The Men Who Stare at Goats

Spanks - 4

Director - Grant Heslov

Writer - Peter Straughan and Jon Ronson

Starring - George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey & Stephen Lang

Release Date - 6 November 09

MPAA Rating - R

The Men Who Stare at Goats is inspired by the top secret true story of the United States military and its attempts to use psychic powers in a group of soldiers as told in the book by Jon Ronson.

The film follows reporter Bob Wilton, who meets Lyn Cassady in Kuwait. Bob knows about Lyn's involvement as a psychic spy from one of his previous articles After the two men meet, Lyn invites him to write a story about his new mission, that brought him out of retirement, in Iraq. The film also tells about the creation of the New Earth Army that Lyn was an original member of.

The humor in the movie is very dark and weird. It is definitely not your typical comedy. It is funny, but only if you are interested in off beat comedy. Jeff Bridge's Bill Django character is his funniest since The Dude. George Clooney can play a wacko and should continue to stick with these kind of roles and refrain from playing the action hero.

Moon

Spanks - 5

Director - Duncan Jones

Writer - Duncan Jones & Nathan Parker

Starring - Sam Rockwell & Kevin Spacey

Release Date - 12 June 2009 (Limited)

MPAA Rating - R

Moon is the directorial debut of Duncan Jones, who just happens to be the son of David Bowie. The film is 99 percent one person, Sam Bell played by Sam Rockwell and his robot GERTY who is voiced by Kevin Spacey. The film follows Sam Bell who has two weeks left on his three year contract to mine helium-3 from the dark side of the moon. A problem with the communication satellite allows only recorded messages to be sent to and from Earth. From being by himself and isolated from everyone, Sam starts to see a woman on the station and on the lunar surface. Sam has an accident and wakes up back on the station under the care of GERTY. Things then don't add up for Sam as he starts seeing himself and hearing things. That is all I can say without spoilers.

The story is completely original, which is something you don't see much in movies these days. They are normally books, remakes or old movies (sometimes not even old movies) and comic book characters. Seeing something original always makes me happy. The film is also based on science and is not all science fiction, although we are many years away from harvesting helium-3 from the surface of The Moon.

Sam Rockwell's performance is awesome, you wouldn't think he was that great of an actor from his previous rolls. The effects used to create the lunar surface and to fake the gravity looked better than a lot of movies that have tens of millions of dollars (Moon's budget was about five million).

Since the film is in limited release, it might not be playing in your local theater. If you can't make it to one of the theaters it is screening in, definitely get it on DVD the week it gets release. You won't be disappointed. Click here for the list of theaters that are screening Moon.