Carnage Trailer: Three Oscar Winners, One Nominee Bicker Like Children

What happens when you let Academy Award winner Roman Polanski confine three Oscar winners (and one lonely nominee) in a single house to film an entire argument-driven black comedy? Carnage, the upcoming feature from the controversial filmmaker which stars, on one side, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz, and on the other side, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly, as two sets of parents who meet to calmly discuss -- and then outright argue -- over their sparring school children.

Carnage is adapted from Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage, which starred Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden in its Broadway production. Here, we get the big screen version -- which, like the play, is set in Brooklyn but was actually filmed in Paris due to the director's inability to travel stateside.

Carnage looks amusing and certainly well-acted enough. As the adults' conversation devolves from calm discussion to childlike, alcohol-lubricated chaos, it looks as though the precise dialogue, deliberate staging and sheer play-like quality of this adaptation may take you out of the film for a moment. But the civilized gathering-turned-boozy brawl formula worked for that other argumentative foursome stage-to-screen adaptation Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -- and that didn't even have Christoph Waltz's snort or John C. Reilly announcing that he is sincerely "thrilled" to hear that his son is in a gang.

Look for Carnage in theaters December 16.

Verdict: Who couldn't use some Academy Award-worthy arguing this holiday season?

[Yahoo!]