Coffee and Irony

Instead of buying the film rights to Mad About the Boy, Helen Fielding’s just-released final book in the Bridget Jones trilogy, production companies are instead apparently working on Bridget Jones’s Baby, a film based on an original screenplay by Fielding, which will include Colin Firth. Er….wise choice I suppose? RT

Castle head writer Andrew Marlowe and his co-writer wife are working on an hour-long drama for ABC featuring Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe character for ABC. COME TO ME PRECIOUS. RT

The lovely Charity has analyzed every personality type according to a famous fictional character (mostly from sci fi shows, to my great delight). I am Anne of Green Gables (naturally).  Who are you? The Doctor? Sherlock? Caroline Forbes from Vampie Diaries? RT

From USA Today’s Happily Ever After, 3 little-known facts about Jane Eyre:

• Royal lovebirds love Jane Eyre. No, not Kate and Will. We’re talking about Victoria and Albert, of course! The queen read the book to her prince over the course of many evenings, even staying up quite late because it was “most interesting.” She noted in her diary that Jane Eyre was “really a wonderful book … powerfully and admirably written.” Perhaps Victoria identified with the diminutive heroine. By all accounts, Victoria was plain like Jane, while Albert was not only as worldly as Edward Rochester, but also quite the heartthrob.
• Not all of Jane Eyre was fiction. Lowood Institution, that horrible charity school that Jane attended, well, gulp, it really did exist. When The Rev. Patrick Brontë’s wife died, leaving him with five young children, he decided to send his four daughters to the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge. The students at Cowan Bridge were so cold and malnourished that many of them, including Charlotte’s two sisters, became ill and died. But did their headmaster despair? No, he did not! In fact, he rejoiced because he was sending his students “to heaven.” And what exactly did heaven look like to the girls of Cowan Bridge? Since 70 students were forced to share a one-seat outdoor toilet, the Pearly Gates are probably doors to private commodes.
• Jane Eyre‘s Edward continues to inspire. When she wrote Twilight, Stephenie Meyer named Edward Cullen, a vampire, after Edward Rochester, also a slightly creepy hero. Both men are described as depressed and brooding when they arrive on the scene. These tortured heroes frighten the heroines — Bella and Jane, respectively — with their volatility. Both Edwards reject shallow and empty-headed socialites, choosing instead to love two young women who are insecure about their looks.   RT

And finally, two exciting trailers. The first is for Lifetime’s high-budget, suave-looking adaptation of Bonnie & Clyde – can’ t be embedded but watch here. The second is for the upcoming and much-anticipated adaptation of John Banville’s The Sea, which stars Ciaran Hinds, Charlotte Rampling, and others in what looks like a story exactly halfway between broodingly literary and grippingly dramatic.