 To get one's goat; A Gateshead lad is rising fast [ 2010-1-19 17:33:39 | 星期二  | watches1013 ] PETER Straughan says he has lost count of the number of times he has been asked: "What's George Clooney really like?" Each time he replies that there's no question of him sharing any derogatory tittle tattle to tarnish the American's good guy image. He simply doesn't have any. "I've met him several times and the truth is that he's really nice. People may want me to say he's terrible in real life, but he's a gentleman." We have read lots recently about Lee Hall and David Almond, Tyneside lads made good in the world of words. Peter is another. Two years ago, the Gateshead-born writer, now aged 41, was the only English representative on a list of '10 Screenwriters to Watch' compiled by influential American entertainment magazine Variety. Now he is rubbing shoulders with the likes of Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Ewan McGregor, all of whom star in The Men Who Stare at Goats, for which Peter wrote the screenplay. The film - a dead cert for the Oscar for most fabulously eccentric title, if such a category existed - is to get a special premiere at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, on November 3 when Peter and Jon Ronson, the British journalist who wrote the book on which the film is based, will be present. It is an early harbinger of the seventh Northern Lights Film Festival which, following the premature departure early this year of director Brian Gordon, is now scheduled for March next year. But back to Peter, now based in Brighton after spells in Ireland and London, and that book. reproduction street lights He says: "I was given it by the producer Paul Lister who asked if I fancied taking a look. After reading the first chapter, which describes a guy trying to walk through the wall of his office, I thought: I'd quite like to do this." Ronson's book first came out in 2004 and raised eyebrows all over the world. Emblazoned on the cover is the following taster: "This story is about what happened when a small group of men - highly placed within the United States military, the government and the intelligence services - began believing in very strange things." Ronson, an investigative reporter with a disarmingly vague manner, set out to verify the existence of some very weird-sounding psychological warfare techniques apparently employed by America's elite special forces. One thing led him to another, one retired soldier to another, until he had enough for his extraordinary book, which begins with the words: "This is a true story." Who would have believed it otherwise? The book explains how a Vietnam veteran called Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon implanted some whacky, New Age-inspired ideas into the minds of military top brass. Why not attack the enemy with discordant sounds or psycho-electric guns that could direct positive energy into crowds? Amazingly, it seems his suggestions fell on receptive ears. The title of the book, which Peter Straughan is thrilled has been retained for the film, describes the notion that specially trained soldiers could become killers merely by staring. They trained by eyeballing goats although Peter says one early success involved a hamster which fell over when subjected to a piercing gaze. The intervention of a wife or partner apparently saved the beast from the visual coup de grace. We are told that Channon's notions were put into practice by the so-called "Jedi Unit" in the early 1980s and that some of its methods were used in Iraq, with prisoners subjected to torture involving Fleetwood Mac CDs and the theme tune from a chi Other articles: http://www.shuhuajiaoliu.cn/Blog/View/?541 http://syaa.wxhqqc.com/Blog/View/?422 标签：watches | 浏览(244) | 回复(0) ● 上一篇日志： To ward off diabetes, adjust your diet and swap TV ● 下一篇日志： Titans' Young is the real deal, and then some
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