Literary Escapades

The next time you hit the road, (be it stateside or abroad), check out literarytraveler.com, which publishes articles about famous writers and the places that inspired them. The site recently began indexing a list of popular literary destinations in the U.S. They also provide info on available literary tours, from Mark Twain's Missippi River Tours to a Parisian tour of "The Lost Generation."

Newsweek also recently had an article about literary field trips with other resources for the roaming reader.

Meanwhile, I still have lofty ambitions to someday channel my inner Tamsen Donner (okay, let's make that Laura Ingalls, to be safe) and take one of these covered wagon vacations.

Finally, The Guardian is sponsoring a giveaway for a trip to London to experience life as Queen Elizabeth I would have known it, including a tour of Hatfield House (her childhood home), the Tower of London and the Globe Theater. Click here fore your chance to win.

The Seagull

Saw the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Chekhov's The Seagull last night starring Ian McKellen and Romola Garai. Spending three-and-a-half hours absorbed in this Russian soap opera had seemed daunting at first, but the performance flew by. It got me thinking that we may be ready for another film adaptation. The last one was in 1968 starring Vanessa Redgrave as the fame-obsessed aspiring thespian, Nina. Modern audiences might not have the patience for such a character-driven story, so it would have to be an arthouse thing, but I think it could be beautifully filmed. Not sure I'd cast Garai though. I do like her, a lot, but I started to find her wide-eyed exuberance and gesturing a little grating last night. Too over-the-top, perhaps. (Though I LOVED Frances Barber, who played the melodramatic actress Arkadina. She did "over-the-top" to absolute perfection.)

My one pet peeve about live theater: Audience members who OVERlaugh. This happens so much in Shakespeare plays, and it happened again last night. As if by laughing loudly, people get to tell those seated around them, "I get it. I'm erudite. Ah-ha-ha-ha!" There is simply no need. Pretentious.

Gosling Has Departed Role, Wahlberg Steps In

Shooting is scheduled to start today on Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones, but there's already controversy! Variety reports that man-of-the-moment Ryan Gosling has suddenly dropped out of his role as the father and Mark Wahlberg has stepped in. Gosling cited creative differences as the reason for his departure. Hmmm. --Kim

Another Scrooge! Ba Humbug!

The Guardian reports that Jim Carrey will star as multiple characters in a special-effects rich adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Personally, I'm a fan of Bill Murray's Scrooged and the 1951 version starring Alistair Sim. --Kim

"Raunchy" Adaptation A Big Hit In U.K.

The 18th century novel Fanny Hill, which contains 39 sex scenes, was banned in the U.S. until 1966 and the U.K. until 1970, but now an audience of 1.1 million is watching the Andrew Davies adaptation on BBC4. Which is kind of funny considering that my mom was just saying the other day that when we lived in Germany in the late '70s one of the most popular television shows there was a situation comedy about a woman who's clothes fell off by the end of every episode. --Kim

Elizabeth....A Quick Weigh-In

I was going to wait to write anything about Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but then I figured we all know she winds up defeating the Spanish Armada...and besides, my comments shouldn't give too much away. Here's what I'm mulling over after seeing the movie:

1) Why didn't Mary Queen of Scots have a French accent? This vexed me for the whole film, because she was French, right? But then I thought, "Who am I to know how she might have actually spoken?" I got some answers in this excerpt from a press conference with the director Shekhar Kapur:

"So Samantha [Morton, who plays Mary] was like a dream to work through it. She was fantastic. She was just fantastic. And sometimes you’re so taken aback by an artist’s own interpretation. The only argument we had is did she have a French accent or did she have a Scottish accent? She was a Scottish queen, but accents are very funny. We assume that everybody at that time spoke Queen’s English. We have no idea, and I can bet everything that that’s not how they spoke. It’s just the genre of filmmaking. And in France, did everybody speak with that kind of French accent that we’ve now come to term as a French accent? I bet you they were from all over France. There must be a hundred accents going on in the Court. So ultimately she was more comfortable… ‘She’s the Queen of Scots, she believes she’s Queen. I want to go with a Scottish accent, go with it.’ That was it.”
See full transcript here.

2) Was it just me, or did the scene where Elizabeth teaches Raleigh how to dance with her lady-in-waiting, Bess, seem strangely too reminiscent of the scene in "Dirty Dancing" where Penny shows Baby how to dance with Johnny? I expected Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes" to start playing. (I was also distracted by, uh, Raleigh's hand placement in those lifts.) Of course, I should add that I did get a little verklempt when they flashed back to scenes from the first movie of young, fresh-faced Cate doing the same dance...that was indeed inspired.

3) I could have done without the scenes of swashbuckling Raleigh on his ship...it took me out of the film and seemed very Disney-esque.

Minor beefs, really, considering I was enthralled with the movie. I got chills in the opening sequence with the stained glass, and it just got better from there with Cate Blanchett's stunningly ridiculous headdresses and badass rants and Samantha Morton's histrionics upon having her secret missives discovered. The final lines mentioned something about there being peace and prosperity in Elizabeth's reign for the next 30 years. I don't care if it was boring and nothing else happens. Bring on another installment.

Bret Easton Ellis's "The Informers"

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Chris Isaak, Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Brandon Routh, Winona Ryder, and Mickey Rourke will star in an adaptation of "The Informers." Publisher's Weekly called the book "a tedious successor to "American Psycho"--but wait, there's a vampire, so color me intrigued. --Kim