The use of the word “armed” isn’t often a point of argument in movies today. In fact, jousting over rhetorical choices typically isn’t a point of contention in entertainment at all. It is, however, a major focal point in the new Roman Polanski film, “Carnage,” which takes pleasure in the particulars of language and shows what can be done with an engaging script and four strong actors.

The film stars Oscar winners Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and Jodie Foster and co-stars Oscar nominee John C. Reilly. Aside from a brief scene at its beginning and end, a cameo from the director and a few voices heard over the phone, those four constitute the film’s entire cast.

Its story focuses on two sets of parents who come together to discuss a fight between their sons. Reilly and Foster play Michael and Penelope Longstreet, the parents of the victim in the fight, while Waltz and Winslet play Alan and Nancy Cowan, the assailant’s parents. The concept is simple: these four parents spend the film discussing the incident that left the Longstreet’s son with two teeth knocked out of his mouth and several facial abrasions.

What’s interesting about “Carnage” is how that confrontation becomes so meaningless during the course of this film’s short running time -  eighty-nine minutes. The fight between the boys was simply that: a fight between two boys. It was simple and easy to analyze.

The battle between the four adults about the incident and its aftermath is not so easily understood.

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You didn’t have to watch more than the opening sequence of 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” to know Christoph Waltz had the Best Supporting Actor Oscar all but wrapped up.

The actor’s post-Oscar career remains a head scratcher. Yes, it’s too soon to label his career a letdown, but often the best scripts actors ever see come after they’ve grabbed that gleaming statuette.

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Waltz’s first gig after “Basterds” came via “The Green Hornet,” an awkward superhero comedy from director Michel Gondry. Waltz played the film’s arch villain, an unremarkable baddie with an inferiority complex. Mediocre movie, less than flattering role for someone of Waltz’s abilities.

But “The Green Hornet” was practically “Citizen  Kane” compared to “The Three Musketeers,” the recent mega-bomb casting Waltz as the evil Cardinal with designs on the kingdom. It’s the kind of work an actor grabs when there’s little else around, or they’ve got a serious case of swashbuckle envy.

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If you’re any fan of Alexander Dumas’ novel ‘The Three Musketeers,’ save yourself the aneurism and pass on its latest screen incarnation. (Warning: There will be spoilers)

The new ‘Musketeers’ opens with a prologue where the famous Three – Athos (Matthew Macfayden), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) – are working on mission for the King along with Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich). After a successful plot to steal an ancient Da Vinci plan for a flying battleship – yes, really – Milady drugs the Three and steals the plans for the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom).

Flash forward a year later, and we meet young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman), sent off by his parents to join the king’s Musketeers. Initially at odds with the Musketeers, he quickly is accepted by them as they team up against the Cardinal’s Guards, led by Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen). Meanwhile, Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) is conspiring to seize power from King Louie (Freddie Fox) using Milady to provoke a war with England.

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As soon as you realize that the ringmaster barking out his greatest-show-on-earth spiel under the big-top tent is none other than Christoph Waltz, of all people, you begin to worry. You worry for Robert Pattinson. Waltz, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of the silky SS officer in Inglourious Basterds, is an actor of juicy resources—he operates expertly in an area just this side of hambone—and he commands our attention. Pattinson, on the other hand, despite the stardom he has attained in the Twilight movies, is among the least commanding of performers—in some of the films he’s made outside of the sheltering Twilight umbrella, he fades from memory even as you’re watching him.

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And so, sure enough, in Water for Elephants, a circus picture of which Pattinson is nominally the star, every time Waltz enters a scene, deploying his skittery intelligence and unsettling leer, Pattinson is reduced to the role of unhappy observer at an acting master class.

It’s not a good movie, but it’s not an especially awful one, either. It’s just long and dull. (When was the last time a story about running away with a circus gunned anybody’s engine?) The picture was adapted from a book by Sara Gruen—one of those worldwide bestsellers that nobody you know seems to have read. The filmmakers—director Francis Lawrence, screenwriter Richard LaGravenese, and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (who shot Brokeback Mountain and Biutiful)—have done what they can with the material, but the movie feels like a forced march.

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Super-hero films have been progressively legitimizing since Spider-Man swung into theatres in 2002, paving the way for big-budget Iron Man and Batman films, the classic Watchmen, non-traditional Kick-Ass and soon Captain America and crew. The latest addition to this genre, “The Green Hornet,” is teen comedy meets kung-fu, a decidedly unique twist on masked vigilantes. 

Basically, Britt Reid (Seth Rogan) is the son of a media mogul (Tom Wilkinson) who inherits a fortune and the power of the press when his dad dies suddenly. While reflecting on the legacy of a distant father, and on his own wasted life, he enlists the help of his dad’s mechanic extraordinaire Kato (Jay Chou) to make something of himself and fight crime in Los Angeles. 

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That’s pretty much it. But unlike most masked heroes, Reid’s ridiculous tactics against an essentially un-scary villain (Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz) whiningly obsesses over whether he is in fact feared or not) make his blunders more interesting to watch than his victories. 

Not to say the film is without merit. It’s hilarious. Rogan is at his finest when he’s self-absorbed and drunkenly expounding on his vision for the Green Hornet and the Hornet’s driver, Kato. I laughed often.  Chou is the film’s shining star. He’s funny, a great fighter, and has plenty of sidekick spunk to challenge his boss’s ego. 

Director Michel Gondry brings a flair of frivolity to the film. From a speed make-out session early on between Reid and a random partier to his comic-style freeze-frame action scenes, he turns the film into a comic book.  (more…)

Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has all the trappings of a Tarantino film – from the rich cinematography and soundtrack to the unpredictable action and character development. Tarantino has directed and written another effort that, as usual, is in a class of its own. 

“Basterds,” misspelled the way Brad Pitt’s moonshining Lt. Aldo Raine character carved it into his rifle, takes place in German-occupied France from 1941 to 1944.  Tarantino makes a point of specifying “Nazi-occupied France,” justifying to the film watcher the extreme measures needed to deal with this particular type of human evil.  That National Socialist German Workers’ Party membership never numbered more than about 20 percent of the adult German population is beside the point; the Nazi Party in the guise of Hitler (played by Martin Wuttke) controlled the Wehrmacht from the top.  

“Basterds” follows three characters.  ”Chapter 1″ introduces Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) a young Frenchwoman whose dairy farmer family is wiped out in 1941 by the Germans and Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), who directs the killing.  Landa is a member of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence service of the SS and the Nazi Party, who considers himself a detective asked by his government to find every last Jewish person in France.  In “Chapter 2″ we meet U.S. Army Lt. Aldo Raine. Raine’s crossed arrows insignia on his collar identifies him as a member of the First Special Service Force, a U.S.-Canadian commando force called the Devil’s Brigade.  Lt. Raine leads a small band of soldiers, all of whom happen to be Jewish, on a mission of retribution, mayhem and terror behind enemy lines, the goal: take 100 “Nazi scalps” each.  (more…)

Remember the children’s magazine, Highlights? Its motto is “fun with a purpose.” The motto for Quentin Tarantino’s latest flick, “Inglourious Basterds,” should be “violent with a purpose.”

It’s 1944 in Nazi-occupied France. Joseph Goebbels’ (Sylvester Groth) latest film triumph starring Germany’s latest hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), is set to premiere for the top brass of the Third Reich – including the big cheese himself, Adolf Hitler – and their guests. Funnily enough, the premiere is to be held in a cinema owned by Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish refugee with her own obvious reasons for hating the Nazis. Naturally, she plans her revenge for the fateful night.

Meanwhile the Basterds, a crack group of Jewish-American soldiers under the leadership of Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), is undercover in France and “in the business of killing Nazis, and business is booming.” Those Nazis who manage to escape death are given meaningful souvenirs of their time with the Basterds. The paths of these two groups cross in a way that only Tarantino, master of gory coincidence, could imagine.

A good ol’ boy and Jews brutally mowing down Nazis. What’s not to like? It’s probably one of the few times you’ll see a redneck positively portrayed in Hollywood. (more…)

Take a ruthless Nazi leader who can order the deaths of a Jewish family with the same dispassion with which he requests a glass of milk. Mix his story with that of a Jewish woman who flees the slaughter of her family only to grow up and discover an opportunity to kill Hitler himself. Add in a cocky American Lieutenant named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who leads a secret mission in which each of his men are ordered to scalp 100 Nazi, and you’ve got the combustible mix of lead characters who cross paths with explosive results in Oscar-winning writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, “Inglourious Basterds.” 

Bringing together his usual strengths as a director of intense performances from sterling casts, an amazing score pasted together from classic scores of past films, incredibly sharp and catchy dialogue and a warped time frame that that will throw viewers through a satisfying series of loops, Tarantino has easily made his best film since “Pulp Fiction.” Coming off a humiliating misfire with 2007’s “Death Proof,” which was half of the box-office disaster known as “Grindhouse,” Tarantino has admitted that he felt the need to double down on his strengths and prove that he was just as relevant and inventive as ever.  (more…)