Sam Mendes

Call it a revival of a revival of a classic musical. Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall will team up again to bring back their popular 1998 Roundabout Theatre Company production of "Cabaret" for an opening next year set for April 24 at Studio 54 in New York. Alan Cumming, who played the Master of Ceremonies in the 1998 production, will return alongside Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles. (The late Natasha Richardson played Bowles in the 1998 version.) The 24-week engagement is scheduled to begin preview performances on March 21. The full cast will be announced at a later date.

Call it a revival of a revival of a classic musical. Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall will team up again to bring back their popular 1998 Roundabout Theatre Company production of "Cabaret" for an opening next year set for April 24 at Studio 54 in New York. Alan Cumming, who played the Master of Ceremonies in the 1998 production, will return alongside Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles. (The late Natasha Richardson played Bowles in the 1998 version.) The 24-week engagement is scheduled to begin preview performances on March 21. The full cast will be announced at a later date.

No, this isn't an April Fool's prank. According to both The Times' Hero Complex blog and the Hollywood Reporter, Sam Mendes, the wonderfully cerebral and cultured filmmaker who once upon a time won an Oscar for directing "American Beauty," is in discussions to make the new James Bond film, which could go into production as early as this June. Daniel Craig would be onboard, reprising his role as Mr. 007. While I'm also happy to see filmmakers practicing their craft, this is a bad decision in oh, so many ways, not to mention a depressing example of how hard it is for filmmakers to find any good studio material to work with.

After months of in-and-out reports on the new James Bond film, “Skyfall” director Sam Mendes is heading back to MI6. Sony Pictures, MGM and longtime Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson made the official announcement Thursday morning, confirming news that had been widely reported as a strong possibility, then widely reported as not happening after Mendes himself said he wouldn't do it, over the previous few months. The movie, unofficially known as Bond 24, is to hit U.S. theaters on Nov. 6, 2015, and British screens two weeks before.

British director Sam Mendes won an unprecedented three Olivier Awards for his productions of "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night," while the new Broadway play "Vincent in Brixton" won best play. Mendes, 37, accepted his history-making honor Friday from New York, where his repertory productions of "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night" are playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Last fall, the two plays closed out Mendes' decade as artistic director of London's Donmar Warehouse theater.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is teaming up with London's Old Vic theater company and Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes to produce two plays a year that will run at both theaters. The three-year venture, known as the Bridge Project, will start in 2008, when Mendes will direct a double bill of "Hamlet" and "The Tempest" featuring a cast of American and British actors. The shows will play in Brooklyn from January to March and in London through May and June.

Actress Kate Winslet and her husband, director Sam Mendes, are the parents of a baby boy. Joe Mendes was born Dec. 22 in New York. He weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces, Winslet's publicist Jennifer Allen said Friday. No other details were released. It is the first child for the couple, who were married in May. "The couple is overjoyed," Allen said. Winslet has a 3-year-old daughter, Mia, from her previous marriage to Jim Threapleton.

Some films begin by lulling audiences gradually into their world. They seduce with imagery, sensation and sound. And then there are those like "Revolutionary Road" -- about a married couple of dreamers stranded in the conformity of the 1950s -- that open with a cold thwack in the face, with a marital spat so annihilating it makes the heart beat faster.

The beauty of "American Beauty"--which debuts Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles and will roll out slowly across the country--is that it fits none of the usual Hollywood molds. It was scripted by a TV comedy writer, directed by a Broadway veteran and produced by a duo who had never before worked together. It's a dark, quirky drama about a suburban family and is far from the kind of high-concept mainstream fare that fits neatly on the comedy, drama or thriller shelf at your local Blockbuster.

Mendes Leaving Theater Where He Met Winslet Sam Mendes put himself on the Hollywood map when he walked off with the Oscar for directing his motion picture debut--1999's "American Beauty." Now he's in the spotlight for something personal: a budding romance with "Titanic" star Kate Winslet. Winslet and Mendes met when she inquired about working at the Donmar Warehouse Theater in London, where he's been artistic director for the last 10 years.

If "Skyfall" is the new 50, James Bond is handling it remarkably well. Five decades after the first cinematic incarnation of 007, novelist Ian Fleming's agent provocateur, the spy-craft in the new film is sharper, the intrigue deeper, the beauties brighter (more brain, less bare). And yet if I'm not mistaken, there are perilous emotional peaks and valleys along with all that bloody cheek. Daniel Craig's Bond is not quite as detached, his martini not quite as dry. Even the villain, a masterfully menacing Javier Bardem, is an emotional wreck whose angst is actually explored.

They gained Oscar glory working together on "American Beauty. " Now actor Kevin Spacey and British director Sam Mendes are teaming up again for a transatlantic stage production of Shakespeare's "Richard III," producers said Thursday. Spacey, 51, will play the title role in the play, which depicts the short reign of the English tyrant. Memorable feature versions starred Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen. It will open in February 2012 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater in New York, followed by a brief international tour before playing at London's Old Vic theater in May. —Reuters Close look at WWII aircraft Bombers and torpedo planes will be the stars of the latest expansion of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, and visitors will be able to get close-up views of the war planes on elevated catwalks.

No, this isn't an April Fool's prank. According to both The Times' Hero Complex blog and the Hollywood Reporter, Sam Mendes, the wonderfully cerebral and cultured filmmaker who once upon a time won an Oscar for directing "American Beauty," is in discussions to make the new James Bond film, which could go into production as early as this June. Daniel Craig would be onboard, reprising his role as Mr. 007. While I'm also happy to see filmmakers practicing their craft, this is a bad decision in oh, so many ways, not to mention a depressing example of how hard it is for filmmakers to find any good studio material to work with.

Sam Mendes compares the experience of making a small film to that of driving a small car. "It's more maneuverable and more fun.

There are those who will see "Revolutionary Road," the long-awaited reteaming of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, as some deeply troubling coda to their famed cine-love in the top-grossing movie of all time, "Titanic." In that film, the duo played two dreamers whose lives are dashed by a gargantuan iceberg. In "Revolutionary Road," they repeat as dreamers, of the 1950s variety, only this time their future is sabotaged by conformity, fear and the acrid taste of self-loathing.

Some films begin by lulling audiences gradually into their world. They seduce with imagery, sensation and sound. And then there are those like "Revolutionary Road" -- about a married couple of dreamers stranded in the conformity of the 1950s -- that open with a cold thwack in the face, with a marital spat so annihilating it makes the heart beat faster.

One of the first things Sam Mendes did after he signed on as director of the movie "American Beauty" in 1998 was ask the screenwriter, Alan Ball, to read his script out loud. An acclaimed stage director, Mendes brought with him to this, his first motion picture, the strategies and techniques of the theater. He's always found it useful to hear the words of a play out of the playwright's own mouth. In this way, he says, he can more fully realize the writer's intent.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is teaming up with London's Old Vic theater company and Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes to produce two plays a year that will run at both theaters. The three-year venture, known as the Bridge Project, will start in 2008, when Mendes will direct a double bill of "Hamlet" and "The Tempest" featuring a cast of American and British actors. The shows will play in Brooklyn from January to March and in London through May and June.