Sam Mendes

Here at the Culture Czar, we've had our eye on Revolutionary Road for some time. Academy Award winner Sam Mendes' adaptation of the depressingly awesome Richard Yates novel, which reunites doomed Titanic lovers Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, seems like it should be a guaranteed home run: high-pedigree Oscar bait that will also be incredibly watchable and wildly sad. We. Can't. Wait.

However, there was some cause for concern over what Mr. Mendes would do with this material. Granted, he's an adept technical director. His films, without exception, are beautiful to look at, thanks in large part to his brilliant cinematographers like the late Conrad L.  read more »

Dear Ms. Tomelleri,

1. The Reagan funeral. It really did one in. 2. A terrible bed-bound episode of epididymitis at the age of 21. 3. The mandatory federal sentencing guidelines, resulting in monthly ring-ups; "This is a call from a federal corrections facility; to accept, press five." 4. An extreme problem of household entropy; things rotting, smelling, no one there to clean them up, etc. 5. Young New Manhattan's blonde thrusty socialites Tinsley and Topper Mortimer. 6. Expense. 7. A radical 19th-century lack of dental insurance and holes in teeth. 8. Kate Moss bravely picking at a salad at the Ritz in Manhattan last Wednesday afternoon, not noticed. 9. The neighborhood's tenements are built on a swamp and everything just leans so horribly; disorienting in the mornings, especially when both one's arms are totally numb and flappy like nightmare rubber wings. 10. Sam Mendes.

Our fondness,  read more »