Newsweek articles from December 2008

Newsweek archives from December 2008

Don't Get Depressed, It's Not 1929.(Daniel Gross; MONEY CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daniel Gross Instead of out-of-work men asking, 'Brother, can you spare a dime?' we have executives asking Congress if it can spare $100 billion. It's difficult to avoid the ubiquitous comparisons between the current sad state...

Now We're Cooking With -- Batteries.(Project Green)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Keith Naughton; With Patrick Crowley and Hilary Shenfeld Electric storage is the weak link in a high-tech world. Fixing it could improve our lives--and the planet. The energizer bunny is nowhere to be found inside the suburban...

Let's Stop the Whining.(Project Green; SATIRE)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Fake Steve Jobs; Fake Steve Jobs is the alter ego of NEWSWEEK's Daniel Lyons. Yes, batteries suck. But the iPhone is still a piece of heaven in your pocket. I can't believe I'm saying this, but for once I actually agree with...

Laughing In the Face of Change.(Turning Point)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Carlos Mencia; Mencia, creator of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," is on an 80-city tour. By trading a secure career for his passion, this comic found himself. Right now, a lot of people are losing their jobs. They're...

Who's Watching the Money?(Business; THE ECONOMY)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Michael Hirsh and Daniel Gross With the economy worsening and the Bush team adrift, queasy markets are looking to Obama to set the course. But is naming a Treasury secretary enough? Barack Obama thought he could have a fairly...

President 2.0.(Business; TECHNOLOGY)(Barack Obama)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daniel Lyons and Daniel Stone; With Barrett Sheridan Obama harnessed the grass-roots power of the Web to get elected. How will he use that power now? Barack Obama is the first major politician who really "gets" the Internet....

Obama's Nuclear Reservations.(Project Green)(Barack Obama)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daren Briscoe Political squabbling over how to store waste could hold back the industry. It was one of Barack Obama's big applause lines. At nearly every campaign stop, the candidate promised to end our dependence on foreign...

Putting Idle Hands to Work.(Project Green)(Van Jones)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... Author and activist Van Jones says the quest for cleaner energy can create big job gains right now. For the Obama administration, aggressively pursuing a new energy strategy will be a top priority. Environmental activist Van Jones, author...

The Greener Way to Pay.(Project Green; WHICH IS WORSE?)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daniel Stone Printing cash consumes energy, but it beats credit. It takes an enormous quantity of energy to print, transport, count and sort the dollar bills in your wallet. The U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving cranks out...

Those Are Fashionable Genes.(Enterprise; BYTES)(genetic-testing and social-networking sites)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Elisa Mala The building block of life, DNA, is getting a life of its own. "Spit parties" have become the latest social-networking craze, like the one recently organized by 23andMe, a genetic-testing company named for the number of...

A New Kind of Ladies' Room.(Enterprise; BYTES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Tiffanie Wen For women travelers looking for a little extra security, business and luxury hotels are putting aside space exclusively for female guests and stocking rooms with girlie goodies. In Singapore, the new Naumi boutique...

Quick Read.(Enterprise; BYTES)('Call Me Ted,' 'Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy,' and 'A Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt')(Book review)
December 1, 2008... Byline: John Sparks Call Me Ted by Ted Turner, with Bill Burke Whether he's excoriating Time Warner's bosses, mocking religious believers or drunkenly and publicly savoring his America's Cup win in the streets of Newport, R.I.,...

You Can Go Home Again.(Enterprise; MY TURN)
December 1, 2008... After 31 years in a corporate job in Manhattan, I'm taking huge risks to open a diner in faraway Maine. If I'm lucky, my family will have a better, simpler life. It hit me one day in 2005 walking up Eighth Avenue on my way to work at...

The Paper Chasers.(Enterprise; STRATEGIES)(Xerox Corp.)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daniel Lyons Isn't it ironic: Xerox is hoping it can profit by teaching companies how to reduce their printing. It's Sophie Vandebroek's favorite magic trick. Vandebroek, the chief technology officer at Xerox, is standing...

Heading for a Wipeout.(Enterprise; RETAIL)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Caitlin McDevitt The airlines' new fees for baggage will hit skiers hard--and ski-equipment retailers aren't happy. Eddy Korbel has spent 14 years in what might seem an especially challenging profession: selling ski equipment...

Let's Talk Touchdowns.(Enterprise)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daniel McGinn In a down economy, a networking guru is hosting Football 101 tutorials. Her theory: being able to discuss sports may spur friendships and help build careers. As soon as the invitation arrived, Joy Cline Phinney...

America Welcomes A New President.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... Readers weigh in on Barack Obama's victory and NEWSWEEK's election coverage. Many of those responding to our cover story were elated by Barack Obama's triumph on Nov. 4. One called the president-elect "the right person at the right time to...

The Editor's Desk.(The Editor's Desk)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Daniel Klaidman Writing in The New York Times, columnist David Brooks lightly mocked the phenomenon as "O-phoria," the wall-to-wall coverage of Barack Obama's election--the insta-books, the quickie documentaries and, yes, the...

TARP and ADD.(George F. Wil; THE LAST WORD)(Troubled Asset Relief Program)
December 1, 2008... Byline: George F. Will Congress has made bureaucrats into legislators; or perhaps it has made Hank Paulson into the fourth branch of government. It is futile, but not pointless, to note that the federal government's blizzard of...

Africa's Other Holocaust.(International; PORTFOLIO)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Rod Nordland Barack Obama spoke often and passionately about Darfur while campaigning. But the African holocaust that will confront him first is the ongoing slaughter in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. More than 5 million...

A Path Out Of the Woods.(Fareed Zakaria; WORLD VIEW)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Fareed Zakaria We need China to see that its interests are aligned with America's. If not, things could get very, very ugly. For weeks the world has eagerly awaited word from the Obama transition team about the people who will...

An Actress Moves On, Or Tries To.(Entertainment; MOVIES)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh You can almost touch the sadness in Michelle Williams's movie 'Wendy and Lucy.' Michelle Williams disappears so deeply into her new movie "Wendy and Lucy," it's like you're watching a documentary. Williams plays...

The Picture of Health.(My Turn)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Kim Lute; Lute lives in Atlanta. Conventionally speaking, I'm unhealthy. But perhaps it's time we redefined the word. On a recent Monday morning, I underwent a routine liver biopsy. I changed into one of those awful hospital...

Just One More Frame!(Politics)(Michelle Obama faces task of raising presidential daughters)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Suzanne Smalley; With Katie Connolly and Sarah Kliff How do you raise kids in the White House and 'keep them normal,' too? The White House may be the most important center of power in the world. But it's also just a home, a...

Show-And-Tell Time.(Barack Obama on Washington D.C.'s educational system)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert He's promised to bring change to Washington, but does Obama's calculus include D.C.'s awful schools? When the time came to find new schools for their two daughters, Michelle and Barack Obama did not...

Letter? I Never Got Any Letter, Herbert.(Jonathan Alter; HISTORY)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Jonathan Alter Before his Inaugural, FDR craftily dodged attempts to saddle him with Hoover's crisis. What Obama can learn. Americans are scared and eager for change. They elect the Democratic presidential candidate by a...

NO HEADLINE.(Malia and Sasha Obama on going to school when they move to the White House)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Weston Kosova "It's the talk of the town -- Where will President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, decide to send 10-year-old daughter Malia and 7-year-old daughter Sasha to school when they move into the White House?"...

Even Sinatra Took Some Cues From Q.(Newsmakers; Q&A)(Quincy Jones on growing up )(Interview)
December 1, 2008... Quincy Jones--musician, producer, Oprah's BFF--has put his life (including his school report cards) into a coffee-table book: "The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey and Passions.'' He spoke to Allison Samuels: You had a rough childhood....

Tears For Spears.(Britney Spears documentary)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Britney Spears is sad. Really sad. So we see in "Britney: For the Record," a new MTV doc that trails the beleaguered star as she tries to reboot her life. She starts her mornings with a bowl of Velveeta cheese and grits--"breakfast of...

Tots And the City.(celebrities naming their babies after New York City areas)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... There might be hazards to raising your kids in New York City, but how about naming them after an outer borough? Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz just welcomed a baby boy--Bronx. At least he got a tough-sounding borough. David Beckham's eldest got...

Perspectives.(Perspectives)(Quotation)
December 1, 2008... "She's ready." A confidant of Hillary Rodham Clinton, after reports that the senator will give up her seat to become secretary of state in the Obama administration "Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money." ...

Obama to Take On Torture?(Barack Obama on coercive interrogation)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Michael Isikoff Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But...

The Flight That Wasn't.(North Korea missile parts transfer to Iran through India blocked)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Mark Hosenball and Christian Caryl Only weeks before dropping North Korea from an official U.S. blacklist of countries that support terrorism, the Bush administration apparently thwarted the transfer of missile parts (possibly...

Katrina Kids: Sickest Ever.(Periscope; HEALTH)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Mary Carmichael Even before the storm, they were some of the country's neediest kids. Now, the children of Katrina who stayed longest in ramshackle government trailer parks in Baton Rouge are "the sickest I have ever seen in the...

Their Begging Bowl Is Made of Gold.(Mike Huckabee, Ashley Dupree, and Alan Mulally)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... A weekly mathematical survey of dubious behavior that measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, just how low you can go. In his new campaign memoir, Mike Huckabee goes overboard taking shots at Republican pinata Mitt Romney. OK, so he spent a lot...

A Plan For Hard Times: Print Cash.(Periscope; MONEY)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Tony Dokoupil People nationwide may start hoarding their cash as recession fears grow. But in Riverwest--a progressive enclave of Milwaukee--residents have another answer to their money trouble: they'll print their own. The...

Cabinet A-Team Edition.(Periscope; CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WATCH)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Clinton at State, Geithner at Treasury, Gates stays at Defense, Holder A.G., Napolitano Homeland Sec., Richardson at Comm. Obama UP-Old: Leakless, disciplined, classy transition. New: Leaky, messy, still classy transition. Hillary...

Hollywood Grab-Bag Edition.(Periscope; A CW LOOK AT STARS)
December 1, 2008... ***** Correction: In the Dec. 1 issue, an item in the Conventional Wisdom Watch reported that actress Winona Ryder had been "rushed to a London hospital after OD'ing on tranquilizers during flight." In an e-mail to NEWSWEEK, Ryder's...

Bong Hits 4 Jesus Dude.(Periscope; CLOSURE)(Joseph Frederick )(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Samantha Henig News stories captivate us for a moment and then vanish. We revisit those stories to bring you the next chapter. Starting Point When the Olympic torch passed through Juneau, Alaska, in 2002, 18-year-old...

She's No Square Peg.(Periscope; WORTH YOUR TIME)(Katey Sagal in Sons of Anarchy)(Movie review)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Joshua Alston The old conventional wisdom held that there were no substantive, red-meat roles for actresses of a certain age. Try telling that to Katey Sagal, 54, one of the many tough, gorgeous and, yes, older women holding the...

Glee. Fury. Malaise. Oscar!(Periscope; MOVIES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Sarah Ball Harvey Milk wouldn't be too proud of California voters right about now--but he might be glad to know that their doings have blessed his biopic with Oscar buzz aplenty. Since the passage of California's Proposition 8,...

Alex Ross.(Periscope; A LIFE IN BOOKS)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... Music critic for The New Yorker since 1996, Ross wrote his first book in 2007. "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His...

Get a Life, Doc, If You Dare.(Periscope; HEALTH MATTERS)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Mary Carmichael Residents are often too busy wiping the noses and taking the temperatures of other people's kids to do the same for their own. There's an e-mail making the rounds with a job description attached. If you apply,...

The Science of Working Together.(Periscope; PAGE TURNER)(Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Jeneen Interlandi Game theory--The mathematical study of human behavior in strategic situations--is normally the purview of CEOs and military leaders, who rely on its insights to vanquish opponents or outdo competitors. But those...

It's Not All Downhill.(Enterprise; TRENDS)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Linda Stern You've seen the commercials: hippie vans, long flowing hair, Woodstock music and rhetoric about "the generation that swore it would never grow old." As members of the postwar cohort head into their 60s and beyond,...

Don't Gamble Away Your Savings.(Enterprise; RECREATION)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Caitlin McDevitt Whether lured by cheap bus rides or $1.99 breakfast deals, seniors account for up to 80 percent of weekday casino business, according to Debra Hilgeman, marketing director of Boomtown Casino in Biloxi, Miss....

How to Find Your Post-50 Job.(Enterprise; EMPLOYMENT)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Linda Stern Retirement is so overrated. Study after study shows that the current generation of 50somethings wants to keep working, and for the majority who are doing work requiring more brain than brawn, it won't hurt. "You're...

Know How to Set Limits.(Enterprise; GRANDPARENTS)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... One of the joys of retiring is spending time with your grandchildren. But these relationships don't always come cheap. Matthew Tuttle, a certified financial planner and author of "Financial Secrets of My Wealthy Grandparents," sees a lot of...

Don't Be Shy About Getting Hearing Help.(Enterprise; HEALTH)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Temma Ehrenfeld Many seniors think hearing aides are appropriate only for the very old: closer to a walker than glasses. But nothing makes a person seem older than zoning out and pretending you can hear when you can't. You may...

Senior Discounts Go Beyond The Multiplex.(Enterprise; THRIFT)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Linda Stern If you can force yourself to admit that you're a senior, you can cash in on discounts on everything from cell phones to ski trips. That doesn't sound so old, right? The oft-ridiculed senior-citizen discount is alive...

A Fine Time to Take to the Seven Seas.(Enterprise; TRAVEL)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Caitlin McDevitt Many retirees want a vacation--not a "staycation"--even if their savings have sunk. These days, a cruise might be their best bet. When fuel costs spiked this year, cruise lines couldn't offer the deep discounts...

When DNA is Not Destiny.(Sharon Begley; ON SCIENCE)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Sharon Begley Experiences can silence genes or activate them. Even shyness is like Silly Putty once life gets hold of it. "Personality must be accepted for what it is," Oscar Wilde counseled. "You mustn't mind that a poet is a...

No Small Task For Eric Holder.(Dahlia Lithwick; THE VERDICT)
December 1, 2008... The new attorney general will face tremendous pressure to go after those who authorized torture. The U.S. Justice Department faces an internal crisis in morale and a public crisis in credibility. And while every Justice Department pushes...

What Michelle Means to Us.(Cover Story; POLITICS)(Michelle Obama )(Cover story)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Allison Samuels ***** Correction: In our Dec. 1 story "What Michelle Means to Us" we said that Michelle Obama would grace the March cover of Vogue. While Vogue has in fact been in discussions with her representatives about...

Mamet Stage Direction.(David Mamet on American Buffalo and Speed-the-Flow)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Jeremy McCarter To speed the play, think poetry, not potty mouths. David Mamet writes plays and movies and TV shows about tough guys. When he came out as a conservative, he did so in the lefty Village Voice, which was a...

When Left is Right.(the Rachel Maddow Show on Barack Obama)
December 1, 2008... Byline: Julia Baird Rachel Maddow always thought she was an outsider. How did she become a star? "Can you believe that sellout, Barack Obama?" says Rachel Maddow, looking around the room. "Let's hit him from the left!" It's 1:30 p.m....

The Price of Loyalty.(Politics; THE BIG IDEA)(political appointments and loyalty)(Editorial)
December 8, 2008... Bush made personal allegiance a threshold test. The result was a surfeit of reliable hacks and outright incompetents. Critics of Hillary Clinton's possible appointment as Secretary of State have focused on the issue of whether she'll be...

No God--And No Abortions.(Periscope; BELIEF WATCH)(pro-life atheists)(Editorial)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Lisa Miller Pro-life atheists insist that a human life has intrinsic value, even though they don't believe in God. Before the election I wrote a piece for NEWSWEEK.com about white evangelicals and abortion. In that piece, I...

Everybody Make Love--And War.(Periscope; THE BIG IDEA)(Sex and War)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Matthew Philips They are primal urges, sex and violence, but they seem like polar opposites. They define almost every species, but humans seem capable of keeping them apart. Or maybe not. In their new book, "Sex and War," research...

Rubin's Detail Deficit.(Business)(Robert Rubin)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Evan Thomas and Michael Hirsh; With Matthew Philips Obama's new team is heavy with Rubinistas, but nobody's perfect--even, it turns out, Rubin. Robert Rubin has always been known for his calm steadiness--perfect, one might say,...

And Then There Was One.(Business)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Keith Naughton; With Caitlin McDevitt and Temma Ehrenfeld Distilling the Big Three into a single player could save Detroit. So this is how it ends for Detroit? After more than a century of putting the world on wheels, the...

Crashes Needn't Be Fatal.(Daniel Lyons; TECHTONIC SHIFTS)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Daniel Lyons Backing up data is a pain in the neck. The only way to make people do it is to automate the process. Mozy does that. Many of us have suffered a data-destroying computer crash. But some stories are better than...

Luxury Shame.(Business; CONSUMERS)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Johnnie L. Roberts Why even the very rich are cutting back on conspicuous consumption. Multimillionaire Michael Hirtenstein used to flaunt his acquisitions of opulent real estate. "I collect homes because I enjoy it," he once...

Guided by a Legendary President.(Letter to the editor)
December 8, 2008... 'Obama's Lincoln': Readers were divided over our early comparison between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. "It's arguable that Obama shares Lincoln's gifts of oratorical eloquence, compassion and political inclusiveness," wrote one. Another...

The Editor's Desk.(Editorial)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Jon Meacham More than a decade ago, when Fareed Zakaria was still managing editor of Foreign Affairs and only an occasional contributor to our pages, he wrote an essay for us arguing that the Clinton administration was in danger of...

This Fire Needs to Be Put Out.(International; TERROR)(Essay)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Fareed Zakaria The horrific attacks in Mumbai should be a call to arms for the region. My first memories of the Taj Mahal hotel are probably of when I was 8 years old, going to the Sea Lounge restaurant with its lovely view of...

Wanted: A New Grand Strategy.(Cover Story: Politics; GLOBAL AGENDA)(Essay)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Fareed Zakaria The next U.S. president faces a unique opportunity to put in place an architecture of peace for the 21st century. Barack Obama's campaign for president began with his opposition to the war in Iraq. But before...

Bloodshed On the Border.(International)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Arian Campo-Flores and Monica Campbell Life in Juarez, where drug violence has created the equivalent of a failed state on our doorstep. Late one night in January, an ambulance escorted by five unmarked squad cars pulled up to...

Don't Count On Magic.(International; THE FUTURE OF ENERGY)(former United States Vice-President Al Gore)(Interview)
December 8, 2008... The world's most prominent environmentalist on carbon taxes, clean coal and the dangers of illusion. Former Vice President Al Gore--now a Nobel Prize winner and the world's most prominent environmentalist--isn't looking for another job in...

The Things We Need to Do Now.(Cover Story: Politics; GLOBAL AGENDA)(Afghanistan Conflict)(Cover story)
December 8, 2008... Five leading foreign-policy experts offer their recommendations on dealing with some of the world's most difficult and pressing challenges. Afghanistan: What's Our Definition of Victory? In Afghanistan today, the United States and its...

Iran: Talk Tough With Tehran.(Cover Story: Politics; GLOBAL AGENDA)(Cover story)
December 8, 2008... Everywhere you look in the Middle East today, Iran is threatening U.S. interests and the political order. One Arab ambassador told me recently that the Iranians are reminding Arab leaders that America didn't help Fuad Siniora, the prime...

Russia: Ease Moscow's Suspicions.(Cover Story: Politics; GLOBAL AGENDA)(Cover story)
December 8, 2008... Russia has reason to feel betrayed by the process of NATO expansion, begun in 1997. Seven years earlier, the Russians believe, American and German officials working on German reunification pledged not to take advantage of Moscow's weakness by...

China: Don't Isolate, Integrate.(Cover Story: Politics; GLOBAL AGENDA)(Cover story)
December 8, 2008... The single most important challenge for the new administration--one with the potential to shape the 21st century--is China. As goes China, so go 1.3 billion men, women and children--one out of every five people on the planet. China's...

Middle East: Know the Limits of U.S. Power.(Cover Story: Politics; GLOBAL AGENDA)(Cover story)
December 8, 2008... The United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East. Despite Barack Obama's promises to withdraw from Iraq, the debacle there shows no sign of ending soon. Hamas rules in Gaza; Iran is quickly moving to acquire a nuclear deterrent. We need...

Nazis and the Movies.(Entertainment; HOLIDAY PREVIEW)
December 8, 2008... Holocaust films have long been a Hollywood staple. Now they're more than black and white. Almost 50 years after "The Diary of Anne Frank," Holocaust dramas are finally coming of age. There are five releases this holiday season, and each...

The Reader.(Entertainment; REVIEW)(Movie review)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Byline: David Ansen Directed by Stephen Daldry. Starring Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Lena Olin and David Kross. Opens Dec. 10. Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader" was a terse, morally complex, erotically charged novel that examined the...

Tender is the Rewrite.(Entertainment; HOLIDAY PREVIEW)(F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button')(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh Why can't anyone make a decent Fitzgerald film? The novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald are classics, but no one says that about their film adaptations. Who remembers the 1962 version of "Tender Is the Night," or...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.(Entertainment; REVIEW)(Movie review)
December 8, 2008... Byline: David Ansen Directed by David Fincher. Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton. Opens Dec. 25. Wistful, melancholic, steeped in a sense of impermanence and looming mortality, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is...

A 'Titanic' Class Reunion.(Entertainment; HOLIDAY PREVIEW)(Kate Winslet)(Interview)
December 8, 2008... Kate, Leo and Kathy Bates, in 'Revolutionary Road.' "Revolutionary Road" doesn't just reunite "Titanic" stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (this time as an unhappy couple). It also brings back Kathy Bates, as their busybody neighbor....

Revolutionary Road.(Entertainment; REVIEW)(Movie review)
December 8, 2008... Byline: David Ansen Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Opens Dec. 26. There are few better portraits of marriage gone wrong than the one depicted in Richard Yates's 1961 novel "Revolutionary Road."...

I Fell for Tricky Dick.(Entertainment; HOLIDAY PREVIEW)(Richard M. Nixon)
December 8, 2008... Why a Brit was inspired to write 'Frost/Nixon.' Of course, nothing is certain. One predicts the future with trepidation, but on Dec. 1 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., I can predict (I'm writing...

Frost/Nixon.(Entertainment; REVIEW)(Movie review)
December 8, 2008... Byline: David Ansen Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Frank Langella and Michael Sheen. Opens Dec. 5. On Broadway, Peter Morgan's "Frost/Nixon" made for a deliciously smart and dramatic mano a mano between the disgraced former...

Milk.(Entertainment; REVIEW)(Movie review)
December 8, 2008... Byline: David Ansen Directed by Gus Van Sant. Starring Sean Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna. Opened Nov. 26. How many politicians could you describe as fun? Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected...

The Nun Vs. The Priest.(Entertainment; HOLIDAY PREVIEW)(Meryl Streep)(Interview)
December 8, 2008... In 'Doubt,' faith is put to a wrenching test of wills. The priest abuse scandals are all too familiar now, but in 1964, when "Doubt" is set, few people dared to speak out. Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysius, a Catholic school principal...