Carnage

Starring: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly
Directed by: Roman Polanski (“The Pianist”)
Written by: Roman Polanski (“The Ghost Writer”) and Yasmina Reza (“Chicas”)

With a title like “Carnage,” even if the weapon of choice is words, one might expect to see some type of intellectual bloodbath. In Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski’s (“The Pianist”) new dark comedy, the dialogue may be sharp at times, but the force behind the jabs is nothing a little Band-Aid wouldn’t fix. As overblown as it is, however, those involved would have you believe they were tossed into a pit of meat cleavers.

Based on the play “God of Carnage” written by Yasmina Reza (the Broadway version starring Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden won Best Play at the 2009 Tony Awards), the screenplay — co-written by Polanski and Reza — starts off effortlessly enough before diving into a diatribe of irritating proportions.

Two preteen boys get into a fight at a park in the swankier side of Brooklyn. One of the kids busts the other’s mouth with a big stick (in a less privileged neighborhood it might’ve been a shank or a 9mm). The kids’ parents (Cristoph Waltz and Kate Winslet play Alan and Nancy Cowan; Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly play Penelope and Michael Longstreet) decide the best way to remedy the situation is for both couples to meet in person and talk it out. But when their face-to-face goes from civil to sour, the Longstreets and Cowens flash their claws and berate each other on everything from parenting techniques to animal cruelty.

If you enjoy listening to people air their dirty laundry to the point of sick fascination, “Carnage” might produce enough snarky attitude to allow you overlook phony characters at their worst. Maybe that’s the point. Just because I couldn’t relate to these whiny parents who drink expensive Scotch, have out-of-print Oskar Kokoschka books in their bourgeois apartment, and use words like “conciliating” and “upbraided” in everyday conversation, doesn’t meant there aren’t some out there who will. There’s supposed to be an uncomfortable dark humor behind their snobbery, but as the quarreling continues and goes off on tangents, it gets less and less interesting. Despite the consistent rhythm Polanski is able to pull off in this contrived chamber piece, I kept hoping there might be a gas leak somewhere in the kitchen. Get halfway through the 80-minute “Carnage” and you’ll feel like you’ve earned some quiet time.

Now, I admit, I’ve only seen a handful of public theater versions of the play on YouTube, but I’m convinced this is one of those instances where a film adaptation was an ill-fated idea right from the start. Even the simple mechanics of the production don’t make sense in movie form. On stage there is nowhere to run and hide, but in Polanski’s take there are countless moments when the chaos would come to an end if someone just said good-bye and meant it.

“What the hell are we doing here?”Nancy asks well past the point of no return. A better question would’ve been, “How many times have we walked back into this apartment for more coffee?”

While a lot of the material is grating, the performances (even the miscast and sometimes overly-aggressive Foster) are just as proficient as the 11 Oscar nominations and four wins between the foursome would lead you to believe. The standout is Waltz who plays his father character with a menacing twinkle in his eye. He knows how silly all this is, but he’s still waiting for someone else to get the joke. If “Carnage” gets under your skin, however, the last thing you’ll want to figure out is why a cultural comparison between Ivanhoe and John Wayne is supposed to be clever.

Water for Elephants

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz
Directed by: Francis Lawrence (“Constatine”)
Written by: Richard LaGravenese (“The Bridges of Madison County”)

While it deserves some recognition for creating a visually-pleasing spectacle (credit Oscar-nominated production designer Jack Fisk and Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto), the Depression-era melodrama “Water for Elephants” isn’t the charming phenomenon one might’ve imagined based on the popularity of the 2006 historical novel by Sara Gruen from which it’s adapted.

Instead, the film lacks the romantic luster needed between its leads to match the enchanting, saga-like feel of the time.
Brooding as boyishly as ever, Robert Pattinson (“Eclipse”) plays Jacob, a veterinary student who spontaneously hops the rails and joins a traveling circus after tragedy strikes at home. Working his way up the ranks quickly, Jacob is entrusted with the training of the titular pachyderm. His animal instincts invite conflict when he becomes smitten with the circus’ star performer Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), who’s also the wife of the heartless ringmaster August (Christoph Waltz). Waltz isn’t as cold-blooded as his Nazi character in “Inglourious Basterds,” but he still runs his circus like part of the Third Reich.

In a small but touching Gloria Stuart/”Titanic”-type cameo, veteran actor Hal Holbrook (“Into the Wild”) gives the film its most tender moments as an elderly Jacob reminiscing about his year under the Big Top.

Inglourious Basterds

Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Melanie Laurent
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino (“Kill Bill”)
Written by: Quentin Tarantino (“Kill Bill”)

As Brad Pitt’s character Lt. Aldo Raine retracts his bloody knife after carving a swastika into an enemy’s forehead at the end of “Inglourious Basterds” (misspelling intended), he admires his artistic work and makes a confident statement: “I think this just might be my masterpiece.”

If that’s any indication of what filmmaker Quentin Tarantino thinks about his new highly stylized World War II flick, he’s sorely mistaken. That doesn’t mean, however, that the director of such films as “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill” hasn’t delivered audiences a very entertaining spectacle. Along with Tarantino’s unique directorial approach and take on German history, an undoubtedly remarkable performance by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz makes “Inglourious Basterds” a summer blockbuster must-see.

In the film, Lt. Raine (Pitt) leads a bloodlusting team of Jewish soldiers known as the Basterds through France killing Nazis and collecting their scalps. Tarantino settles on Lt. Raine to be the spokesperson for his “bushwhacking guerilla army” and therefore doesn’t bother much with the stories of the other members of the renegade militia. We do learn a bit about Eli Roth’s character Sgt. Donny Donowitz (AKA the Bear Jew), whose weapon of choice for killing members of the Third Reich is a baseball bat, and the sadistic streak of Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger). Other than that, the rest of the Basterds are lost in the gunfire.

Those who think “Inglourious Basterds” is really all about “killin’ Nazis” will be disappointed. This isn’t a story like “Kill Bill” where the Bride is checking off victims from her hit list one by one. It’s interesting that Tarantino went with the title “Inglourious Basterds” in the first place. One of the many working titles, “Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France,” which is used as a chapter title instead, fits the synopsis much better since the Basterds themselves are only a fraction of the action.

The rest of the film follows Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), a young Jewish movie theater owner who four years prior escaped a massacre involving her entire family. Back to his familiar theme of revenge, Tarantino sets Shosanna on that exact path when she finds out her theater has been chosen to host the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film. With the screening being attended by the most high-ranking Third Reich officers, Shosanna see an opportunity to get her revenge and ultimately end the war in one night.

But with an always-suspicious Col. Hans Landa (Waltz), who is known as “the Jew Hunter,” watching everyone’s every move, pulling off the murders of hundreds of German soldiers might be a bit more difficult than first anticipated. As Landa, Waltz gives us one of the best overall performances of the year; one brimming with tension-building dialogue and just enough humor to keep him from becoming as terrifying as someone like Ralph Fiennes’s Amon Goeth in “Schindler’s List.” Alone, Waltz is worth the price of admission ten times over.

As a writer and director, Tarantino is still one of the most creative voices working today, but he allows “Basterds” to get away from him in a few of his chapters. Another story involving actress Diane Kruger (“Troy”) as Bridget von Hammersmark, a German movie star turned spy, seemed like an unnecessary addition to the plot.

Nevertheless, Tarantino has fashioned some flat-out great scenes with some good ones. It all adds up to a manic faux-history lesson only someone like he could conjure up.