"Goat"
 

I saw "Goat" at a film festival premiere recently. It's quite good.

It's mostly about fraternity hazing, but not entirely. Since it's based on actual events, they had to make it as realistic as possible. The fraternity is called Phi Sigma Mu (the "Phi Sigs") and the film is set at a fictional college named Brookman University (or, maybe I just haven't heard of it); it's a small rural college. Not sure at which school the actual events took place.

There's a couple Rush events that takes place and then it goes right into "Hell Week", which they actually depicted well. It's a rough initiation, and much of it isn't what I personally experienced during initation, but that doesn't mean other fraternity chapters haven't done this kind of stuff. The pledges are then pinned by their big brothers, wearing their traditional blazers and khakis.

It's a pretty grim story. The lead actor is really good. Nick Jonas is good, too. I would definitely recommend seeing it. I think it's scheduled for release in September.

It's based off a book by the same name, the book was about the kappa sigma fraternity at Clemson university.

How was the scene with James Franco? Did it fit the story or did it make it to farcical? How much of the fraternity house was shown? Was there a library or archive like room shown off? Maybe some fraternity artifacts?

I still need to read the book.

James Franco is funny in his cameo, but he's not in it long enough to lose himself in the role; so it was essentially James Franco playing James Franco.

Without having read the book, the only parts where the movie felt exaggerated were the hazing scenes. But again, I have no doubt fraternity chapters were - and maybe still are - doing this stuff. I just didn't experience any of it myself. It's very possible the movie documented the events in the book accurately.

There are several exterior shots of the fraternity house and I'm assuming they filmed the interior shots inside of the same house as well. There's a scene of a Rush event - a rage party - inside the house, and there are scenes inside a room (I'm guessing it's the archive room, because the camera slowly zooms in on vintage photos on the wall of past members). There's also a scene in the living room, where three of the brothers discuss how to deal with the chapter being put on probation. And, then a few scenes in a bedroom belonging to the character Nick Jonas plays.

The "Hell Week" scenes are divided between the basement and a shed in the middle of the woods.

I thought most of the guys looked like fraternity men, except for Nick Jonas who did his best to blend in, but he just looked like a jacked Nick Jonas to me. The actor who plays Brad and the actor who plays Chance are both really good.

Does the book focus mainly on what Brad experienced in the fraternity, or does it also go into what happened to him before joining?

The book to me was more about the relationship between the two brothers with fraternity stuff thrown in as the catalyst for their reconciliation between each other. The facts about brad being car jacked really effected him and he got lost in his world, and the idea of joining the fraternity with his brother was merely an attempt to get over that incident, but in the end it didn't.

I liked the book way more than than I think this film deals with it.

I'll definitely have to read the book.

It was filmed in Cincinnati, so I'm wondering if it was filmed at an actual college campus. I've only been to Cincinnati once, so I'm not able to recognize anything.