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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“We Need to Talk About Kevin” considers the dark question of where monsters come from. The movie is arctic in its emotional tone, with a carefully reined-in pace; and while it nods lightly in the direction of the old nature-versus-nurture debate, it settles firmly on the side of nature, demonstrating that sometimes evil just is.

The monster at issue is a boy named Kevin, the son of Eva Khatchdourian (Tilda Swinton) and her prosperous husband, Franklin (John C. Reilly). Prior to their marriage, Eva was a well-known travel writer, and she turns out to be ill-suited for stay-at-home domesticity. As a baby, Kevin cries and screams without letup, subsiding only when Franklin takes the child into his arms. Eva is exasperated, and when Franklin decides to move the little family out of the city in which they live and into a big house in a bland suburb, her heart sinks.

By the time he’s six, Kevin (played by the precociously unsettling Jasper Newell) has become a figure of brooding hostility, slyly destructive and impervious to his mother’s attempts to bond with him (although he’s sweet and winning with Franklin). Moving into his teens—and now played to scary perfection by Ezra Miller—the boy is revealed as a pure sociopath, a malevolent presence with shifting serpent eyes under a thatch of midnight-black hair. Appalled by her nightmare child, and frustrated by Franklin’s refusal to acknowledge his bent nature (they need to talk about Kevin, but they never really do), Eva crumples into a despondent haze of wine and pills.

Read the full review at Reason.com

Over the course of 53 films in just over a quarter-century, John C. Reilly has established himself as one of Hollywood’s greatest Everyman actors. Whether playing lovable shlubs in films like “Cyrus” and “Magnolia,” portraying wacky characters in “Talladega Nights” and “Stepbrothers,” or showing his musical side in his Oscar-nominated role in Chicago” or his starring turn in “Walk Hard,” Reilly is always ready to please.

In his latest film, “Terri,” Reilly steps into a micro-budget indie flick that has him playing the juicy role of Mr. Fizgerald, a vice principal and guidance counselor who takes a troubled, obese teenage boy named Terri under his wing and helps draw him out of his shell. The film itself is slow in a lot of places and drifts helplessly in its final half-hour, but Reilly makes his moments shine and takes the film to another level.

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Speaking by phone recently, Reilly discussed the appeal of the film for him, as well as the ways in which he manages to have a great career as well as a healthy personal life.

BH: You worked with your wife, producer Alison Dickey, on this film. How was that different than your other collaborations?

JCR: Alison and I worked together before, but not to this degree. It was pretty great working with her, I felt really taken care of, and it’s just simpler rather than having to get to know somebody as things need to be worked out.

I think about 70 percent of it was shot in Altadena, and some in Monrovia and Sierra Madre. I’ve shot a couple times up there, and I like that when you shoot up here, you’re left alone. I’ve shot a lot around Los Angeles and a lot of neighborhoods are burnt out on movies and see you as an annoyance, but people in Altadena are super friendly and curious about what you’re doing. I like the pace of life up here more than in LA in general because there’s less traffic and it’s so beautiful.

BH: This film has a very small budget, so how did it come to you and your wife’s attention?

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Not entirely sure what the point of this is. Maybe you can figure it out.

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Some people just need one good person to believe in them in order to transform their lives. Sometimes that transformation is dramatic, but more often it’s one that just brings a person from loneliness to love, depression to happiness, a static life to one that is active and fulfilling.

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In an age when movies seem to lack the confidence to tell such basic yet profound human stories, when it seems nearly every film is a cartoon or action picture and even worse is in 3D (I’m looking at you, “Cats and Dogs 2,” not “Toy Story 3”), one picture has come along that is a breath of fresh air. Its name is “Cyrus,” and it’s rolling out slowly across the country until it goes everywhere July 16.

Starring John C. Reilly (Oscar nominee for “Chicago,” costar of “Step Brothers”) as a sad-sack loser named John who hasn’t had a date since his divorce seven years ago, “Cyrus” follows his attempt to love again after meeting an offbeat lady named Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. They quickly fall for each other, but each time she sleeps with him, she slips out and leaves him wondering if she’s married. (more…)

 My favorite Super Bowl commercial had to be the “Green Police” ad. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy half naked women, anthropomorphic animals, and flatulence just as much as the next guy; but the “Green Police” ad struck me hard, right in the satire-bone.

It’s what us “deniers” have been warning about for at least twenty years: those who will sacrifice a little Liberty for a cleaner environment will eventually live in a dirty prison. It might defy Leftist logic, but private property is incompatible with environmental laws; Socialist Utopias aren’t known for their sparkling environmental records; and some of the filthiest places in America begin with the word, “public.”

So it is with great delight that I watched a German automaker, poke fun at the environmental fascism that America is embracing without trepidation.  I thought to myself that only German experience could write such an ad.

Unfortunately, my humor was tempered a little, because I could have sworn I had seen it all before. Sure enough, there was a short film, with a remarkably similar premise made by American filmmaker Adam McKay a few years back. Co-starrring in the piece was Will Ferell, in a clip so funny, that you could almost forget “Land of the Lost.” Rounding out the trio is “Stepbrother’s” and “Talladega Nights” co-star John C. Reilly. (more…)

The payoff for sitting through a dozen craptacular releases is that one movie where you actually say, “Damn, that was worth the $11.50 and the kidney I spent to see it.”  As a modern moviegoer, you must be an eternal optimist.  You must hope against hope that the trailer you liked didn’t contain every single good scene and funny joke in the movie, and that the reviewer who raved isn’t covering up some pinko agenda that’ll make you choke out on your Goobers. 

You have to believe that out there somewhere is an action movie director who knows what a tripod is.  That there is a young lead actor who has never starred in a CW television series about beautiful but sensitive teenage male models with supernatural powers.  That there is a comedy screenwriter who can imagine a “funny” situation not involving a bodily fluid.  That Michael Cera will one day play a different character.

In that spirit, a spirit of Pollyannaish hope in the face of overwhelming evidence indicating that Hollywood’s product will almost certainly continue to demonstrate that evolution is a two-way street, I present ten movies that are coming within the next six months that might actually be good – or at least not make me throw things at the screen and slap around the ushers. (more…)