Phillips and Duchovny in Goats.

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.

His mom lives a life of spiritual searching, Hopi Indian seminars, tofu turkey and shaman rituals, financed by her ex-husband’s trust fund—all cover-ups for escapism and misery. His dad is self-absorbed, with a young wife and a new baby. Goat Man, who is really an Irish pothead named Stephen, exposes the kid to drug smuggling. At school, Ellis gets mugged, robbed and kicked in the testicles. The movie shows Ellis inching his way from adolescence into young adulthood with a structure of too many events and nothing happening of any consequence. By the time Duchovny shaves off enough hair to revitalize an entire baldness clinic, you wonder what it’s all about anyway. Ms. Farmiga is the only one who seems to be having any fun, as an aging flower child stuck in an earlier decade and addicted to healing vortex workshops and primal screams. Mellow, but very much a work in progress, Goats has a bland but overcrowded menu that could benefit from a little feta.

rreed@observer.com

GOATS

Running Time 92 minutes

Written by Mark Jude Poirier

Directed by Christopher Neil

Starring Vera Farmiga, David Duchovny and Keri Russell

2/4

The cover of the version that went out to advertisers (and the Observer) appears to have been edited to remove all mention of "mind-blowing" activity, which reportedly happens even when the cover girl is of age.

Below find the Observer's neutered copy and the racy newsstand version.

In the profile (titled "Welcome to Your Cosmo Years, Dakota"), Ms. Fanning tells Slate's Jonah Weiner that it might be cool to meet a guy in a coffee shop someday. There's also a photo of her in high fashion bunny ears, captioned "Two years ago, this would have been cute. Now it's hot."

But what if it's Elle in the bunny ears?

Nolita here we come! (Patrick McMullan)

Word on the street is that Dakota Fanning has shunned dorm life at N.Y.U, preferring something a little more private instead. The actress has taken a two-bedroom place at 225 Lafayette Street, according to the Post.While we don't know the exact details on Ms. Fanning's apartment, another two bedroom place in the building is going for $8,400 a month. Is that more or less than what N.Y.U parents pay for board at Hayden Hall or Palladium? The listing for the similar space shows a mod setup, with a glossy kitchen, whitewashed walls, tons of natural light and Brazilian walnut floors throughout. Citi-Habitats broker Carlotta Sosa said there was a man currently living in the home, but that was all she knew. The building has a giant roof-deck, far from the reach of campus police, and a doorman who won't make you show ID upon entering.

The luxury Beaux Arts building was converted into condos in 2004, and has attracted glamorous residents ever since. Perks? It's far more spacious than anything N.Y.U has to offer, and she won't have to worry about a messy and or psychotic roommate. Downsides? Her famous neighbors include Theodora Richards, a convicted criminal, and John Mayer, a singer who can't sing.

Ms. Fanning is far from first famous person to drop a hefty chunk of change on N.Y.U. real estate. As The Observer recently reported, Kay LeRoy liked the college life so much, she bought up four apartments on West 13th Street.

eknutsen@observer.com

Every ballroom has a backdoor.

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.

They didn’t know that Madonna was around, that Mick Jagger was having a late dinner in a basement lounge, that Lindsay Lohan was bypassing checkpoints set up to prevent her entry.

Since its opening last May, the Dream Downtown has sprouted party spots so fast it’s hard to keep track of them. There is PHD—as in “Penthouse: Dream”—a skyborne glassy atrium with nooks for bottle service and a shrubbery-laden smoker’s deck. And there’s the beach, a sand-and-palm-tree stretch next to the pool. And because it’s not enough to put Malibu in Manhattan, there are two places you won’t find on the otherwise anything-but-inscrutable website: the pint-size, 100-capacity Electric Room and the Gallery at Dream. Mr. Jacobs, who closed this year’s Fashion Week with a Bob Fosse-inspired collection, was hosting the first-ever bash in the gallery space.

If you didn’t have a wristband you couldn’t come in, and a certain former actress couldn’t get one.

“Lindsay rolled in, and we had to tell all the security checkpoints that she’s not allowed into the Marc Jacobs party,” noted an employee working by the front door, as we stood having a cigarette.

“Because of last night?” we asked.

The evening before, Ms. Lohan had thrown a cocktail at a photographer at a party at the Boom Boom Room hosted by V magazine and noisily uprooted her large group—referred to as “The Family,” even if only her mother and brother were related—after a woman nearby stumbled into a table and gashed up her shoulder, bleeding all over the pristine leather couches.

“Yes,” the person at the door said.

Back at the party in the Gallery, Michael Pitt sat with Kim Gordon and Sofia Coppola, and Mr. Jacobs walked around introducing Dakota Fanning, the face of his campaign, to friends. Trays of Champagne whirled around us, and upon finishing one off a girl to our right let out a horrified shriek.

“We made eye contact and I was, I was ... O.M.G.!” the girl said between fluttering breaths.

She had made eye contact with Ms. Lohan, who had somehow slipped into the party undetected, and beelined toward the roped off area in the back.

“Major security scandal,” the person at the door texted The Observer. “Mischa Barton, too. Someone gave her a bracelet.”

It was over soon enough. In came the guards, and a peeved Ms. Lohan stomped out as a rapt crowd lifted iPhones and iPads into the air to grab a picture. Ms. Barton, another starlet not as in demand as she once was, also ducked through the crowd, and then quickly disappeared. Mr. Jacobs, too—he left his own party before nearly all of his guests.

Where did they go? There was word of an after-after-party in one of the hotel’s many, many liquor-stocked appendages. Another gathering would be a valiant attempt to keep the diversion of Fashion Week going just a little longer.

“I was told they got her,” the friend out front texted, when she got word of Ms. Lohan’s exit. “What a mess.”

Soon enough we located the next party. It was in Electric Room, a tiny, subterranean, blue-glowing box with so few couches that everybody is always sitting next to everybody. It had been just over a week since we first stepped into Nur Khan’s brand new Britannia-inspired space, and with five drop-ins since then, it had begun to seem smaller. We made quite a few sightings in that time—Adrien Grenier, Mary-Kate Olsen, Shaun White, Ms. Lohan, Ryan McGinley, the requisite smattering of models, the requisite crew of men who walk the models arm in arm, the others whose visages flash in a strobe light just as they had the night before—and marked them in our note pad, many names popping up again and again, as if the ink had bled through the pages.

A certain name only appeared once. “Clear the tables, clear the tables!” a security guard bellowed suddenly. He was enormous and accompanied by six colleagues, forming a circle. In the center was a wiry man with full lips and a feline gait, a phenomenal power-feline gait. He was small but he walked like a god. He was Mick Jagger, and when he took his seat on a couch, the few dozen men and women in the room were stricken with fear, or awe.

What’s there to say to Mick Jagger? Nothing. To us, his presence alone trumped the entire spectacle that had unfolded all week—the fierce swagger of the runways, the string of late, late nights, the endless celebrity antics, all waved away like a cloud of cigarette smoke by the arrival of the man who, for us, seemed to have invented and destroyed it all long ago.

And he was surrounded by quite the entourage, giving the room almost a salon feel, or maybe a peek at the energy of Mick’s table at Studio 54 a few decades prior. They would have made quite a band, all of them. Directly next to him sat Daphne Guinness and her shock of white hair and shoes like Malaysian skyscrapers. And Courtney Love. And Owen Wilson (bongos?). And Ellen Barkin (tambourine?). And of course Ms. Lohan, who was sitting a bench over from Mr. Jagger—she was in that same seat the night before, when she recognized us as a writer, pointed at our heart and shouted “You!”

We thought to chat with Mr. Jagger, imagined what we might say, but there was to be “no satisfaction.” When Mick and his crew left, we did soon after, heading to the bar at Tom & Jerry’s to meet a friend. The bartender brought over our Budweiser, and pointed to our arm.

“What’s that silly wristband you got on you?” he asked.

nfreeman@observer.com // @nfreeman1234

Time for class, Dakota!

These days, NYU seems to be lacking in its young stars, the co-eds who split their time between homework and Hollywood. Can it really have been seven years since Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were walking around Washington Square Park in trash bags? How time flies.

But now it appears another starlet will get an education downtown. NYU Local reports that Dakota Fanning will be matriculating this Fall.

It's no big shock. The actress was seen touring the university last spring, and word got out that she had been accepted. Of course she was! She's a perfectly bright person who will go far.

It remains to be seen whether current family darling Elle Fanning will join big sis in the big city when it comes time to choose a school. Though who needs school when you're in Marc Jacobs ads that fill glossy magazines? Kids these days.

Today Fashionista broke the news that Momsen has been dropped by her fashion agency, IMG, no doubt in response to what can only be called questionable life choices on her part. The New York Daily News reminds us that the 17-year-old has recently waxed poetic about her love for self-pleasure, bared no bones about her under-aged smoking habit, dressed in outfits that would look scanty in a strip club and, to top things off, flashed the crowd at Don Hill's during a performance with her punk band Pretty Reckless.

Perhaps a less rambunctious young face would be better suited for the IMG brand, no? Nylon is reporting that they've replaced Momsen with budding silver screen star Dakota Fanning. Unlike Momsen, Fanning's child star career is still on the up: she had roles in both The Runaways and the Twilight film this year, while Momsen appears to be "on hiatus" from Gossip Girl. Goodnight, Brooklynite-turned-Upper East Sider! XOXO!

nfreeman at observer.com |@nfreeman1234

Click for Scandal Report: And Then The Model At Diddy's Party Burst Into Flames

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 an alluring fantasy for angsty teens (and grown-up ones) to imagine themselves as strutting, spitting, shit-kicking frontmen; muppety drummers; or thrashing guitar heroes. Let’s face it, the success of Rock Band didn’t just come from nowhere. But as previous biopics and VH-1’s Behind the Music specials have told us time and time again, there’s a familiar arc to these things: young, scrappy upstarts try to make good, find success, get poisoned by success and drugs and interband squabbling, and end up either dead or someplace sad talking about the glory days (or, you know, Axl Rose). One of the many frustrating things about The Runaways—and there are plenty of problems—is just how good the subject matter is that it tackles. First all-girl rock band! Joan Jett! Cherry Bomb! Nineteen seventy-five and all the glittery eye-shadow that goes with it!

The film, directed with a gritty eye by Floria Sigismondi, was surprisingly successful when it came to casting. Kristen Stewart, as Joan Jett, channels all of her weird, fidgety Twilight energy into a compelling, tomboyish figure of a girl/woman who just wants to rock as hard—or harder—as her male counterparts (Ms. Jett also served as an executive producer on the film). And Dakota Fanning, all grown up from her Dr. Seuss days, is believable as jail-bait Cheri Currie—half David Bowie, half Brigit Bardot, picked by Svengali-like producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) for her looks and style before even going through the trouble of finding out whether she could sing. The film is at its best during its dreamy, druggy montages: watching the girls struggle to prove themselves and, because of their teen ages, figure out whether they’re actually badass chicks, or just playing dress-up.

But it’s when the music stops that we run into problems. For starters, there are so many questions left unanswered: While we get a peek into Ms. Currie’s backstory (left-behind sister, flaky mom, drunk dad), just where the hell Joan Jett came from remains a mystery (raised by wolves?), and ditto for her simmering rage (she pees on another band’s guitar. Rock ’n’ roll!). Ms. Fanning, born in 1994 (read: shriek), uses those spooky, old-soul eyes to show world-weariness, but when it comes to delivering dialogue, both she and Ms. Stewart seem to be students of the Robitussin school of acting: monosyllabic clunkers delivered as though half-asleep. Not so with the scene-chewing Mr. Shannon, who seemed to be acting in an entirely different movie altogether. We see Currie and Jett do drugs and make out a few times, but the movie does nothing to explore whatever complications that brought—if any—to their onstage and offstage relationship and only hints ever so briefly at what it did to the band dynamic. And speaking of the band, what about the other three members? Each gets a handful of dialogue (oh, Lita Ford, you always get the shaft!) but don’t even make it into the here’s-what-happened notes at movie’s end. One could argue that the Runaways paved the way for the Madonnas and Lady Gagas of the world—this movie hints at a really fascinating story but just barely scratches at its glittery surface.

svilkomerson@observer.com

Since last year's release, the film and its stars became big ole superstars. The original director, Catherine Hardwicke, was unceremoniously dismissed and Chris Weitz (About a Boy and, uh-oh The Golden Compass) was brought aboard. Poor Mr. Pattinson can't walk the street without people trying to bite him. Every young gal on the L train seems to be dressing like Kristen Stewart--an interesting style icon for these gloomy times. But (and don't come murder me, crazy Twilight fans!) this new film has a hard time living up to the magic of the first. Let's discuss!

I do not place the blame on the cast, writer, or director, but rather the source material. The second book veers into some murky, Dan Brown territory, with stuff about vampire royalty, the Volturi. It's all pretty fun and interesting, actually, and there are mystical werewolves too. Which is really just a lot. (Read: too much.) The film is over two hours long and very complicated but, once you take the story and premise out of the reality of high school and its confines, you end up losing the grounding and what made Twilight so relatable in the first place.

The film's main plot is that Edward breaks up with Bella, sending her down into a fairly realistic rabbit hole of depression, where she basically mopes around, gazes sadly out the window and concentrates on growing her hair longer. This immediately sets up a hurdle, because it separates us from Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson, which isn't good for anyone. But the solution to that dilemma is that every time Bella puts herself into danger, she sees a ghosty Scooby Doo-like apparition of Edward's face. This just did not work. At all. It felt odd and a little silly to see the big Cullen head mist up and say such scintillating lines of dialogue as, "Bella, don't!" and "Turn around!". (Not to get ahead of myself, and certainly not to get all He's-Just-Not-That-Into-You about it, but having the guy who dumps you explain it was because he really really loves you is not helpful for the female psyche.)

The way Bella starts to heal is by spending time with the younger, very cute guy--Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner)--who has a crazy crush on her (this is realistic). And holy cow, this kid got ripped! (The audience actually started laughing when he took off his shirt for the first time because of the ridiculousness of his torso.) And yes, he does turn into a giant wolf at some point, and that is weird--but even more weird is that it's very well done and he and his wolf-pack like to chase vampires. The middle section of the movie is preoccupied by this, and Mr. Weitz has done an excellent job beefing up the action sequences, which is probably why they tapped him in the first place. But then, Bella has to go to Italy to save Edward from killing himself because he thinks she killed herself and if you are remembering now the whole Romeo & Juliet thing at all, well then congratulations on graduating from middle school.

Anyway, here's where we get to what I consider the most fascinating thing of all. Michael Sheen plays the main Volturi, Aro. Michael Sheen! The man (and his manager) is either a genius or in severe credit card debt, because here is an actor who was not only the star of Frost/Nixon and The Queen but showed up in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and then this sucker, too. Good for him! He also seemed to be having an excellent time with his red eyes and special powers, as did little Dakota Fanning, who didn't have nearly as big a part as I thought she would--and I can't figure out why poor Jamie Campbell Bower (Sweeney Todd) only gets to stare rather angrily and deliver one line (ditto for Nikki Reed and the Cullen family--more Cullen family next time around please!). We imagine that poor Robert Pattinson got a lot of direction to "look more tortured"--not that it matters, because it is Robert Pattinson and things are always just a little bit better when he is onscreen.

Phew! So the bad news is that this movie isn't as good as the first, but the good news is that it doesn't matter one little bit. I'm hoping that Michael Sheen is paving the way for more high caliber actors to get on board (a la Harry Potter movies). I want to see more of Peter Facinelli and the Cullens. What is the deal with Jasper? Will Bella's dad ever get a girlfriend? Will there be some epic werewolf v. vampire storyline in the next one? All these and probably more important questions still need to be answered, and I am not ashamed to admit that I will be the first in line for Twilight part three.

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. An act of random violence erupts in a Los Angeles diner, impacting the lives of several innocent survivors and triggering multiple, intercutting story strands, connected by a slim thread of circumstance. There is a big difference. Those films used life-or-death situations to achieve wrenching effects. In Fragments the connecting tissue is so frayed that it wears out fast.

The opening incident is indeed tragic, but the survivors meander fitfully, reaching no heights of human drama. The film succeeds mainly in the fascination of watching an excellent cast search vainly for a moral center. Kate Beckinsale, Guy Pearce, Dakota Fanning, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson and Jeanne Tripplehorn are among the castaways. Each has a powerful moment or two, but their stories don’t add up to much more than small change. A dad treating his daughter Anne (Ms. Fanning) and her friend Jimmy to a snack begs for mercy when the killer aims his gun at their heads. Just before the gunman pumps bullets through the man’s head, Dad weeps and says, “Please.” Anne convinces her grief-stricken mother (Ms. Tripplehorn) that he was brave and noble in the face of death, but the fact that both kids regard him as a coward seems to torture them endlessly. The frustrated surgeon (Mr. Pearce) who can’t save them all, and who feels guilty for opening the door for the killer, sidetracks the film by becoming obsessed with finding a cure for his wife’s migraines. A cancer patient (Mr. Whitaker) with a bullet wound escapes from the reality of what happened by losing himself in a gambling casino for three days. He wants to make enough money to leave his daughter (Ms. Hudson) and her baby with some financial security after he’s gone. The waitress who witnessed the whole thing (Ms. Beckinsale) turns to promiscuity as she goes slowly mad. Submerged in mourning, little Anne loses touch with her environment and becomes a religious fanatic, while her mom embraces her inner rage and Jimmy, who was under the table during the shooting, loses his voice and becomes a mute. Everyone grieves differently, but none of this is comfortably convincing.

The press labels the survivors lucky, but are they? None of the victims will be able to walk back into the daylight whole, healthy or self-contained in their safe little worlds. But sadly, their stories are not very interesting, the writing (by Roy Freirich, who adapted the script from his novel, Winged Creatures) is perfunctory and Rowan Woods’ direction lacks both energy and logic. The pace is too languid to sustain much viewer concentration, and whatever the characters go through seems only peripherally connected to the shooting in the diner. Close, but no cigar.

rreed@observer.com

He's Just Not That Into You

What's the story: We had been quite looking forward to seeing He's Just Not That Into You. That amazing cast! The funny trailer! The Grey's Anatomy–approved music cues! And then we read the reviews. To call them "scathing" would be a compliment. As our esteemed colleague wrote in her brilliant takedown, He's Just Not That Into You "made me not want to be a member of the entire human race." You know, on second thought, maybe we'll just wait for Netflix.

Who should see it: Carrie Bradshaw.

The Pink Panther 2

What's the story: Is Steve Martin actually funny anymore? Because based on his guest-hosting stint this past weekend on Saturday Night Live, we're beginning to think he's really not. Backing that up with The Pink Panther 2 probably isn't going to change our minds. Mr. Martin does his best/worst Peter Sellers impression as Inspector Clouseau, and if that sounds like a good time, then heaven help you. Naturally, this will make a lot of money.

Who should see it: Nicolas Sarkozy.

Coraline

What's the story: The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick is back with a stop-motion–animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's best-selling children's book. But make no mistake, this is one kids' flick that's pretty scary: a young girl enters an alternate world where everything seems better than real life. However, once her new parents try to keep her around forever by making her sew buttons over her eyes, trouble starts. Yikes! Buttons are scary! Coraline features the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher and Ian McShane, who we hope keeps his sailor mouth in check for the sake of the children.

Who should see it: Young girls who shop in Hot Topic.

Push

What's the story: Man, Dakota Fanning is busy. The former precocious child star grows up a bit in Push (her hair has green streaks!), a science-fiction amalgam of Heroes, X-Men, Jumper and Minority Report. Ms. Fanning plays a precognitive on the run from a shady government agency headed by Djimon Hounsou. Chris Evans, the man you cast when you can't get Ryan Reynolds, is along for the ride, too, as her telekinetic guardian. Expect lots of cheesy special effects and plenty of teenage moping.

Who should see it: Hiro Nakamura.

Fanboys

What's the story: With one of their own dying from cancer, a group of friends decide to travel cross-country to break into Skywalker Ranch so they can see The Phantom Menace during the summer of 1998. Nothing says gross-out comedy like a little cancer subplot, right? Fanboys has been on the shelf for such a long time its dust has collected dust. The film finally sees the light of day this weekend, packed with enough Star Wars references and wacky guest stars to make Kevin Smith proud. Put it this way: If you ever wanted to see Ain't It Cool News proprietor Harry Knowles in a movie, here's your chance.

Who should see it: Liz Lemon.