MaggieSmith Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For those still unacquainted, Becoming Jane is the upcoming film -- it's already been released in the U.K., where the reviews were middling -- that takes the brief, documented dalliance between novelist Jane Austen and an Irishman named Thomas Lefroy and blows it up into the romance to end all romances. The only thing history really knows about their relationship is that Lefroy is mentioned in a couple of Austen's letters and their two families were known to each other. The best guess is that they had a brief flirtation, which was quickly squashed when no prospect of a real marriage proposal was in the offing. Austen died at age 41, but Lefroy lived until 94, and is said to have confessed to having a "boyish love" for the by-then-famous authoress shortly before he died.

The movie stars Anne Hathaway as Austen -- word is that she had a lot of trouble with the British accent -- and James "I don't want to play Scotty in Star Trek XI" McAvoy as Lefroy. James Cromwell and Maggie Smith also have roles in the film, but apart the casting, I don't know a hell of a lot about it. Here's hoping the film is somewhat restrained in using Austen's life as a jumping off point for a bodice-ripping romance that certainly never happened. After all, we're talking about a family-supervised, above-board acquaintanceship that happened between two society young people in the late 18th century. How much heat could you possible get out of that? Becoming Jane is set for release on August 10. Click on the pic above to see the full-sized image of the new poster.

I normally have a problem with movies about infidelity (there's just too many of them), but I rather enjoyed Separate Lies, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park). Apparently enough people liked the film to allow the writer-director to be hired for yet another magical fantasy franchise. This one is based on a series of books by L. M. Boston called The Green Knowe Chronicles. The first novel, published in 1954, is titled The Children of Green Knowe, though the film has been renamed From Time to Time. The plot follows the adventures of a boy visiting with his strange grandmother during WWII. Somehow the boy ends up traveling backward in time -- but as a sort of ghost -- and visits with older generations of his family, who help him to solve an old mystery.

The film will feature another great crop of British actors, two of whom are no strangers to magical franchises (hint: they appear in the Harry Potter movies). And of those cast, I will take a wild guess and say that Maggie Smith is playing the grandmother. I would love to say that Timothy Spall plays the boy, but I'll go ahead and assume he plays some other character. Rounding out the ensemble so far is Hugh Bonneville and Annie Reid, neither of whom are likely the boy, either. It will be interesting to see how well Fellowes is able to work with children and youth-oriented material, because both Separate Lies and Gosford Park were pretty much films for grown-ups (and no, I don't mean they were "adult films").

While most of Hollywood's big shots are likely up in Toronto for the film festival, producer Brian Grazer is reportedly hanging around NYC for Fashion Week. According to Radar, he was in Bryant Park on Sunday taking in the shows of Diane von Furstenberg and Naeem Khan, and sources say he wasn't there to merely check out the new collections. Grazer may also be doing some research for a new film about Vivienne Westwood, the designer who helped pioneer the punk look in the late '70s with then-husband Malcolm McLaren. At this time we can only speculate as to whether the project will be a biopic or a documentary -- Grazer recently spotlighted '70s decadence with the doc Inside Deep Throat -- or even if it has anything to do with the punk movement at all. But, considering Grazer's own hair could be compared to Sid Vicious', I can only hope that he's curious about how safety pins and torn clothes were given their fashionable beginning.

In the event the film is a dramatic telling of her younger days, I can imagine a few actresses in the role, including Toni Collette, Kim Gordon, and my personal choice, Cara Seymour. Then, Grazer could have Judi Dench or Maggie Smith as the older Westwood. I'd love to see either one of them take on the hair and wardrobe for the part.

[via Hollywood Wiretap]