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Movie News: Jane Austen + Aliens (No, Seriously)

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:30:04 -0800

It's called Pride and Predator (no, seriously!)
I'm reminded of the line in He's Just Not That Into You - included in most of the previews on TV and in the trailer - when Jennifer Aniston's character is talking to Ben Affleck's character about marriage and Affleck says, "This. . . feels like a trick." That is precisely my reaction to this movie news: "Will Clark is set to direct Pride and Predator, which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about."

Brought to you by: Elton John
Elton John will supervise the music for the film and will serve as executive producer through his production company Rocket Pictures. His producing partner David Furnish is stoked about the project: "It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect."

Dude flick?
Variety claims that this will be "the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends." Huh. I will be curious to find out if that happens.

Thoughts?

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Jane Austen's Emma: The Hip-Hop Musical

BuzzSugar — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:31:41 -0700

Hey, reimagining Jane Austen's novel Emma so it takes place in SoCal and centers on a valley girl worked for Clueless, so I guess why not make a hip-hop version of the classic work? Set in a contemporary inner-city high school, this tweaked version of Emma will revolve around a stepbrother and stepsister and "will include at least 15 song-and-dance numbers." Variety has more:

Screen Gems topper Clint Culpepper said he came up with the idea for Emma, which will likely be redubbed Emme, after watching the music video "Lip Gloss" by Lil Mama.

"Now it's urban," Culpepper said. "This is the way it should be reimagined in the new millennium."

The inner-city high school setting is one thing - certainly no more far-fetched than Beverley Hills - but the 15 song-and-dance numbers is a whole other thing. I'll be extremely curious to see how this turns out.

To see the Lil Mama music video that inspired it all, click here.

Buzz Gift Guide: The Bibliophile

BuzzSugar — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:37:04 -0800

Today's holiday gift guide is for all the bookworms in your life. The ideal recipient for these gifts loves good writing - and has a great sense of humor.

Always raiding your friends' impressively stocked bookshelves? Get them this Personal Library Kit, complete with date stamper and "for reference only" stickers, and maybe they'll exempt you from any overdue fines.

Author Anna Quindlen's ode to books, How Reading Changed My Life, clocks in at just 96 pages - but it's packed full of tributes to favorite characters and quirky reading lists.

Many of my bibliophile friends are passionate Jane Austen fans, and swooned over the 2005 movie version of Pride and Prejudice just as much as I did. Rather than giving your buddies double copies of all the Austen novels they already own, why not add to their movie collections with one of Austen's most endearing works?

Speaking of Austen, what fan wouldn't want to have a Jane Austen action figure to perch on a nearby shelf? The toy comes complete with a writing desk and a removable quill pen, perfect for inspiring a novelist-to-be.

Lily Allen to Play Lydia Bennet?

BuzzSugar — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:30:00 -0700

Sounds a little unusual, but the UK arm of MTV's Movie Blog is reporting that Lily Allen will make her film debut as Lydia Bennet in a movie spoof of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Further details on the project are scant, beside a few names reportedly joining her in the cast, like Stephen Fry and Carrie Fisher. Comedian Russell Brand will play her husband.

I'm wondering if she'll be some kind of punked-up Lydia Bennet, which would be rad. And I have faith that Allen can handle a film role. After all, she pulled off the role of adorable astronaut in a recent music video.

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Becoming Jane: Read a Book Instead

BuzzSugar — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:00:12 -0700

In Becoming Jane, the filmmakers purport that a possible love affair Jane Austen may or may not have had with roguish Irish lawyer Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) was the fodder for all of Austen's love-fueled novels. Weaving together fact and fiction (along with bits of Austen's well-known works), the movie is at best an adequate romantic drama of star-crossed lovers, presumably presenting the reasoning behind why Austen indulged her characters and gave them "all they desired." At worst, it's watching Anne Hathaway give a surprisingly and disappointingly charmless, humorless performance as one of the world's most beloved authors.

One of several children in a family of modest means, Austen grew up at a time when the wise, diligent thing for young ladies to do was to marry into a wealthy man's family, relieving her own family of the burden of one more mouth to feed. Becoming Jane puts forth the love affair Austen enjoyed with Tom McFroy as her one opportunity to marry for love, though other marriage proposals that don't interest young Jane also come her way. The story is basically about the "for love or money" conundrum, and it is visually interesting - the chilly, milk-white English atmosphere lending a kind of sad beauty to it all. Yet playing the central character, Anne Hathaway falls flat as Jane Austen, commanding little authority and making Austen seem like quite the bland character. To find out more about why, read more

Despite Austen's famed wit, there is nary a sparkle in Hathaway's eye, her performance so dull one wonders if anybody would care about this story in the least if her character's name were not Jane Austen. I found myself desperately wishing someone else had played the role - particularly someone who is actually British or could at least achieve the accent more successfully than Hathaway could, as her accent is irritatingly spotty. Emily Mortimer could have been a welcome replacement, for example.

The best part of the whole thing is James McAvoy playing Tom Lefroy: skinny, one might say twirpish, but with an intensely mesmerizing gaze. Boyish, but fearless, daring, and quite sexy. As the object of Austen's affections, he's challenging and exciting. However, again, the way Hathaway portrays Austen, it's difficult to see what would be attractive about her to Lefroy. I'd hoped the film would have charmed me as much as Austen's writing does, but to my dismay I found myself wishing I'd spent the two hours with one of her novels rather than watching Becoming Jane.

Movie Preview: Becoming Jane

BuzzSugar — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:33:58 -0700

In Becoming Jane, Anne Hathaway plays the great Jane Austen during a time in her life that may have influenced the romances in Austen's novels. It's speculated that Austen had some kind of romantic relationship with Irish lawyer Tom Lefroy (played by the adorable James McAvoy in the movie), though ultimately Lefroy married someone else and Austen remained single for the rest of her life. Becoming Jane brings together fact and fiction to imagine what this romance may have been like, while also making allusions to Austen's work. I'm anxious to find out how Hathaway does playing someone so famous and so beloved, so I'll surely be seeing this when it opens next Friday August 3. To watch the trailer, read more

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10 Books That Are Better as Movies

BuzzSugar — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:30:04 -0700

It's a strange experience when you realize you're enjoying a movie more than you enjoyed the book on which it's based because so often the opposite is true. After all, presumably an author has the advantage because he/she can provide deep insight into characters that actors have to convey with but a glance. Every so often, though, a story makes a lot more sense onscreen. Here I've compiled a list of some stories I'd rather watch than read. What are yours? Just hit "Start" to begin the slideshow.

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