"Men Who Stare at Goats" has an Ann Arbor angle
George Clooney and Ewan MacGregor in "The Men Who Stare at Goats."
Most coverage of the movie mentions Ann Arbor in passing or not at all. Roger Ebert's review comments that the A2 angle is "a poignant note, because Ann Arbor recently lost its daily newspaper."
It seems like a stretch, but maybe that's what the moviemakers were going for; otherwise, the connection is hard to explain. Although Ann Arbor has hosted filming for several major Hollywood movies in recent years, "Goats" isn't known to be one of them. The screenplay is by Peter Straughan, who also wrote last year's "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" with Megan Fox. According to various sources, he was born and still lives in England.
Anyone have any information, theories or groundless speculation on the local angle?
Comments
darthzero
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 : 6:45 p.m.
My theory is very simple. In the movie, teleportation and "Jedi" are mentioned. We may well remember that Hayden Christensen filmed parts of "Jumper", a movie about characters who can teleport, here in A2. And of course, Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor played the two main Jedi in 2/3 of the Star Wars prequels. So, perhaps one of the writers thought this would be a clever inside joke (having both be from A2) or maybe Ewan himself suggested his character be from A2. Or... Could the Dharma initiative have something to do with it? My apologies to 'non-losties', but fans of the show "LOST" know what I'm talking about. In short, some people on "LOST" dealt with time-travel and yes, teleportation. One of those people, Daniel Faraday, returns to the island from Dharma headquarters which is located in.... Ann Arbor..
Phil Dokas
Sat, May 8, 2010 : 10:21 a.m.
It's hard to say. The Ewan McGregor character is sort of an amalgamation between the book writer Jon Ronson and the investigative reporting done by John Sergeant for Channel 4 in the UK (who very much holds a grudge about not being credited in the movie whatsoever). Sergeant has a Masters of Journalism from UC Berkeley so perhaps they felt the need to substitute one college town for another.
Bob Needham
Sat, Nov 7, 2009 : 5:42 p.m.
TownieMom68, right, my question is *why* they made the character be from Ann Arbor. Tru2Blu76, that sounds reasonable to me...
TownieMom68
Sat, Nov 7, 2009 : 2 p.m.
The character, "Wilton", played by Ewan McGregor is a journalist from Ann Arbor. This is very clear in the Roger Ebert review if you read it.