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.

While children fight with sticks, these parents use more impressive weapons. Penelope engages in battle with her rhetorically-elitist mindset. She uses loaded language like “deliberately,” “armed” and “disfigured” to stupefy the opposing parents. Nothing is simple with her. A short remark from her can carry the rhetorical ammunition of a dozen men.

On the other hand, Michael is a laid-back fellow who sells hardware for a living. He’s easy to get along with and very accommodating to the two guests. But he does have an angry side to him, a deviousness in him. When he became annoyed with the family hamster, he left it on the street to die without telling his wife or children.

The Cowans are more agreeable than the Longstreet’s but no less restrained as the story proceeds. Nancy is refined and kind, except when pushed. Alan, on the other hand, is a previously-divorced businessman who has no qualms about calling his own son a “maniac.”

If watching a character study of four people arguing doesn’t appeal to it, I would suggest you avoid this movie. It is, however, an intriguingly verbose film about the battles that we engage in as adults that aren’t so different from the playground fights that children participate in.

“Carnage,” as an experiment in filmmaking, might not have worked in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. Polanski, though, does a fine job with it taking a simple story about the relationship between these four adults and adding complex levels to it. There are times when the plot meanders and several silly occasions when the Cowans almost leave but never actually do. Overall, though, “Carnage” is a thoughtful and intelligent film abut the battles we engage in.

Battles that can do more damage than a simple jab from an “armed” teenage assailant.

The poster shows Gibson holding a gun like the action star he is. The film poster comes complete with a ’90s tag line – “Plan Your Getaway” – and is promoted as being from the producers of two great action pictures (“Apocalypto” and “Braveheart”). If this poster doesn’t get you excited for a cool prison escape shoot ‘em up then nothing will.

Well, actually if it doesn’t get you excited that’s probably because you’re looking forward to the next Michael Moore propaganda piece or Roman Polanski feature.

Anyway, now that us important people are alone, here’s what the film is about: “Gibson plays a career criminal who finds himself locked up in a Mexican prison and learns to survive thanks to the help of a 9 year-old boy.” Say what? That sounds almost as strange as “The Beaver,” Gibson’s last foray into acting.

Maybe that’s what’s so cool about this film project – and about Gibson.

The very strange title choice and weird plot go hand in hand with Gibson’s offbeat talent. I mean, this is the guy who turned “The Passion of the Christ” into a smash with his own money when everyone in Hollywood had denied for years that a Bible-themed film could be a financial success (let alone a film so violent and spoken in a different language). This is also the guy who made “Apocalypto,” a film in the Mayan language about a civilization most knew nothing about with no stars. He simply turned it into one of the best action films of the last decade.

Gibson’s talent as an artist comes from the fact that he’s so offbeat. And as for the recent comments that have gotten him in trouble (and kicked out of “The Hangover: Part II” … what a shame) … you’d have to be a sucker to believe that this guy is a racist or the misogynistic creep the liberal media has made him out to be.

Those allegations are based on comments he made while he was heavily intoxicated and during a private phone call (which clearly there was context to that we did not know and, quite frankly should not know). Yet, a man like Polanski rapes an underage girl and goes on the run for decades and is given a Best Director Academy Award? Explain that one to me.

No? I’ll explain it. Gibson’s persona (which many believe to lean towards the right) and his eclectic films never fit into the Hollywood mold. Polanski’s movies always did. He’s the European liberal filmmaker. That’s like gold to ignorant naïve actors and actresses. Meanwhile, Gibson is the openly religious guy who turned Jesus Christ into a movie star and prefers the violent clash between good and evil for his movies as opposed to films about devil children and people who play pianos.

Hollywood and its ilk can flock to see the new Polanski flick (this year, it’s “Carnage”) as they take a break from sleeping and protesting on public property. I don’t care. You can catch me waiting for the new Gibson action flick. Because to me, he’s still the action star he was 10 to 15 years ago and light years ahead of directors like Polanski.

The self-described King of All Media lashed out via his SiriusXM radio show at the pressure put on director Brett Ratner to abandon his perch as the Oscar telecast producer after Ratner used the word “fags” in public.

Stern, who learned of Ratner’s “fag” slur from The Hollywood Reporter, said he stopped using that word a while ago, but that Ratner wasn’t gay-bashing when he used it, therefore he shouldn’t have lost his job as producer of the 84^th Academy Awards telecast …

Then he laid into Hollywood, calling it “a town where people have to run around closeted for many different things.”

“This is the same industry, by the way, that wants Roman Polanski to be forgiven for raping a 13-year old, that it’s time he be let back in the United States. I would hang him by his balls,” Stern said.

“There’s a lot of confusing morality here,” Stern said. “And I know the industry wants to think of themselves as pristine, but I believe they’ve given two Academy Awards to a woman [Hilary Swank] who just honored the president of Chechnya… this guy is despicable.”

Granted, the industry’s antipathy towards religion as a whole, and Christianity in particular, is pretty much a given. But it appears that within this circle, no religion to them is more anathema than Roman Catholicism.

The latest swipe at the world’s largest Christian population, all 1.1 billion of us (plus another 240 million Eastern Orthodox) comes from, surprise surprise, uber-leftist Susan Sarandon. It is interesting that she should accuse Pope Benedict XVI  of being a “Nazi” at this time because I was trying to figure a way to discuss all the good that Roman Catholics have done through incredible acts of bravery and self-sacrifice over the years.

To call the Pope a Nazi because, like all German youths, he was conscripted into the Hitler Youth during the Fuehrer’s reign of absolute power may provide Ms. Sarandon with a shot of self-righteous hauteur she so desperately craves. It also shows a lack of historical understanding that seems to be a requirement if one wishes to join the coterie of far-left fantasy-performer/activists.

There is no denying the Church was engaged in a monstrous scandal and one over which it should be ashamed and contrite. For the past 50 years the figure of clergy accused of sexual abuse of parishioners is anywhere 1.5 percent to 4 percent of the total members. Today, there are more than 400,000 priests which would indicate that, although those guilty members committed vile, disgusting and inexcusable crimes — and the Church’s attempt at masking the problem was just as criminal in my mind — an overwhelming number of Catholic clergy are truly pious keepers of the faith.

Yet it is the crimes alone that the left sees when they bother to even examine Catholicism at all. Oddly enough, one positive portrayal of a truly noble Catholic in film comes from an unlikely source: accused child molester Roman Polanski. The director’s 2002 film ‘The Pianist’ spotlighted the true-life German soldier whose kindness kept the Jewish main character, Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), alive and in hiding until the Russians arrived in Warsaw. The German officer’s name was Hauptmann Wilhelm Hosenfeld (played with wonderful nuance by German actor Thomas Kretschmann), and he represents to me what Catholicism is all about.

Like the Pope himself, Hosenfeld started off with a Nazi affiliation. While the former Joseph Ratinzinger’s membership was compulsory, Hosenfeld willingly joined the Nazi party as did many Germans in the early 1930s looking for hope and change. A decorated veteran of World War I, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht at age 44 and, rising from the rank of Feldwebel to Hauptmann, would eventually be stationed in occupied Warsaw.

But Hosenfeld soon became disenchanted by, and then viscerally ashamed of, what was being done to the Poles, especially the Polish-Jews, under his nation’s banner. All through his military service he kept a diary of his feelings, thoughts which survived because he would send them home for safe-keeping. Witnessing the horrors of the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and the implementation of the “Final Solution” unfolding before his eyes, he would write such impassioned entries as: “These brutes. With horrible mass murder of the Jews we have lost this war. We have brought an eternal curse on ourselves and will be forever covered with shame. We have no right for compassion or mercy; we all have a share in the guilt. I am ashamed to walk in the city.”

Hosenfeld’s revulsion was rooted in his deep-seeded Catholicism — a religious conviction that prompted him to action, not just words. He befriended numerous Poles and even made an effort to learn their language. He also attended Mass, received Holy Communion, and went to confession in Polish churches, even though this was forbidden. His actions on behalf of Poles began as early as autumn 1939 when he allowed, against regulations, Polish POWs access to their families.

He has been directly credited with saving the lives of numerous refugees, Jews and non-Jews alike. Though he escaped the Nazi wrath, Hosenfeld was taken POW by the Russians. Despite entreaties by both Polish Christians and Jews for his release, the Soviets refused, instead (falsely) believing him to be a war criminal through his unit affiliation and convicting him in 1950 to 25 years imprisonment.  He eventually died in 1952, possibly from injuries suffered during one of his many rounds of torture at the hands of his captors.

Szpilman applied to Yad Vashem in 1998 to have Hosenfeld recognized. Before the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous could award the title, it had to be verified that Hosenfeld had not been involved in war crimes. Yad Vashem reviewed his letters and diaries and also received confirmation from the Polish Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes that his conduct had been untarnished. In 2009, Hosenfeld was officially recognized by the organization as a Righteous Among the Nations (a posthumous honor shared with the likes of Oskar Schindler).

Though not a true martyr in that he did not die for his actions, Hosenfeld is an exemplar of what is good and decent and honorable in the Catholic faith. As another man he saved, Leon Warm, wrote in a 1950 letter to Szpilman entreating him for help in securing their mutual savior’s release, “the villains and perpetrators are free, while a man deserving recognition is suffering.” That is the essence of martyrdom, the kind of which continues to this day.

In Baghdad on a Sunday afternoon, October 31, 2010, a young woman named Raghada al-Wafi ran into her cathedral – Our Lady of Salvation – with wonderful news to share with the priest who had married her: she was going to have a baby. The priest happily bestowed a blessing. It ended up being the last act of their lives. Moments later, the priest, Raghada and her unborn child were slaughtered. They were among the Catholic faithful killed by terrorist gunmen who stormed into the church and accused the Christians of being infidels. Then they began randomly firing on them. Dozens of worshippers sought sanctuary in the church sacristy.

But many more weren’t so lucky.

When the four-hour siege was over, more than 50 Iraqi Catholics had been killed, including two priests. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Christians in years. But certainly not the last. Since then, the 8 million Coptic Christians in Egypt have been routinely persecuted, their clergy murdered, the faithful beaten, churches burned. But apparently Ms. Sarandon feels that, despite the overwhelming good that the Church does throughout the world, often suffering along the way, all she can say about its spiritual head is that he is a “Nazi.” I guess technically then so was Wilm Hosenfeld. But what fun is learning history, when ignorant histrionics will suffice?

Now, devout Catholics like Hosenfeld, al-Wafi , the Coptic Catholics suffering alongside their more numerous Orthodox brothers and sisters and the many others throughout the world may not show as much moral conviction and courage as an actress sniping at the Pope from the plush confines of a Sag Harbor film festival.

Still, I think it’s time for the Hollywood crowd to turn its critical eye towards those who create the martyrs rather than those who bravely offer themselves upon the altar of a religion whose founding principles remain as beautifully powerful and true today as when Christ was born in obscurity two millennia ago: peace on earth and good will towards mankind.

ABC News:

Roman Polanski makes his first public acknowledgement about Samantha Geimer, the 13-year-old model he sexually assaulted in Los Angeles, in a documentary on his life that premiered Tuesday at the Zurich Film Festival.

“She is a double victim: my victim, and a victim of the press,” Polanski says of Geimer in Laurent Bouzereau’s “Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir.” Polanski took to the stage at the Zurich Film Festival Tuesday to accept a lifetime achievement award two years after he was originally intended to receive it, as he was arrested and incarcerated in a Zurich prison at the request of U.S. authorities when he arrived to receive the honor in 2009.

Here’s Samantha Geimer, the woman Polanski raped when she was 13, on GMA today, “He didn’t mean to hurt me.”:

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We should all be relieved Geimer has a sense of closure with respect to the crime Polanski committed against her. But Polanski also committed a crime against society. But because Polanski’s a wealthy celebrity with powerful friends, he’s been able to escape justice for decades now. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter how poorly the system treated him or even that his victim has accepted his apology. In the real world outside of child raping-excusing Hollywood, you do the crime, you go through the system and if the system is unjust in some way, there are other parts of the system to remedy that.

If you fix cars for a living or clean hotel rooms, those are your options. But if you’re one of the Beautiful People, you flee to lavish resorts, continue to work with A-listers, and are greeted like some kind of folk hero from the planet Child Molester.

Want to know what would end the media storm that gives Ms. Geimer (understandably) so much stress and anxiety? If people would stop making movies in defense of Polanski, if Polanski would go into seclusion and stop participating in those movies, and if film festivals would stop honoring Polanski.

Isn’t it amazing how the very same people who attack the media for giving Geimer so much grief are also the ones who constantly feed the media. And by participating in this documentary, isn’t Polanski doing just that?

Better yet, nothing would end the talk about this crime faster than if Polanski would turn himself in and pay his debt to society. Once he did so, once he was no longer a fugitive, we could all move on.

The only people keeping this story alive are Polanski and his defenders. 

A regular profile in courage:

“In 20 years of coming to the Toronto Film Festival, I’ve never released a statement for a film. But I would like to take this moment to formally invite Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to co-host with me the big premiere of Butter in Iowa in a few months from now. I know Michele will already be in Iowa for the caucus, so we can save some money on airfare and travel. I would, of course, be more than happy to fly in the other leading members of the Tea Party movement to make an entire day of it. We could take some math classes in the morning to help balance the budget, brush up on the Constitution in the afternoon, play some ping-pong, and then maybe some verbal ping-pong on gay rights and women’s rights (especially the right to choose). But at night we can all go hand-in-hand to the premiere of Butter, a fun and important film where we’ll share some popcorn and laughs. These are the kind of bipartisan effort that makes America great. I look forward to hearing from Michele, and I’m particularly looking forward to those classes on the Constitution. All my best, Harvey.”

Rep. Bachmann and Tea Party leaders should definitely take him up on on making an entire day of this.

I’m especially interested in that part of the Constitution that says it’’s okay to drug, rape and sodomize a thirteen year-old girl and flee from justice if a guy named Harvey really dug “Chinatown.”

Full story here

The Telegraph:

Kate Winslet praised the “great” Roman Polanski as she promoted the first film he has made since being released from house arrest.

Polanski remains a fugitive from US justice after fleeing the country in 1978, having pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

However, Winslet had no qualms about the director’s history and jumped at the chance to appear in Carnage, a drama which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

“When Roman Polanski invites you to join him in any project you really don’t say no,” she said. “I felt extremely fortunate to be included.”

She admitted to feeling nervous about meeting Polanski on set, but only because she was over-awed by his film-making.

Recalling her first day on set with co-stars Jodie Foster, John C Reilly and Christoph Waltz, Winslet said: “We were working with the great Roman Polanski. We are only human beings and we are still perfectly capable of being terrified, whoever we are.”

The other cast members were equally effusive about the director, who stayed away from the press conference.

“When Roman Polanski calls you, after you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, you say yes,” said Reilly, while Waltz said: “I love Roman Polanski and I really learned to admire him.”

In 1977 Polanski plied 13-year-old Samantha Geimer with champagne and drugs before raping her at the home of his friend, Jack Nicholson.

There’s something so wrong with some people, it defies explanation.

Yet another hypocritical left-wing gazillionaire mouthing off about his desire to pay more in taxes…

Harvey Weinstein was on [Piers Morgan] last night, talking about his support for President Obama and the fund-raiser he held for him at his home last week. Weinstein echoed Warren Buffett’s call for the wealthy in the country to be taxed more — and said that he considers it an investment in the country, not an unfair burden.

We’re here to help you lead by example in two easy steps, Harvey:

1. Immediately stop with any deductions on your quarterly/annual taxes.

2. Go here and put your money where your child rapist-supporting mouth is.

You’re welcome.

The only thing stopping any of these fithy rich Leftists from paying more in taxes is their own selfish hypocrisy. In public they pose, in private they grasp.

None of them want to pay higher taxes. If they did — they would! 

But the reason they call for more taxes and environmental regulations is simple … and mercenary: Those who already hold political and financial power possess enough money and enjoy enough write-offs to weather anything the government might do. They also have enough influence with liberal DC corporatist like President Obama to ensure that’s always the case. The people who can’t survive these added burdens, however, are the up-and-comers — the potential competition. It’s Preston Tucker scenario all over again, where the best way to stay on top is to lobby in favor of the competition-killing taxes and regulations you can handle but entrepreneurs on the rise cannot.

Warren Buffet, General Electric, Harvey Weinstein and the like DON’T see burdensome taxes and regulations as  burdensome taxes and regulations. They see a friendly government as their partners in a ruthless and corrupt game of King of the Hill.

It’s the same with Hollywood’s phony posing over the phony Global Warming “crisis.” As they sit in big air-conditioned mansions, they demand the government tell the rest of us to live like Quakers. Anyone who truly believes the planet is in crisis lives as though the planet is in crisis, not like an Egyptian Pharaoh.

They are The Man and they want to keep the rest of us down in order to remain The Man.

Liars. Hypocrites. Phonies. Posers. Leftists. Period.

–WOODY ALLEN FINALLY LETS DOWN HIS GUARD FOR PBS– 

Heaven help me, I love Woody Allen. And not just his “older, funnier” stuff. I hung in there straight through to 2003’s “Anything Else.” It wasn’t until “Melinda and Melinda” that the 75 year-old filmmaker lost my rabid loyalty. “Match Point,” however, was a major comeback — a brilliant film. “Scoop” was weak but entertaining. “Cassandra’s Dream” gets better with each viewing. Unfortunately, although I haven’t seen his latest and biggest hit “Midnight and Paris,” the three films prior to that weren’t even watchable.

When you go back into the ’70s and ’80s, though, you’re talking about a dozen or so masterpieces and near-masterpieces; movies I watch again and again and again. Allen’s impact on film is forty years-old now and and his extraordinary ability to pull a success out of nowhere just when just about everyone says he’s washed up, has been going on for two decades.  My guess is that his impact will live for as long as he does.  

And so it’s good news that he’s agreed to cooperate for a retrospective documentary honoring his work. Regardless of what you think of Allen personally (and I don’t think much of him), he’s been a major part of the cultural landscape for over forty years now — and something of a mystery. Like many famous artists, Allen can be a loathsome character, but the work stands on its own and will for as long as there’s a civilization.

Now, if someone could just convince Allen to do DVD commentary…

–OUR 10 FAVORITE JOURNALISTS IN POP CULTURE– 

At first I thought someone meant they had actually found 10 REAL journalists who cover popular culture and  deserve the title “great.”

There are a few. But ten?

Unless it’s greatest left-wing suck up, sycophant that ain’t happening.

–MTV TURNS 30–

Living in rural Wisconsin, I wasn’t plugged in when MTV first aired in August of 1981, but I do remember being hypnotized by radio-with-pictures not long after thanks to a friend with access. It was amazing how compulsively watchable the network was, especially since the viewing experience was rarely about the video you were watching at the time. Watching MTV was all about waiting for what would come on next.   

Wonder what MTV is all about now?

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TODAY’S QUICK HITS

“DIE HARD 5″ WILL SEND MCLANE AND SON TO RUSSIA

ASSAULTING A TEXTER IN A MOVIE THEATRE IS PRESENTED AS A BAD THING

SET PHOTOS FROM “DARK KNIGHT RISES”

WHY IS NO ONE EXCITED? TRAILER FOR THE NEXT GEORGE LUCAS FILM.

JERRY LEWIS: “THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY HAS DESTROYED ITSELF”

TRYING TO CARE. FAILING.

SEE HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST STARS AT WORK WITH CHILD RAPIST WHO ESCAPED JUSTICE

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CLASSIC PICK FOR TUESDAY AUGUST 2, 2011

TCM:

10:30 AM EST:  Nothing But the Truth (1941) —  A businessman bets he can tell the truth for 24 hours. Dir: Elliott Nugent Cast:  Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Edward Arnold. BW-90 mins, TV-G.

One of those classic Bob Hope films when Paramount was in the business of finding perfect vehicles to wraps Hope’s many talents around. Blazingly paced, a joke a second (most of them very funny), a terrific concept Jim Carrey’s “Liar Liar” would have much success with, and the drop-dead gorgeous Paulette Goddard.

Not to be missed.

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Please send tips/suggestions/requests to jnolte@breitbart.com

Let’s go back to 2009 when Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland.  The United States asked for Polanski to be extradited to face trial for his 1977 statutory rape case.  Hollywood united and Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson, Pedro Almodovar, (I can go on all day) actually took time out of their busy schedules to prepare a petition demanding Roman Polanski’s freedom.  But for some reason, no one in Hollywood can take five minutes out of their day to support Sarah Palin’s “right to choose” or condemn the abusive allegations and deplorable insults hurled against her 3-year-old boy’s disability.  

While I can understand why so many people want to take down Sarah Palin (actually I can’t understand it, it just seems to be the way people start every negative commentary on Sarah Palin that goes too far) I have no idea why it is acceptable to make fun of disabled babies—or any babies for that matter.  Just last week Wonkette, the award winning left-wing satirical waste-of-internet-space website, posted a smear piece on Sarah Palin that sunk to a new low.  One of Wonkette’s contributor’s, Jack Stuef, directed his vitriol of Palin toward the most innocent of places.  Not only did Stuef insinuate that Todd Palin slept with his daughter Bristol, he took the unique and deplorable approach of making fun of her son with Down syndrome…on his birthday. 

This was a great opportunity for many in Hollywood to prove that they care about something other than themselves.  Instead, they kept quiet. When people suggest that politicians remove any violent words from their political discourse then can we at least ask our comedians, talk show hosts and pundits to stay away from politician’s children—even if they really, really, really don’t like the politician. 

The half-assed apology and eventual withdrawal of the post was not the result of an alliance of celebrities forming a pact to leave politician’s disabled children alone. Instead, a group of plain old Americans asked the advertisers to remove their ads from Wonkettes site.  A lot of this was made possible by the #TrigsCrew on twitter. 

To be fair, maybe Stuef thought it was okay.  After all, he was not the first to stoop so low.  In a promo for HBO’s “Real Time” Bill Maher joked, “While we were off, Sarah Palin agreed to do commentary at Fox News, which is actually very similar to her day job: talking to a baby with Down syndrome.”  How can we forget when the comedian Louis C.K. stated, “when she [Palin] was on stage at the f—ing convention that just came out of her disgusting f—ing c—-… her f—ing retard-making c—…” Maybe if Hollywood started to shun these poor excuses for entertainment, then the “Jack Stuef’s” of the blogosphere would know not to go there. 

But Stuef did go there, and in my book, there is no going back.  Wonkette will prove they were never serious about their apology and let Stuef continue his cowardly attacks.  This isn’t the first time they have used Trig’s disability to mock Sarah Palin.  I’m glad to see that there are people who know that there is a line and it should never be crossed.  Many American’s have standards and values.  I would like to see Hollywood raise their standards and stick up for more than just the pedophiles