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Carnage

(2011)

Little attempt is made to disguise the stage origins of Polanski's latest, but I found that to be part of the pleasure. The number of times that Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz attempt to leave Jodie Foster and John C Reilly's apartment becomes predictably amusing. The premise; the son of Winslet and Waltz hits the son of Foster and Reilly with a stick, busting his teeth. We join the aftermath, as the parents discuss events in an initially civilised manner. But relations quickly deteriorate, as congenial exteriors reveal not particularly likeable individuals underneath.

The casting is the greatest asset here, allowing the film to sail over some fairly predictable circular arguments and plot devices (vomiting, indulgence in alcohol, the fate of a mobile phone). Foster is scarily convincing as an uptight finger-pointing liberal while Waltz walks away with all the best lines as the distracted, blasé attorney.

Winslet and Reilly are good too, the former expelling a hilariously powerful projectile vomit while the latter is at his best when his easy-going exterior drops to reveal some decidedly un-PC views. At only 80 minutes, it knows the best moment to exit the proceedings; something of a rarity.

****

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No matter how innocent you are, or how hard you try, they’ll find you guilty.

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He’s so persistent! He always gets his man.

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How would Horatio Alger have handled this situation?

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But everything is wonderful. We are in Paris.

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To survive a war, you gotta become war.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) (SPOILERS?) I’d like to say it’s mystifying that a film so bereft of merit as Rambo: First Blood Part II could have finished up the second biggest hit of 1985. It wouldn’t be as bad if it was, at minimum, a solid action movie, rather than an interminable bore. But the movie struck a chord somewhere, somehow. As much as the most successful picture of that year, Back to the Future , could be seen to suggest moviegoers do actually have really good taste, Rambo rather sends a message about how extensively regressive themes were embedding themselves in Reaganite, conservative ‘80s cinema (to be fair, this is something one can also read into Back to the Future ), be those ones of ill-conceived nostalgia or simple-minded jingoism, notional superiority and might. The difference between Stallone and Arnie movies starts right here; self-awareness. Audiences may have watched R ambo in the same way they would a Schwarzenegger picture, but I’m

What do they do, sing madrigals?

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One final thing I have to do, and then I’ll be free of the past.

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You were a few blocks away? What’d you see it with, a telescope?

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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