King Lear

Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow are reportedly signed on to play Cordelia and Regan, respectively, to Sir Anthony Hopkins's King Lear. No word yet on who's Goneril. Gwyneth-haters are going to have much fodder from this one, I suspect.

source: UPI

Cranford....

Oh Cranford! Three weeks of such good times...sort of like watching the Victorian Golden Girls or Sex in the City for the geriatric set. There was no end of gossip and scandal and romance and hilarity. How much did I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. I love that I will never eat another orange without feeling a wee bit naughty.
2. I love that Masterpiece Theater is not above scatalogical cat poo jokes.
3. I love summer parties with ice cream and row boats and opportunities to monopolize time with sexy doctors by faking maladies.
4. I love the naive but intensely sexy blue eyes of Dr. Harrison, whose porcelain skin I covet.
5. I love watching Judi Dench act like a giddy school girl falling in love. She was so beautiful and sweet and just really lovely to watch as Miss Matty. I half forgot she was also James Bond's boss.
6. A cow in pajamas. Brilliant.
7. I love that men DO make passes at girls who wear glasses.
8. I love that Greg Wise made random appearances throughout. "Hey! There's Willoughby! Older, but no worse for wear."
9. Ditto for Ab Fab's Saffron, a.k.a. Mrs. Horatio Hornblower.
10. I love Lady Ludlow's mansion....the blue-grey lighting brought out her bitchiness to maximum effect. Kelly Wearstler was probably salivating.

I could go on, but 10 seems like a good round number. So we'll leave it there.

Prince Caspian is Dorian Gray

Living in L.A., I daily witness the horrors of people who have decided to opt out of aging. Never was an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray more apt than in in this age of Botox and faces surgically stretched into permanent wind-tunnel mode.

Today comes word that Ben Barnes, now gracing theaters in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian has been cast in the title role of Wilde's dark novel. Shooting begins in late July.

In other adaptation news, The Weinstein boys are going to tackle Paul Coelho's The Alchemist. Dark Horizons has the deets.

Catch A Tiger By The Tail

Today, I was thinking to myself, "Whatever happened to the adaptation of Yann Martel's Life of Pi?" I decided to Google it. In doing so, I've discovered that while the film seems to be on hold, English teachers across the nation are apparently instructing their high school students to create film trailers for the movie version of the novel....there are gobs of these school projects on YouTube, and though the production value is obviously poor, some are actually quite hilariouss to watch.
Exhibit A.

Tommy Lee Gets "Island" Fever

Tommy Lee Jones is going to adapt, direct and star in Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream, with Morgan Freeman and John Goodman possibly on board, too, in this story about a reclusive painter living in the Bahamas. Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers to perform the soundtrack.

Doesn't it still trip you out that Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were college roomies? ?

Natalie Portman Ditches Heathcliff

Natalie Portman had allegedly lobbied hard to play Cathy in an upcoming production of Wuthering Heights, but the actress has pulled out because of scheduling problems. Film School Rejects reminds us that Keira and Sienna were both previously linked to the role now up for grabs. --Kim

Chaplin Descendant "Tells" All

Swiss actress Keira Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, will play William Tell's wife in a feature film about the 14th century Swiss hero, who legend says shot an apple off his son's head to win his freedom from Austrian occupiers. On a side note, the outfit Keira is wearing in this picture confirms that she is indeed related to the little "tramp."

Eye Candy

After suggesting that Richard Armitage be cast as Rochester to Ellen Page's Jane Eyre (see below), I came across this great montage of the British actor. Enjoy.

"Juno" Is Jane Eyre!

"Reader, I forshizz married him..."

Is this what we can look forward to now that Ellen Page has been cast as the heroine of a new BBC adaptation?

Wonder who will play Rochester? Any guesses/wishes?