Let There Be Light...

Like the Victorian dress featured below, not sure this would work with my home decor, and yet I appreciate any artist who can combine medieval weaponry with toile print. This toile mace lamp (which came to my attention through Modish) is a creation of Julianna Holowka, who also happens to make some of the most hilarious greeting cards I have ever seen. Check out her Etsy store here.

From Bess to Bob

Cate Blanchett talks about Elizabeth: The Golden Age in this interview at Dark Horizons. Up next? She takes a turn as Bob Dylan (strange, yet inspired casting) in I'm Not Thereand she has a role in the next Indiana Jones movie. All I know is, she'd best start dusting off horizontal surfaces in her home for her next few Oscars.

Movie Review Monday: The Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club adaptation is no Bridget Jones Diary (it lacks consistent wit and a mischievous Hugh Grant, for starters), but it is a light-n-frothy chick flick with a half dozen or so happy endings and Hugh Dancy in bike shorts. Unlike disappointments such as last year's drippy Kate, Cameron, Jack, and Jude flick, The Holiday (we know we deserve to be punished for even seeing that movie in the first place), JABC is actually sweetly entertaining, if a bit silly and predictable. Emily Blunt's wardrobe is to-die-for and Maria Bello and Amy Brenneman look like real adults you'd want to befriend rather than plasticized, airbrushed actresses. If you examine the film too closely, you're bound to find flaws; but keep your expectations low and your cliche-o-meter on silent and you'll be just fine.

Meet the Lincolns

Liam Neeson will play Honest Abe and Sally Field will play shopaholic First Lady Mary Todd in a film based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of the 16th prez. Spielberg directs.

Kingsley Does Shakespeare...Literally

Ben Kingsley (whom I admire and yet whom I think I might be strangely afraid of were I ever to meet him in real life...flashbacks from Sexy Beast, perhaps), will play William Shakespeare in an adaptation of Christopher Rush's recently released Will, a novel in which the Bard delivers a deathbed confessional of his life to his lawyer.

A Necklace with Victorian Verve

Style Bubble led me to this adorably eccentric Vatements Little Dress necklace--and many more like it--available from Etsy. I couldn't carry it off, but maybe one of our loyal readers can. If so, do send us a pic as proof of your incredible panache!

Over There...

Go to Costco this week and stock up on Kleenex in bulk if you plan to watch Ken Burns' latest masterpiece, "The War," (a 14-hour miniseries that kicks off this Sunday about WWII). From what I'm reading, the film takes us into the trenches and is semi-exruciating to watch — no glamorous nostalgia here. I've been waiting for what seems like eons for Burns to come out with another of his brilliant documentaries, so I'm looking forward to enlisting for the next seven weeks. I'll be saving all my aluminum foil and planting a victory garden in honor of the occasion. (Or at least remembering the troops who are still sacrificing for us in Iraq.)