George Clooney may be touting an Oscar nomination for Up in the Air, but as good as that film was, it still wasn't my favorite Clooney performance of the year. Up in the Air was Clooney in vintage suave, charismatic mode, and that's fine. But for my money, Clooney is at his best when he's playing weird, and it's hard to get weirder than the role of Lyn Cassady, a former Special Forces operative cum dance-studio operator who claims to have once killed a goat using only the powers of his mind.

Based on the book of the same name by journalist Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats casts Clooney as Cassady, who strikes up a friendship with Ann Arbor Daily Telegram reporter Bob Wilson (Ewan MacGregor). Wilson's chance investigation of a purported psychic leads him to Cassady and then down the rabbit hole into the history of the New Earth Army, the United States government's 1970s attempt to harness New Age philosophies to create psychic warriors. Wilson follows Cassady to Iraq in search of Cassady's former mentor, a mission that becomes an odd sort of road trip as the reporter learns more about Cassady's "Jedi" training. It's never clear whether Cassady's stories are hokum, bullshit, or the earnest beliefs of a disturbed mind. Goats is far from a great film, but it is a gloriously weird snapshot of a strange little corner of supposedly true American history.

Starz/Anchor Bay Entertainment will release The Men Who Stare at Goats on Blu-ray ($39.98) and DVD ($29.98) March 23rd. Quite frankly, I might pick this one up just for the featurette exploring the real "First Earth Battalion."

The Men Who Stare at Goats Special Features

• Goats Declassified: The Real Men of the First Earth Battalion
• Project “Hollywood”: A Classified Report from the Set
• Audio Commentaries
• Character Bios
• Deleted scenes