Ioan spotting....

Happened to see an episode of Fox's animated series, "American Dad," on Sunday night and noticed that Ioan Gruffudd's name came up in the credits. What's our favorite British midshipman, Horatio Hornblower, doing lending his beautiful British voice to a bit (and I mean bit) role on the series? Not sure, but I'd much rather see him in person. If he's got time for this, clearly he should have the time to sign on for a few more installments of the Hornblower series? -- Amy

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Wickham?

Village gossips report that Keira Knightley and Rupert Friend, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Wickham in last year's Pride & Prejudice, have been seen frolicking together sans chaperone. --Kim

Kate and Sam to Take Revolutionary Road

Actress Kate Winslet and her director hubby Sam Mendes (Jarhead, American Beauty) are considering an adaptation of Richard Rates' 1961 novel Revolutionary Road. Here's a description of the "rediscovered" novel from Amazon.com:

April and Frank Wheeler are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Connecticut suburb in the mid-1950s. However, like the characters in John Updike's similarly themed Couples, the self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in their relationships or careers. Frank is mired in a well-paying but boring office job and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her hoped-for acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. As their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their trip and their dreams of self-fulfillment are thrown into jeopardy.

--Kim

Update: Forgot to link to the source.

Life After Bleak House...

We'll have no more Lady Dedlock after this Sunday, but happily, Masterpiece Theater has plenty more to offer this spring. Writer Andrew Davies (who adapted Bleak House) gives us his take on another classic in "He Knew He Was Right," an Anthony Trollope novel best described as a Victorian version of Shakespeare's Othello. It airs March 26 and April 2.

I'm also excited for the MP production, Under the Greenwood Tree, airing on April 23. It's a Thomas Hardy adaptation about a Dorset village schoolteacher who's expected to marry rich, but (whaddayaknow) falls for the penniless bachelor in town. More details to come. If it's even half as good as the Masterpiece Theater version of Far From the Madding Crowd, I'm sold. -- Amy

If You Missed It The First Time...

PBS is re-broadcasting "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (starring Rupert Everett) on Tuesday, March 5. Here's our review from when it aired last October. -- Amy

Papa, Can You Hear Me?

Director Roger Donaldson recently denied circulating reports that Anthony Hopkins would be starring in an Ernest Hemingway biopic. "There were too many problems with the rights and the financing," says Donaldson, who directed Sir Anthony in his latest release, "The World's Fastest Indian." -- Amy

Big Wig....

My heart is palpitating having just seen a trailer for The Libertine starring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Samantha Morton. Heralded as the "most controversial film of the year," it hits theaters on March 10. Has a man in a wig ever looked so hot? -- Amy

Go Star to Direct Alice Munro Story

Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead, Go, The Sweet Hereafter, eXistenZ) is set to direct her first feature film. Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, and Olympia Dukakis will star in Away from Her, based on Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." --Kim

Thank God for Magical Realism

In perhaps the best casting news ever (since we found out last month that Johnny Depp is set to play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights of course), we've just read that sexy Spanish actor Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls, The Sea Inside) will star in the adapation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. As we reported in October, Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Enchanted April) will direct. --Kim

"You Just Put Your Lips Together and... Blow."

Three weeks into filming the steamy WWII romance To Have and Have Not in 1944, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, making her big screen debut at just nineteen, began a passionate affair and later married. Bogey had to get a d-i-v-o-r-c-e from his "mentally unstable" wife first. The then lesser-known William Faulkner was called in to whip the unweildy script into shape. It was adapted from what director Howard Hawks referred to as one of Hemingway's "worst" novels. --Kim

PBS Alert...

I know we're all currently enthralled with PBS on Sunday nights until Bleak House, sadly, reaches its conclusion on Feb. 26. (Go Guppy!) But Anglophiles may also want to tune in on Wednesday, Feb. 15, to watch "Windsor Castle: A Royal Year," a behind-the-scenes look into life with Liz, Chuck, et all. I'm interested to see some of the Upstairs/Downstairs interaction between the royals and their more than 400 servants. (For someone who got up at 5 a.m. to see Charles and Di marry when i was a mere 6-year old, you can bet I'll be tuning in.) I particularly can't wait for the scene in which David Hasselhoff visits the castle. Prince Philip serves as the Jeff Probstian host of the three-episode series. Cool. -- Amy

Up on Brokeback: Adapting a Wyoming Story

The Age has an interesting essay by author Annie Proulx on her involvement in the story-to-film adaptation of Brokeback Mountain, which I saw for the second time yesterday. She provides a look at the adaptations that didn't happen and hones in on some of the details that make Brokeback better than she could've imagined. (via The Morning News) --Kim

The Bronte Brother: Reviewed

A couple weeks ago I mentioned my interest in the new novel Branwell. If nothing else, I know you'll remember the gloriously grim cover pictured at left. Well, I've since read the book and the review is up at KimSaid, if you're so inclined.--Kim

Psych Ward: When Nietzsche Wept

Millinnium Films will adapt psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom's bestselling When Nietzsche Wept. Here's a description of the novel from Amazon: "Freud's mentor, Josef Breuer, attempts to cure Friedrich Nietzsche of suicidal despair in the clinics, cemeteries, and coffeehouses of 19th-century Vienna." --Kim

Western Sizzler

While Pitt won't be playing a gay outlaw just yet (unreliable word is he's trying to find the right role), he will be portraying gunslinger Jesse James in the adaptation of Ron Hansen's novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Zooey Deschanel, and little Brooklynn Proulx costar. And, oh yeah, there's this nude scene "everyone's" talking about.

I've met Ron so perhaps I can wrangle some behind-the-scenes info for you in the near future. He also penned the bestselling and critically-acclaimed National Book Award nominee Atticus and the wonderful Mariette in Ecstasy.--Kim

Isabel Allende Trilogy in the Works

Yes, you read that correctly. Pixiepalace reports that Allende's trilogy of children's books was purchased by the same studio that produced Chronicles of Narnia and the upcoming Charlotte's Web. More info here. --Kim

Holy Hitchcock! Ewan to Star in Thriller Bio-Pic

Hot Scot with a sense of humor Ewan McGregor has signed on to an untitled bio-pic about the early years of Alfred Hitchcock's life as an Eastender. "Little Britain" star Matt Lucas will play the chubby director with the memorable profile. I'm still trying to dig up a copy of Ewan's "The Scarlet and The Black," a BBC adaptation of Stendhal's novel that isn't available on DVD. More on that (and a petition!) here.--Kim

A Good Woman...Gone Bad?

I've seen plenty of lackluster reviews for A Good Woman, an updated version of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, which hits theaters on Friday. Helen Hunt (mistake No. 1 I'd say), Scarlett Johansson and Tom Wilkinson star in this adaptation, which is set in the Italian Riviera. The scenery and costumes look stunning, even if that's all that can be said in its favor. -- Amy