FROM MTV.COM: What went wrong with this movie? The subject — the U.S. military's apparently actual flirtation with paranormal warfare — has rich comic promise. And the cast — George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges — couldn't be much stronger. But while the trailer for "The Men Who Stare at Goats" suggests a quirky, Coen-esque romp, the picture itself lacks the Coen brothers' sardonic intelligence and deft pacing. It wanders and wilts and very quickly falls apart.

The story begins in 2003, with aspiring combat reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) waiting in Kuwait for clearance to cross over into Iraq. Biding his time, he encounters Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a man with a strange tale to tell. Cassady says he's a "Jedi warrior" (wink, wink) in the New Earth Army, a sub-rosa military unit dedicated to psychic battle strategies — mind-reading, "remote viewing," the whole new-age imaginarium. He says he's been reactivated to locate Bill Django (Bridges), the ponytailed Vietnam vet who founded the NEA back in the early '70s and has now gone missing. Wilton senses a story here, and decides to tag along.

Continue reading 'The Men Who Stare At Goats': Destination Nowhere, By Kurt Loder

When he's not tearing up the world stage as a musical superstar, Justin Timberlake dabbles in film. One of his latest projects is "The Open Road," an indie dramedy where Timberlake plays a minor league baseball player who reconnects with his estranged major league father (played by Jeff Bridges) when his mother becomes ill.

The subject matter allows Timberlake to show his acting chops, which he does in the below clip featuring him and Bridges having a heart-to-heart at a local bar. "The Open Road" hits DVD and Blu-ray on November 17.

I almost can't take this news. The brothers Coen -- Joel and Ethan -- are among the best filmmakers out there. This isn't opinion; it is a fact, supported by such stellar efforts as "The Big Lebowski," "A Serious Man" and the Oscar-winning adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, "No Country For Old Men." So when the news broke last month that they'd be directing a new take on Chris Portis' novel "True Grit," I was beside myself.

MTV's Josh Horowitz caught up with the duo later in September, in one of their only solo interviews of the Toronto International Film Festival. There they confirmed that Jeff Bridges, previously revealed to be playing Rooster Cogburn, would indeed be wearing his character's eyepatch, like John Wayne before him. "That'd be like doing Richard II without the limp," Joel said. He also revealed the source of the adaptation: "We’re not looking at the movie. It’s a great book. It’s a very funny book." Read more...

There are plenty of actors I wish would work with the Coen brothers again: Tim Robbins; Nicolas Cage; Beth Grant; William Forsythe; Tony Shalhoub; Philip Seymour Hoffman. Of course, the one that most of us Coen fans want the most is "The Dude" himself, Jeff Bridges. Well we're in luck, because the "Big Lebowski" star is in talks to join Joel and Ethan Coen for their remake of the 1969 comedic western "True Grit," according to Variety.

Based on Charles Portis' novel, the original "True Grit" starred an eye patch-wearing John Wayne as 'Rooster' Cogburn, an aging U.S. marshal who helps a 14-year-old girl find the man who killed her father. Also along for the ride in the original is country singer Glen Campbell, who additionally performed the film's Oscar-nominated theme song. "Grit" is mostly remembered for being the film that finally won Wayne his only Academy Award, which many fans consider to be one of those career-honoring Oscars. Read more...

“The Open Road” isn’t the kind of movie I’d go out of my way to see. Nothing against Jeff Bridges or anything. I know as well as you do that the Dude abides. It’s just that dramedies about fathers and sons getting to know one another as adults isn’t what I usually seek out in a major motion picture. I am, to a fault, a genre guy. Though I do like a good vintage romance or comedy, especially from the 1960’s and earlier. I’m thinking about checking out “The Open Road” when it opens this weekend though.

Because Justin Timberlake’s starring in it.

Strange, I know. What twenty-seven year-old man goes to a movie because an ex-boy band member is starring in it as a baseball player? Hey, I like the guy. His “SNL” performances are funnier than most of the past twenty years of the show, it’s worth slogging through all of “Southland Tales” just for his bizarre musical interlude and he’s pretty badass in “Black Snake Moan”. I even dig some of his solo tunes. Read more...

All sorts of news flying around the web today. Some of this would have run earlier on the blog, had it not been for a midday technical SNAFU. Here's a round-up of what we missed:

-- I don't know if it's the "first" to hit the web (I'm pretty sure it's not), but IGN UK have posted their review of "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra." It's mostly high praise for Stephen Sommers' high-energy action flick, and I couldn't be more pleased. I'd been feeling uneasy about "Joe" in recent months, but all of those fears were literally BLOWN THE EFF UP when I saw the movie myself this past weekend. (IGN UK)

-- "Monster Squad" director Fred Dekker revealed at a weekend screening of his family-friendly classic that he's currently hard at work on a script for "Cliffhanger 2." For those who don't recall, "Cliffhanger" stars Sylvester Stallone as a mountain climbing rescue worker who ends up pursuing an international gang of thieves along snowy mountain peaks. Word emerged back in May that a reboot was in the works, and now it looks like we have further confirmation. (FirstShowing) Read more...

"Tron Legacy" stars Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde took some time from their busy San Diego Comic-Con schedules to go one-on-one with MTV yesterday. All of this may be old hat for Bridges, who played the central character in the original movie, but Hedlund and Wilde come to Disney's sequel with their childhood memories intact. Imagine the thrill they must have felt then at handling a Disc of Tron for the first time. Or climbing into a Lightcycle. I get chills just thinking about it, and they've lived it.

Head over to MTV.com for more video coverage on the ground at San Diego Comic-Con 2009!

One of the most anticipated films of 2011 is "Tron Legacy," the sequel to the 1982 sci-fi movie "Tron." Disney didn't disappoint fans during their 3-D panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday.

Filmmakers and members of the cast, including Jeff Bridges reprising his role as Kevin Flynn, introduced footage revealing that the story revolves around Kevin's son Sam.

"I go on search for my father and find myself in this crazy world," said actor Garrett Hedlund, who plays Sam Flynn.

What he finds is that the world of Tron has been sitting on a server and in that time has evolved on its own. "It's become darker and more realistic, feeling more like a photo surreal environment," director Joe Kosinski said. Read more...

Trooooooon! Say it like you’re James T. Kirk shaking your fist at genetically-engineered mortal enemy Khaaaaaaaaaaan!

That was my reaction the first time I heard about Disney’s planned sequel to “Tron,” the classic 1982 sci-fi adventure about a man named Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who is electronically trapped by an evil artificial intelligence inside a computer mainframe. And it still captures how pumped I am for the new film which, as producer Sean Bailey confirmed to MTV News, will honor the roots of the original—lightcycles, tanks and more—while acting as what he termed a “stand-alone sequel.”

“You don’t have to know the ’82 movie to come in and appreciate and enjoy this one,” he explained. “That said, we accept what happened in the ’82 movie happened in ’82. Our movie is set in 2010. We built a mythology that spans the intervening 28 years of, ‘Here’s what we think happened with Kevin Flynn and with [nefarious software corporation] ENCOM and all those principle characters. Here’s what we think happened inside the Tron universe and in the real world.” Read more...

Our Comic-Con preview continues today with what is surely one of the most anticipated films of the San Diego gathering: Disney's updated take on 1982’s man-in-the-machine mind-frak "Tron." Quite a change from 2008’s "Tron" at Con brain-melting bombshell.

“Last year we had the benefit of surprise,” "Tron" producer Sean Bailey told MTV News. “We had some visual test stuff to show that no one knew we had [prepared], which is really fun to be able to surprise a crowd that is pretty much unsurprise-able.”

That visual test showed off a high-tech clip of a lightcycle race—a take on one of the many iconic scenes from the original film—and the crowd went wild. Cut to 2009: with the “Tron” shoot having wrapped in Vancouver just a week ago, the task for filmmakers is both the same and quite different: everyone is well aware of a new “Tron” and there’s not a ton of complete footage available to show off. Read more...