Winter is Coming: Round 2

Very warm and breezy, but the weather guys are more sure than ever that we're going to get ice and sleet and frozen rain by ... tomorrow night. Or Friday morning. That's the only part they're not sure about.

Watched a terrific movie last night, and by terrific I mean one of the saddest films ever. But also terrific! It was Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, with Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet as a desperately unhappy married couple in 1955 American suburbia, with a supporting cast that is just amazingly good -- especially Michael Shannon as a neighbor's son, formerly a brilliant mathematician, now suffering the after-effects of 1950s-era mental treatments (I don't know how much of Shannon's character is a nod to A Beautiful Mind and how much is from the Richard Yates book that Road is based on).

The dialogue was terribly stagey at times, but overall it was a pretty powerful film. It reminded me of the Julianne Moore storyline from The Hours, a movie I really love and which should tell you something about the level of sadness in this film. I would give Revolutionary Road four stars (out of five, because staginess), but potential viewers should be aware going in that this is not a nice film at all -- that the themes are strongly adult and could be disturbing on multiple levels. But I think it is definitely worth seeing. And if you don't like di Caprio or Winslet, see it for the supporting cast, because they ALL knock their roles out of the park. :D