well off, but their kid's tuition is going up slightly. [Reuters]

The Men Who Stare At Goats:

Here's a new TV ad showcasing this whimsical psychic-soldier film:

Supernatural:

In the upcoming body-switching episode, Sam and Dean swap bodies with each other, and with a couple other characters. [EW]

I think we mentioned a while back that Lucifer would be trapping Castiel in an upcoming episode. Here are a couple behind-the-scenes pics. [LilMissX on TwitPic via Chicago Tribune]

And here are some pics from the last episode of the year, "Abandon All Hope," in which an all-star cast goes up against Lucifer. And Mark Shepherd's demon character, Crowley, has the Colt! [Chicago Tribune and SpoilerTV]

Caprica:

We already showed you some new TV spots for this BSG prequel, but here's a bit more footage... including our first look at James "Spike" Marsters as terrorist leader Barnabus Greeley. [CapricaTV]

Chuck:

Chuck meets Batman! At least, Dietrich Bader will guest star in the ninth episode of the season, "Chuck Vs. The Beard," directed by Zachary Levi. [EW]

FlashForward:

This week's episode is supposed to be a great improvement over recent outings, and we may actually learn the significance of the blue hand. [EW]

And in case you're not getting the message that tonight's episode is going to be good for a change, David S. Goyer tells MTV it may be the best thing he's ever worked on, including The Dark Knight. It's a gamechanger, and here's what happens:

Titled "The Gift," this week's episode focuses on Agents Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) and Demetri Noh's (John Cho) continued investigation into the mysterious Blue Hand, which Goyer described as an organization "with a very specific purpose in mind." Over the course of their investigation, a shadowy figure by the name of Jeff Slingerland (Callum Keith Rennie of "Battlestar Galactica") is revealed as a new nemesis with connections to the Blue Hand.

In addition to the Blue Hand, the episode deals with Demetri's lack of a flashforward and his subsequently tenuous relationship with fiance Zoey (Gabrielle Union).

[MTV]

And a casting call for episode 13 makes it sound like we're going to Somalia:

[MALVEAUX] 40s, Male, Caucasian. A tough-looking mercenary working security on a dangerous job. A more muscular Jean Reno..

[KORFA] 9-11, Somalian, Male. A young Somali boy fighting with a friend over a toy. Dialogue in Somali..

[SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

Terry and Arlene will make a surprising discovery that brings them closer together — sounds like all their loving under the influence of Maryann's spell has left Arlene pregnant. [TV Guide]

Smallville:

Rumor control: There's no official word that the show is going to turn into a sequel called Metropolis. Michael Rosenbaum hung out with the writers recently, but there are no plans for Lex to come back — even though everyone wishes he would. Also, Perry White isn't reappearing any time soon. [EW]

Heroes:

Hiro will stay with the carnies at least through the Thanksgiving episode, which sees ballroom dancing with weird masks, and zzzzzzzzz. Oh sorry. Dozed off. Anyway. Hiro is with the carnies for a while. [TV Guide]

And here's the description for that episode, "Thanksgiving":

H.R.G. hosts an unconventional Thanksgiving dinner; the Petrelli family receives a surprise guest; Lydia searches for the truth.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

The film is inspired by Jon Ronson's non-fiction bestseller. Ewan McGregor plays a reporter who's tracking down the rogue military mind jedi George Clooney — which is pretty awesome, seeing as McGregor played a jedi. Either way the film, which is directed by Grant Heslov, looks hilarious. Here's the official synopsis:

Reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a shadowy figure who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. military unit. According to Cassady, the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it. Now, the program's founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), has gone missing and Cassady's mission is to find him. Intrigued by his new acquaintance's far-fetched stories, Bob impulsively decides to accompany him on the search. When the pair tracks Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers. In order to survive this wild adventure, Bob will have to outwit an enemy he never thought possible.

Goats will be in theaters November 6, 2009 November 6.

The film was inspired by Jon Ronson's non-fiction book about a secret government program to create a psychic military team that could read peoples minds, walk through walls, and kill a goat by staring at it, among other useful brain powers. They were called the First Earth Battalion and McGregor plays a reporter following around the greatest mind Jedi, Clooney, for the story. It moves at the speed of a Coen Brothers flick, and has Jeff Bridges in it. So chances are we'll be staring at Goats too.

Men Who Stare At Goats will be released into theaters on November 6th.

The film was inspired by Jon Ronson's non-fiction book which explained how the government tried to create a psychic military team that could walk through walls, read peoples minds, tell the future and kill a goat by staring at it. The film looks like a fast paced comedy with a cast full of old pros, plus a pot-smoking Bridges in a braid can never fail. Here's the official synopsis:

Reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a shadowy figure who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. military unit. According to Cassady, the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it. Now, the program's founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), has gone missing and Cassady's mission is to find him. Intrigued by his new acquaintance's far-fetched stories, Bob impulsively decides to accompany him on the search. When the pair tracks Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers. In order to survive this wild adventure, Bob will have to outwit an enemy he never thought possible.

Goats will be in theaters November 6, 2009 November 6.

io9: What do you think about the government using Psychic powers like in your new move Men Who Stare At Goats?

Spacey: I don't think that they'll ever acknowledge that any of this was ever true. But apparently it is and I find it rather you know, there's a part of it that's very amusing, that some of these people thought that they could walk through walls, and there's a part of it that's actually kind of interesting when you think about the power of the human mind. So I hope the film will be a lot of fun, we're certainly having a lot of fun making it.

So does his character get the chance to walk though walls? "No, I'm a psychic guru." Too bad, but at least this all-star cast has me seriously excited to watch mustached Clooney lose his mind deep in the eyes of our cloven-hoofed friends.