jackdarkness

The two 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' videos I mentioned to a few of people at club:

*Warning Spoilers*

Well I ran off to see The Men Who Stare at Goats and I'm really not sure what to make of it - as did most of the audience. First all it's only inspired by the book of the same name and a lot of names are changed - For instance the 'First Earth Battalion' becomes the 'New Earth Battalion' - and the story is set during the Iraq war. It's very Pro-First Earth Battalion.

The story follows a journalist named Bob Wilton whose marriage has resolved and goes to Iraq where he stumbles upon Lyn Cassady - a Jedi warrior (taken from Project Jedi - a project incorporating Zen training techniques for special forces troops to improve their powers of observation, mental acuteness, and reactions). Who tells him the story of the 'New Earth Battalion' (A lot of groups like Project Jedi, Project Grill Flame, Project Star Gate are conflated since the real First Earth Battalion was not an actual unit but more a movement inspiring the formation of units) from it's innocence stage to it's turn to the 'Darkside' (such as use of torture on prisoners) as the US Military tries to weaponize the paranormal. Although the antics and eccentricity are amusing the movie shows the magic they use as having real effects and working (Most of the Time anyways) - as in the case of some of the real projects - the Remote Viewing projects (under various names over several decades) were canceled (until it was apparently revived following 9/11) after the cold war because while they did get some good hits it was too unreliable (owing to the vagaries of the astral world).

Anyways as Cassady demonstrates his magical techniques and martial arts skill such as the use of the Predator a real device as Bob slowly becomes a believer and is finally initiated and trained as a Jedi near the end of the film. Cassady follows his intuition, instructions from a vision, and Remove viewing to reach a base where prisoners are being tortured and the army is conducting Psychological & Psychic Operations. With the help of Bill Django (the old leader of the New Earth Battalion and based on the real life Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon) who summoned Cassady they drug the base with LSD to make the soldiers ineffective (ala this British Test) and free the detainees being used as guinea pigs for new torture techniques along with the goats being used for training purposes. Django and Cassady steal a helicopter fly off and disappear (assumed by the military to be dead) while Bob goes home to share the story and like Ronson is frustrated when the tales of torture become a humor story since the Barney The Dinosaur 'I love you' song was one of the songs used during the sleep deprivation/sensory overload tortures. The film ends whit Bob making peace with his life and resolving to fight on for truth, justice, and peaces while talking about how the world needed more Jedis. He then runs at a wall and passes though it (as most the the already confused audience got even more confused).

An Interesting twist since Ronson despite some unexplained items was a skeptic and considered it all to be madness expressed by a Post-Vietnam shell shocked US Military.

I really don't know what to make of this film - It's kind of entertaining but very loosely based on the actual groups involved so if your interested in the real groups I'd recommend Jon Ronson's Book The Men who Stare at Goats, its excellent companion 3-part documentary Crazy Rulers of the World, and Donald Tyson's Soul Flight which has a section devoted to Grill Flame/Stargate/Et Cetera.

The movie seems have been designed to be a massive Glamourbomb and I'm kind of interested to see the reactions to it. Though the pro-very white light and bunnies new agers elements left me cringing at bits.

One finial note at one point a soldier from the unit goes crazy and marches out into the base's yard naked and starts shooting as the training soldiers in the yard who scramble for cover. He later turns the gun on himself - considering the Shooting at Ft. Hood yesterday I'm surprised they didn't postpone the movie's opening.