Video interview: Peter Straughan (The Men Who Stare at Goats)

Well, not really much of an interview. It’s 20 seconds with screenwriter Peter Straughan who adapted the book by Jon Ronson for the upcoming movie The Men Who Stare at Goats. Here’s the interview snippet:

http://www.movieweb.com/v/VINq4UQS4zYiRS

And here is the transcript:

“So the challenge was really to try and take all those beads and find a thread that you could pull it into a straight narrative line. And I think I literally went through the book with a marker and underlined everything I thought I wouldn’t want that not to be in the film. And then try to work up a story line that could fit as much of it in as possible.”

I suspect Straughan is not alone in this approach to adaptation.

Here’s the most recent trailer for The Men Who Stare at Goats:

I believe that satire is the single most difficult genre to pull off. How about Goats? Here are a couple of advance reviews:

Daily Variety (Derek Elley): “A serendipitous marriage of talent in which all hearts seem to beat as one, “The Men Who Stare at Goats” takes Jon Ronson’s book about “the apparent madness at the heart of U.S. military intelligence” and fashions a superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game. Recalling many similar pics, from “Dr. Strangelove” to “Three Kings,” and the screwy so-insane-it-could-be-true illogic of “Catch-22,” this is upscale liberal movie-making with a populist touch, in Coen brothers style. Enthusiastic welcome at Venice, likely to be echoed at Toronto, should translate into friendly biz Stateside in November.”

Hollywood Reporter (Deborah Young): “”Good Night, and Good Luck” director George Clooney and screenwriter Grant Heslov again team up for Heslov’s feature-directing bow, a wild spoof on the U.S. Army research’s into psychic phenomena and attempts to use same in its wars from Vietnam to Iraq.”

London Times: “George Clooney re-enlists in the US Armed Forces for the funniest army satire since his 1999 feature, Three Kings. But while David O. Russell’s Gulf War movie was a savage black comedy powered by cynicism and disillusionment The Men Who Stare at Goats is a gentler, sweeter film, which posits that, for some battles at least, peace and love provide the answer. Or, failing that, large quantities of high-strength LSD should do the trick.”

Sounds promising. 

The movie opens Friday, November 6.

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