Kim Askew

A white-collar criminal was sentenced by a judge to write a book that would serve as a cautionary tale to others. Compelled authorship, I love it! (Wonder if the book was any good.)

Masterpiece fans are hailing Downton Abbey as the greatest thing since Bleak House (high praise, indeed!) and Amy and I are in complete agreement so far. The miniseries was a huge hit in its native England, but Anglotopia.net sparked a tempest in a teapot when it shared a story by a British tabloid claiming Downton had been dumbed down for American audiences. (The post has since been removed.) PBS countered by saying that only the commercials had been edited out and the typical MP intro added to the beginning of each episode. Apparently there was some concern that U.S. audiences would fail to understand the complex inheritance laws of the British aristocracy, however anyone who's read Jane Austen (probably everyone in the MP audience), George Eliot, et al., would be quite familiar with them.

BBC put out a teaser for their fall/winter season which provides glimpses of a Crimson Petal and the White adaptation starring Romola Garai, Gillian Anderson, and Richard E. Grant. The season will also include adaptations by Sam Mendes of Richard II, Henry IV part I and II, and Henry V and Top Of The Lake, a drama written and directed by Jane Campion.

Anglotopia has all the juicy details on the fall/winter season and casting for Crimson Petal and the White.

Two recent reads that would make great films:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
I fell for this book like a bodice-ripper heroine falls for a haughty cavalier. I can envision several different scenarios for a book-to-film adaptation, one of them being an Ang Lee Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-style martial arts romance. Swoon.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
The collective conscious seems pretty obsessed with work right now, whether it's the lack of it, the search for meaning in it, or the just plain sick of it. (Witness the frenzy over the Jet Blue flight attendant's dramatic exit and the "girl quits job on eraser board" fraud.) Much has happened in the eleven years since Office Space. It's time for another look at cubicle life and Ferris's heartbreaking and hilarious novel could serve as inspiration for an up-and-coming indie director.

Just finished Bruce Wagner's Great Gatsby-esque L.A. novel about children of the rich and famous. The book also stars Chateau Marmont, Shutters, and Chez Jay with appearances by Sharon Stone and Jeff Goldblum, among others. The events are parsed for the reader by narrator Bertie Krohn, the scion of a Hollywood producer who created Starwatch, a popular Star Trek-like T.V. show that boasts a cult following. Bertie is wry, self-aware, and sometimes catty as he unveils the story of a harrowing few weeks spent with his lifelong friend Clea Freemantle and her paramour Thad Michelet. All three are shadowboxing with their emotional inheritance and although the tale is tragic, it has some very funny moments, particularly on the set of the fictional space opera. If I were casting an adaptation of the film, I might consider Jason Schwartzman for the part of Bertie. I'm still pondering who would portray the 54 year-old thespian Thad Michelet, son of a Booker prize-winning novelist with a vicious temperament. Perhaps Clea could be played by Winona Ryder, with Sofia Coppola directing. --Kim

PBS will air Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women on December 28. It would be hard to make a boring film about the woman--After all, she spent time on a commune as a child, was tutored by some very well-known contemporaries, and served as an army nurse during the civil war. That's only the beginning... Can't wait to see this biopic which Elle, Vogue, and The Wall Street Journal have lauded. --Kim