Jon Ronson's madder-than-fiction odyssey with the US Military, The Men Who Stare At Goats, is almost with us in movie form, starring Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. Have a chuckle at this trailer over on Apple.
Ronson's book accompanied the Channel 4 series Crazy Rulers of the World, revealing that 30 years' worth of US paranormal military research have resulted in playing the Barney theme to prisoners of the War on Terror as a psychological interrogation technique. Well, we'd certainly talk.
The movie, which is looking awesome, gives us McGregor in the Ronson role (renamed Bob Wilton and saddled with an American accent), and a twitchy Clooney as Lyn Cassidy; a reactivated psychic spy and "Jedi warrior". And yes, we do see him staring at goats, in an attempt to kill them with the power of his mind.
Jeff Bridges plays Bill Django, the hippyish founder of the Psychic Soldier programme designed to create "warrior monks who can pass through walls and see into the future". And Spacey is Larry Hooper, an alumnus of the programme who now runs a military detention centre in Iraq.
We're intrigued about the part where McGregor is being strangled by a guy with a Dr Strangelove arm. All will be explained on January 22nd.