Grant Heslov
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
The Star Wars references not only recall the name given in the 1980s to Reagan's mooted missile-defence program, but also hark back to The Men Who Stare at Goats, a more pointedly satirical docudrama that mocks the fantasy of American military power as benign (both films were produced by Smokehouse Pictures, the company owned by George Clooney with Goats director Grant Heslov).
(As they proved with 2009’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, Clooney and Heslov have a fondness for oddball espionage.)
American Ultra (2015)
Directed by Nima Nourizadeh
influenced by The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
Themes
There are vague references to Project MKUltra — the CIA’s real-life LSD-tainted mind-control program — but they’re barely developed, and besides, “The Men Who Stare at Goats” got there first.
Co-written by Bong and Welsh journalist Jon Ronson, whose books and articles inspired The Men Who Stare At Goats and Frank , Okja never shies away from the more grotesque side of satire, going so far as to spoof the sacred Last Supper of hawkish neoliberalism: Pete Souza’s famous photograph of the White House Situation Room during the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound, with chief Mirando strategist Frank Dawson (Giancarlo Esposito) in the Obama spot, complete with a windbreaker and polo shirt, and CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) covering her mouth à la Hillary Clinton, though only to chew at her cuticles.
The director of The Host, Mother and, most recently, the eye-popping Snowpiercer has teamed up with Brit lit phenom Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats) and improbably topped himself.