Two of my current favourite actors, Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Michael Fassbender (Fish Tank, Inglourious Basterds), are in talks to star in a new film version of Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Fukunaga (Sin nombre). British company Ruby Films' Alison Owen and Paul Trijbits are producing with BBC Films and Focus Features from a script by British playwright Moira Buffini.

Ellen Page was previously attached to play Jane, but just recently dropped out.

Simon Baker will co-produce and star in an adaptation of Tim Winton's Breath, which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award this year.

Published in 2008, the novel is set in a small town in Western Australia where two 16-year-old boys take up surfing under the tutelage of an enigmatic surfer named Sando (Baker) and his mysterious wife. Spurred on by their mentor, the boys test the limits of courage and recklessness as they try to escape their mundane lives. (Variety)

Winton, along with the likes of Thomas Keneally and Peter Carey, is one of our (by which I mean, Australia's) best-known writers internationally. Along with countless other high school-goers here, I was forced to read and analyse his novels in English, which pretty much ruined the chances of me picking up one of his books voluntarily until...about now. Jules Smith is spot on with this description:

'His books are boisterous and lyrical by turns, warm-hearted in their depictions of family life but with characters that often have to be in extremis in order to find themselves. They have a wonderful feeling for the strange beauty of Australia; are frequently flavoured with Aussie vernacular expressions, and a good deal of emotional directness. They question macho role models (his books are full of strong women and troubled men) and are prepared to risk their realist credibility with enigmatic, even visionary endings.'

Two other of Winton's books are also currently being adapted: Phillip Noyce (Rabbit Proof Fence) is directing a film version of Dirt Music, which Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz were attached to before the project was delayed; and Cloudstreet is being turned into a miniseries by Screentime.

Writer/producer Gil Grant talks about his ideas for the one-hour police procedural based on Andrew Niccol's futuristic thriller Gattaca. (MTV Movies Blog)

Trailer for Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell. Bad Blake (Bridges) is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can't help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. [imdb]

Stuart Townsend, Ray Stevenson, and Tadanobu Asano will play Warrior's Three in Kenneth Branagh's Thor. The trio are travelling companions of the Norse god Thor, played by Chris Hemworth. (Variety) [imdb]

Cinematographers roundtable with Dion Beebe (Nine, Collateral), Roger Deakins (A Serious Man, No Country for Old Men), Greig Fraser (Bright Star), Stephen Goldblatt (Julie & Julia, Closer), International Cinematographers Guild president Steven Poster (The Box, Donnie Darko) and Eric Steelberg ((500) Days of Summer, Up in the Air).

Like a good little fangirl, I've gotten myself an AO3 beta account (The_Grynne, of course), and have uploaded some of my longer fic to the archive - stuff that I like, stuff that I'm proud of. If I can figure out a way to format Deutero to it, I'll try and post that too eventually.

The first poster for Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

'Bad Blake (Bridges) is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can't help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician.'

This film has been getting some quiet Oscar buzz for a while now, even though there's so trailer out yet. You can watch this behind-the-scenes video of Bridges and Farrell singing on stage. [imdb]

The rather unexpectedly awesome trailer for Kick-Ass, starring Aaron Johnson (who you'll see soon as the young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy), Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Mark Strong. [imdb]

Trailer for the romantic comedy Date Night, starring Steve Carrell and Tina Fey as a bored married couple whose attempt at a glamorous and romantic evening into something more thrilling and dangerous after a case of mistaken identity. Cast also includes Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Leighton Meester, Mark Ruffalo, Ray Liotta, Jimmi Simpson, and Taraji P. Henson. [imdb]

Trailer for another romantic comedy, Leap Year, starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode, and directed by Anand Tucker (Shopgirl). It looks predictable and unoriginal, but hey, Matthew Goode with a Welsh accent! Actually, the more I think about it, the more it resembles French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, which is actually a movie I have a lot of affection for. [imdb]

Promo for season 4 of Skins!!

Esquire interview with Robert Downey Jr., star of Sherlock Holmes.

"I've been homeless for so long," he says, without a morsel of self-pity. "I always had a place, and Susan and I have taken great care of each other, but I haven't had two nickels to rub together for a long, long, long, long time."

He now has nickels galore. The Jetta turns out to be his son's first car — Indio Downey just turned sixteen — and Downey has a Bentley. "My door prize after the two-week total of Iron Man proceeds," he says, sheepishly. "From Marvel. They're nice people."

...from The New World, Into the West, and Pocahontas.



Wouldn't she be simply amazing as Estraven?

As if I'm doubling back on my heritage, eleven years at an Anglican school and a long-held interest in world religions have never made me religious, but undergraduate ethics courses (which made me feel overwhelming as if Western moral theory had become so trapped within its own dichotomies, it couldn't see the stars) might have turned me into a philosophical Taoist. I'm still in the process of discovering what that means, exactly, but the more I learn, the more I gravitate toward it as a comprehensive and holistic worldview about humanity and nature (without gods).

ABC is THIS CLOSE to giving writer/exec producer Josh Friedman (Sarah Connor Chronicles) a pilot order for a TV reboot of Charlie's Angels.

FKAJ^#(=$yj*#&!!!!

(source)

Kiehls stings the skin around my eyes; Zelens, whilst excellent, is just too damned expensive. Can anybody recommend a good, scent-free eye cream for a girl prone to dark circles?

ETA: Bonus if it's a brand I can get in Duty Free. (I'm leaving for Shanghai next Friday.)

Michael Dirda, This Woman Is Dangerous:

There was a time when readers were outraged that Highsmith never judges Tom, indeed quite likes him, even identifies with him as a fellow artist. (She occasionally signed letters or books "Tom/Pat.") Like Oscar Wilde, Highsmith insisted (in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, 1966) that

art essentially has nothing to do with morality, convention or moralizing.... I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial, for neither life nor nature care if justice is ever done or not.

In this regard, Anthony Minghella's 1999 film of The Talented Mr. Ripley not only shows the young Tom as motivated largely by homosexual feelings (rather than envy and cupidity) but also further distorts the character by making sure he's punished and his spirit broken. This isn't the Tom of the novels, who never feels anguish or regret about anything. The best approach to life, Highsmith seems to say, is a kind of blithe nonchalance. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first burden with guilt.

YES!!yesyesyesyes!

MONT BLANC

Rome burns
and our slavery begins

in the alps
ovens of europe

glacier of god
chads opposite

industry was envisioned here in the indomitable glitter
it out proportions the parthenon

the colosseum is not to be compared with it
nor dome nor london bridge bernini bronze nor donatello marble

there is more wealth here than with the bankers of amsterdam
more power than in any boulder dam of heaven

volt crackle and electricity it has invented
buchenwald nagasaki and napalm

it is the frozen first atomic bomb
its factories blaze forth bergs and avalanches

its unships sail down rhine down rhone down po down dan down tiber

to the black sea dead to the world to the red sea of isaias

( Read more... )