movies

Phillips and Duchovny in Goats.

Bleat and Bland: Goats Is a Drug-Induced Trip with a Whole Lotta Hoopla Yet Such a Disappointing High

Ellis, the precocious 15-year-old product of a broken marriage, played by appealing newcomer Graham Phillips, is the hero of Goats, an offbeat but nonetheless pedestrian ensemble piece directed by Christopher Neil from a screenplay by Mark Jude Poirier based on his own coming-of-age novel of the same title. Ellis lives in Tucson with his bohemian mother Wendy (the excellent Vera Farmiga), her Speedo-wearing bisexual boyfriend Bennet (Justin Kirk), and a bearded, pot-growing, goat-breeding hippie and part-time botanist named Goat Man (a laughably miscast David Duchovny, looking like a Jesus freak on acid) who feeds Ellis with a mind-blowing supply of drugs and roams the cacti with his two pet goats, Lance and Frieda. Then, in a mind-blowing change of culture and climate, Ellis gets shipped off to a New England prep school where he is strong-armed into joining the track team, and falls in love with a dining-hall waitress named Minnie (Dakota Johnson) who services the entire student body sexually for extra income. He is also carted off to Washington, D.C. for a reunion visit with his rich preppie father (Ty Burrell) and his new wife (Keri Russell), both of whom turn out to be nicer than his stoned mother led him to believe. Shuttled back and forth between the Arizona deserts and the East Coast snowfalls, Ellis has an unconventional upbringing, exposed to the foibles of crazy adult influences. It’s not always as interesting as it sounds. Read More

Fashion Week

Peter Oumanski

The Wee Hours: LiLo Crashes Marc Jacobs Bash Before Jagger Struts On In

The hotel guests at Dream Downtown had suitcases, satchels and children piled up next to the check-in counter, waiting interminably for a chance at a room, and as they did swirls of fashionable men and women speed-walked by without a word or a look—they were headed to the last big event of the week, the after-party for Marc Jacobs and his spring and summer collection. The hotel guests ventured an occasional glace at the well-attired cohort with the mysterious wristbands, striding confidently toward the tucked-away area in the back, but mostly they slouched on pieces of luggage and scratched at purple eyes, unknowing of the scene unfolding out of sight. Read More

I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll

THE RUNAWAYS
RUNNING TIME 109 minutes
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED bY
Floria Sigismondi
STARRING  Dakota Fanning,
Kristen Stewart, Michael Shannon

2 Eyeballs out of 4

Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll—it’s fun, isn’t it? As long as there is music to be cranked up on the stereo, so will it always be Read More

Fragments, Indeed

FRAGMENTS
Running time 100 minutes
Written by Roy Freirich
Directed by Rowan Woods
Starring Kate Beckinsale, Guy Pearce, Dakota Fanning, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Jeanne Tripplehorn

Fragments is aptly titled. In style and format, it’s another connect-the-dots movie cut from the same bolt of cinematic fabric as  Crash, 21 Grams, and Babel. Read More