I've visited the breathtaking Getty Villa in Malibu twice in the past two months. Last week, I took a fascinating "architecture and gardens" tour which described how the Romans would have lived on an estate such as this. (The building is modeled after the Villa de Papyri, the country home of Julius Caesar's father-in-law in Herculaneum, which as we all know, was destroyed in the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.)
The other location decimated in that disaster, — Pompeii — is the subject of Roman Polanksi's latest film, a $130 million dollar epic account of that city's horrific burial under molten lava and volcanic ash. According to
Dark Horizons, set designer Allan Starski visited the real Pompeii archaological site last month, and pre-production is underway. Sounds like it will be engrossing, albeit upsetting to watch, I'm sure. -- Amy
Having already tackled Middlemarch himself in a 1994 BBC minisereies, Romancing the Tome's prolific patron saint Andrew Davies is writing a new screenplay of the George Eliot tome to be directed by Sam Mendes, according to BBC News. No word yet on who will be cast, but Mendes' wife, Kate Winslet will perchance make the cut. Production begins next year. -- Amy
The Guardian reports that Lindsay Lohan has dropped out of a Dylan Thomas biopic, forcing producers to scramble for a replacement. La Lohan was set to play the poet's wife in The Best Time of Our Lives, also starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy. The screenplay was actually written by Knightley's mom, incidentally. -- Amy
I've visited the breathtaking Getty Villa in Malibu twice in the past two months. Last week, I took a fascinating "architecture and gardens" tour which described how the Romans would have lived on an estate such as this. (The building is modeled after the Villa de Papyri, the country home of Julius Caesar's father-in-law in Herculaneum, which as we all know, was destroyed in the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.) 
