Here in the dawn of the New Year, I'm still nursing my holiday hangover, so I'm going to finish up with my three-part Overlooked and Underrated series of columns, starting with Julian Jarrold's Becoming Jane, a fictitious biographical romance about Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway). It garnered unfavorable comparisons to Shakespeare in Love (1998), a film as dreadfully over-hyped as its cousin was under-hyped. (The hype meter must be perfectly balanced now.) James McAvoy -- currently receiving showers of awards attention for his involvement in Atonement (306 screens) -- plays the smoldering lover who titillates the educated and prickly Miss Austen. Unlike most brain-dead comedies in which the lovers are supposed to "fix" each other's shortcomings, these lovers are perfectly matched. Not to mention that Maggie Smith gives another one of her deliriously snooty performances.

I can't figure out why Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party failed, when it was just as energetic and funny as The Matador -- unless critics bristled at the film's political pokings. In this one, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg make a wonderful team as three journalists (ranging from rookie to washed-up) who journey through Bosnia to find an infamous war criminal. Shepard's movie is constantly unexpected and alive, with three-dimensional characters you won't soon forget. Stick around for the whimsical closing credits, which explain the parts of the film that were "real."

I guess it goes to show how little I've been paying attention, but I could have sworn Narcissa Malfoy already showed up in the Harry Potter movies. Of course, it could also mean I'm easily mixing up the books and the adaptations, because I must be thinking of the character's first appearance in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -- the novel not the film. But Narcissa, who is mother to Draco (Tom Felton), wife to Lucius (Jason Isaacs) and cousin to Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) features prominently in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -- the novel -- and so she will be making her cinematic introduction in the movie version. And now we've got word on who will be playing the role. According to BBC, Helen McCrory will play Narcissa, who in Half-Blood Prince is dealing with her husband being a prisoner of Azkaban and her son being a teenage brat.

Audiences are likely most familiar with McCrory through her role as British first lady Cherie Blair in The Queen. She also appeared recently in Becoming Jane, as Mrs. Radcliffe (somewhat a Potter-riffic name, right?), and Casanova, in which she played mother to Heath Ledger's title character. The interesting thing now is that McCrory is actually playing the sister of the character she was originally all set to play. If you remember back to the original casting announcements of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, McCrory was first attached to play Bellatrix Lestrange, a part that went to Helena Bonham Carter when McCrory became pregnant and had to bow out. And you may recall that earlier this year, the part of Narcissa was linked to Naomi Watts, whose reps quickly denied her involvement. As much as I loved the idea of Watts playing the role, I'm intrigued to see McCrory take it on. I wonder, though, will she have to dye her hair, or am I once again revealing my lack of attention to the books? Half-Blood Prince, which is currently in production at the helm of Order of the Phoenix director David Yates, is set to hit theaters in little over a year from now (21 Nov. 2008)

It may be a bit early for this, but I wanted to get my two cents in on some of my favorite performances of 2007 so far, especially since most of these will probably get overlooked in the great Oscar crush of December. The awards almost always go to actors who are involved in biopics, message pictures, costume movies or epics, so let's start with the wonderful Alan Rickman, who has yet to earn a single Oscar nomination. This year, he can be seen toiling away once again in the small role of Severus Snape in the fifth "Harry Potter" film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (283 screens). In the third film, he practically stole the entire movie with the way he read the line "turn to page 394," but in this fifth film, he actually has a scene with some meat to it. In training Harry to block his thoughts, Harry takes a peek into Snape's own mind and finds a disastrously sad childhood. When the flashback ends, the camera lingers on Snape's face for a moment, and Rickman renders an astonishing expression of hurt and hatred that broke my heart and sent chills through my spine.

One costume movie, Becoming Jane (32 screens), was unfairly judged, perhaps because it was too much fun and not somber enough (or not based on a literary source of proper merit). The lovely Miss Anne Hathaway usually lends a kind of smart energy to her best performances, as if she were slightly ahead of the game, and she does so perfectly as the budding Jane Austen. She's playful, but tough, beautiful but restrained. And when she falls in love with her man (James McAvoy), she does so breathlessly and with her whole heart; the movie more or less explains through fantasy how Austen was able to write so passionately from such a dull existence. The real Jane was said to be rather plain, but I'd much rather imagine her like this. Add to this Maggie Smith's delightfully wry supporting performance as the wealthy aunt, who can't understand the impudent youth of today and fires off comically nasty barbs at their expense.

When films based on real people are released, questions always arise about the fact and truth behind the drama on the screen. Becoming Jane is no exception. The movie, which was released this week, is giving us a twist on Jane Austen. Instead of being treated to the millionth adaptation, we're getting a look into an imagined version of what might have happened in her own life. Skimming reviews, it seems that the film is a run-of-the-mill romance that you might enjoy or find predictable. But what of the movie's accuracy?

Deirdre Lynch, who leads courses on Austen, has written a piece for Slate diving into that question, although she poses it as: "Why are we so obsessed with Jane Austen's love life?" The film has expanded from one chapter in Jon Spence's biography of the writer called Becoming Jane Austen. As Lynch describes, the biographer did claim that Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) was the love of Austen's (Anne Hathaway) life, but never alludes to a canceled marriage or life-long presence in his and his future family's life. Spence drew his claim from only a few letters and some hints in family records, and other scholars aren't so sure that this means the two were a couple.

The article outlines how Austen's work has, more than once, become fodder for her personal life. But that seems pretty sad and reductive. Whether you're a fan of period romances or not, it's hard to refute her success, so why can't she have the ability to create rich, fictional worlds without having a specific boyfriend or almost-husband? As Lynch says: "We can't bear to think that her wisdom was not based on experience."

Who doesn't love a period drama? Becoming Jane earned $10,100 per screen for Miramax, sailing into the top slot for the weekend among more limited engagements, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Cinematical's James Rocchi called it "a warm and charming romantic drama" and audiences were clearly drawn either by the stars -- Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy -- or, more likely, the idea of a Jane Austen movie that's actually about Jane Austen. The picture opened in 100 theaters and will "likely" be expanding to about 500 locations next weekend, according to Variety's story, in which they chatted briefly with Miramax president Daniel Battsek.

Proving itself remarkably critic-proof, El Cantante had a very healthy weekend. Fans of Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and salsa legend Héctor Lavoe drove the picture to #12 overall with a per-screen average of $6,003 at 542 locations for distributor Picturehouse. Variety says that it "performed especially well in New York and Florida." I'm not sure why they didn't just say: "Places with huge Puerto Rican communities." I think the success of the picture says something about the hunger people have to see movies that relate in some way to their lives and culture, even when the critics in general turn thumbs down. El Cantante managed only a miserable 23% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Our own Kim Voynar highlighted the good points but also drew attention to its shortcomings.

The Ten was the third new film in limited release. Playing at 25 locations, David Wain's anthology comedy made an estimated $4,700 per screen for ThinkFilm. James Rocchi said it's "a wacky, hit-and-miss, shotgun blast of a comedy that stands apart from the corporate commodity comedy's become in major-studio Hollywood." It's a great weekend when you can choose to see a period drama, a musical biopic or a blasphemous comedy.

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.

Cinematical readers in Britain can ignore all of this, since the movie has already been released there, but we in the States have now received a trailer for Becoming Jane, the new Anne Hathaway-starring romance that takes a brief, documented flirtation between novelist Jane Austen and an Irish gentleman (James McAvoy) and blows it up into the romance to end all romances. The problems that have already been noted by others -- that Hathaway couldn't quite crack the English accent, that the film straddles a convenient line of 'fiction based on truth,' and so on -- are all evident in this trailer. It seems like we're going to be looking at an 18th century version of The Princess Diaries, as opposed to any attempt to actually capture what made the biographical Jane Austen tick.

Surely the makers of this film don't actually have an image of Austen as full of unbridled passions and gusto, do they? The biggest complaint about her work for two centuries -- even noted by contemporaries like Charlotte Bronte, who famously accused Austen of "Chinese fidelity" -- is that her work is all about proper form and codes of conduct, not about crashing through those things. But any criticism of a 'fictional bio' won't stick, obviously. Just look at the recent Diane Arbus fantasy, Fur, which would have been unrecognizable as having anything to do with Arbus if not for the use of the famous name. Anyway -- you'll be able to judge for yourself when Becoming Jane hits theaters in this country on August 3.

I did a double-take when, while reading a Sunday Telegraph story on Becoming Jane, the writer noted that the film was "opening next month." A quick check with IMDB confirms this -- the film opens in Britain in March and the U.S. in August -- the Brits are actually getting a six-month jump on a major film! (The writer has seen the film, and almost gives it a full review) For those Yankees who don't yet have this film on radar, it concerns a little-known period in Jane Austen's youth when she supposedly fell in love with an Irish lawyer named Tom Lefroy. Prada's Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are the stars. In her interview with the paper, Hathaway talks about taking on the role of the iconic novelist: "The fact that she had an affair that ended badly was really very surprising," she says. "I was in love with her work, and from the moment I read the script I was really passionate about it."

Sounds like standard press junket talk, right? Luckily, Hathaway goes on to open up a little more about aggravations on what seems like a tough set. On doing an English accent: "This was my first big accent undertaking," she says. "There were certain days when it was so cold, and you're trying not to freeze to death and of course, me, I'm trying to do the accent and when it's cold it makes you very tight which can make your voice sound higher, and I started to sound a bit too much like myself and not at all like Jane. And after all that -- pardon my French -- f**cking accent work, about 80 percent of the dialogue in the film was unusable."

On the pressure: "The pressure of playing someone so beloved and of whom people are so fiercely protective was nerve-wracking. I've never been so exhausted as when I finished the movie. It took me about two months to regain my strength." On the weather again: The interviewer descrbes Hathaway arriving on set thusly: "'Can't you pay for good weather?' Hathaway yells as she emerges to shoot the country-fair scene in a period dress and Hunter wellies, an assistant trotting after her with a striped brolly." They better include this stuff on the DVD.