Sam Mendes, American dreamer.
"Away We Go" is hitting the UK, and the London Times' Kate Muir points out the weirdness of director Sam Mendes -- a native of Reading -- setting himself up to be the premiere chronicler of the "American Dream." Muir cites the scolding given the film by New York Times critic A.O. Scott, who castigates Mendes as "a literary tourist from Britain who has missed the point every time he has crossed the ocean": "The vague, secondhand ideas about the blight of the suburbs that sloshed around 'American Beauty' and 'Revolutionary Road' are now complemented by an equally incoherent set of notions about the open road, the pioneer spirit, the idealism of youth." Not everyone would agree; no less an American sage than Bill Clinton loved "American Beauty" ("an amazing film"). But it's true that notions of America as an endless open road stretching out to a Woody Guthrie soundtrack...
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