Staring at Goats

I'm not that easily jarred -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

Today’s blog entry will serve up two movie reviews -- one movie from 2009 and one from 1975. I’m enjoying one of my long, TimeOn weekends (every other Friday off) and have time to play like I’m Roger Ebert. (Okay, a poor man’s Ebert).

GOATS
Men Who Stare at Goats is about a secretive U.S. Army branch that experimented with “psychic warfare” back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. There has in fact been a psychological war unit for many years, which merely engages in war propaganda efforts (nothing supernatural). The film is loosely based on allegedly real events; apparently there was an experimental “New Earth Army” began in 1980, led by an LSD-influenced Viet Vet. This man (Jeff Bridges’ Bill Django in the film) believed that he could use various paranormal capacities -- invisibility, “phasing”, hypnotic psych moves and such to make enemies succumb to him. The movie gets its title from experiments where New Earth Army combatants could supposedly make a goat die of heart attack by intensely staring at it.

The military doesn’t strike me as a reservoir of extreme intellects. They are but a hop and skip from police authorities who’ve been known to hire psychics to locate dead bodies. The movie’s lead character is Lyn Cassady played by George Clooney; Cassady is a New Army veteran who’s been called back for an Iraq mission by Django. I won’t go into extreme plot details -- the movie is done in a type of comedic, documentary style. One might say it’s three scoops of Mash and one scoop of Big Lebowski. If you enjoy military farces you might like this. Men Who Stare at Goats does leave the door open to paranormal activity -- they suggest that Cassady really dispersed clouds in the sky telekinetically and also killed goats with his staring. They suggest that Django and Cassidy ascended into some alternate reality in a helicopter just because the ’copter was never seen again .... That’s the simplest explanation?

It seems to be a human yearning to believe in the paranormal and supernatural. Whether it’s the bending of spoons, talking to aliens or making psychic predictions, these activities are never reproduced in any type of scientifically controlled setting. It’s usually the third-hand accounts from people in the remote Dakotas or the Ozarks where the tales originate. Very interesting that a mainstream movie (and very possibly the US Army) would promulgate these ideas. I the author (Ebert for a day) will leave disappointed paranormal fans with another token to hold on to -- there is an already incredible reality. This universe has a lot that is genuinely weird and counter-intuitive -- we don’t need magic or the supernatural to make it any more interesting.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON
While Goats was (I think) lacking, Dog Day Afternoon was a fantastic blast from 1975. This movie is now rated in the AFI’s top 100 thrillers and Al Pacino’s portrayal of Sonny is rated by the British Film Institute as one of the best acting performances ever, in any film. Sonny is a disheveled, Viet Nam veteran with a family life in turmoil. His friend Sal is a none-to-bright but gentle soul, also down on his luck. Together they hatch a plan to rob a Brooklyn bank -- a very bumbling, stupid plan. They set off alarms immediately (probably by Sonny setting a wastebasket on fire) and are quickly surrounded by the police. What should’ve been a 10 minute heist turns into a twelve hour ordeal in which the bank manager and eight tellers are held hostage. The bravery and basic humanity of the characters is amazing. Sonny himself has a self-effacing manner and humility with hostages which portends that he’d never hurt them. To the crowd outside, he’s a preening, charismatic performer that rouses everyone to shouts of “Attica! Attica!”. The real event took place in August 1972, when Americans were still in a protest mode which would explain some of that.

This movie runs for about 2 hours and 5 minutes -- you’ll be on your edge of the seat through most of it. There is a curve ball halfway through, in which it’s revealed that Sonny is robbing the bank to pay for his lover’s sex change. … Just your ordinary movie. The music, camera angles and edgy filming make Dog Day seem like a much newer movie.

There you have it -- two thought-provoking movies for the weekend. In the next week, I’ll be doing the Thanksgiving ritual in Round Rock, TX. If I don’t get back to this before that, happy turkey day to all my readers.

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