One of my favorite classic novels, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, is coming your way in a new adaptation starring what looks to be a perfectly suited cast. Matthew Goode, (Match Point, The Lookout) stars as Charles Ryder, the tale's protagonist and narrator, who befriends the wealthy Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw). When Sebastian brings Charles for a visit to his family's estate, Brideshead Castle, Charles meets Sebastian's sister, Lady Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell, Cassandra's Dream).

Emma Thompson plays Lady Marchmain, Sebastian and Julia's aristocratic mother, a Roman Catholic for whom her husband, Lord Marchmain, converted his faith from Anglican; in the book, at least, Catholicism is an influence on both the lives and conversations of the characters, especially Lady Marchmain, who uses the duel thumbscrews of guilt and manipulation to control others ... this is a character Thompson can really sink her teeth into, and I look forward to seeing her take on the role.

You're going to see a lot of bad reviews of Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, as I did before I went to see it. But having gone in with lowered expectations, I came out thrilled. I liked Cassandra's Dream a great deal. I went back and looked at some of the reviews, and I couldn't see how what they said related to the film. It seemed that most of the bad reviews were directed at Allen himself, his habits and ideas, or perhaps an expectation of Allen, or an expectation of the crime genre, rather than the film itself. This leads to a complex discussion of Allen's career, which goes much deeper than I'll ever have room for here. But suffice it to say that Allen has had a far more difficult time pleasing moviegoers than he did before he broke up with Mia Farrow and married Soon-Yi Previn.

I am a longtime fan, and in the past I have willingly put myself in the position of defending Allen's work even when there wasn't much to defend. I have written rave reviews only to revisit the films later and realize that I may have been wrong. But I believe he has tried harder, and tried more different kinds of things, in recent years than he did when he was younger and far more popular. I also believe that in the future, Allen's work, like Ozu's or Fassbinder's, may make up a far more coherent whole than it will a collection of individual masterpieces. That said, Cassandra's Dream is the third of Allen's British series. It ignores the previous entry, Scoop (2006), and harkens back to Match Point (2005), which most critics considered a successful comeback and a reinvigoration for Allen. It also revisits the themes that bubbled through Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), wondering not how one accomplishes a crime but how one deals with the concept of having accomplished a crime.

Who says that only superhero flicks and fanboy movies should get months of advance hype? Paramount Vantage has taken the unusual move of releasing a trailer for The Duchess, a period costume drama that won't be released until the fall of 2008. You can check out the trailer exclusively at Moviefone, or feel free to watch it above.

Back in September 2006, Danish director Susanne Bier was set to take on the adaptation of Amanda Foreman's novel, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire. Plans changed, though. As Cinematical's Monika Bartyzel told us this past July, Saul Dibb was brought on to direct and Keira Knightley signed on to play Georgina, duchess of Devonshire, a controversial real-life figure from the 18th century. She lived "an extravagant, profligate and promiscuous life of political and romantic intrigue, becoming an important powerbroker amid Blighty's ruling elite, but also running up catastrophic gambling debts." Monika passed on more news in September: Ralph Fiennes, Dominic Cooper and Hayley Atwell were added to the cast. Filming began on September 23.

The trailer is restrained and buttoned up -- a horse-drawn carriage, a palace, a ballroom -- and Keira looks prim and proper until she exclaims: "You can't ask me to battle nature and my own heart!" and kisses a man that's probably not her husband; then we see some carefully shot bare flesh and a roaring fire; cue music swelling to a crescendo in the background. In other words: not much to set it apart from other period pictures or set tongues a-wagging.

Personally, I prefer Ms. Knightley in more contemporary fare, but I'm evidently in the minority on that opinion. Still, The Duchess has pretty pictures and all that, and Keira-fanatics should be happy to see her laced up in a corset again. Maybe the next trailer will be more distinctive.

When the lights dim and the first moments shine upon the screen, you know that you're watching a Woody Allen film. That classic font smiles, and we quickly get the cast of characters. There's no long, music-laden intro -- just a quick rundown of the top names and then into the story. That's where the similarities to classic Allen die, though, but maybe it's time to stop comparing Allen to the works of his past. Over his last few films, the filmmaker has broken out of the mold. This time around, however, the mold might have helped keep things together. Cassandra's Dream is an interesting but superficial film that isn't sure if it wants to be a light drama or a dark comedy.

Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor star as brothers Terry and Ian. Terry is a mechanic with a penchant for gambling, while Ian is a wannabe businessman who bides his time in the family restaurant while he waits for his big financial break. Terry has been having quite the winning streak -- he keeps betting himself into a corner, and then comes out with a big win every time. After betting on a race dog with 60-1 odds at the races, he comes into a bit of money, and he and his brother buy a boat that they name 'Cassandra's Dream', after the winning dog. Ian, meanwhile, runs into a beautiful actress named Angela (Hayley Atwell), who is having car troubles on the side of the road, and he falls hard.

Here's a few bites to chew on:

• Back in July, I alerted you to the news that Keira Knightley signed on to play Georgiana Cavendish, the 18th century Duchess of Devonshire in an upcoming flick called The Duchess. Now Variety is reporting that Lord Voldemort -aka- Ralph Fiennes, Dominic Cooper of The History Boys, and Cassandra's Dream co-star Hayley Atwell have also signed on to the film that starts shooting on the 23rd in the UK. Fiennes will play the Duke of Devonshire, Cooper will be Georgiana's lover, Earl Grey, and Atwell will take on the role of her best friend, Lady Bess Foster. And yes, this Earl Grey is the man linked to the tea. Georgina's life was pretty wild -- affairs, lovers, and messed-up marriages, so this could be one fun flick.
• Variety has also posted that Reese Witherspoon and Christina Ricci's Penelope is finally coming out in theaters. Summit Entertainment has picked up the North American rights, and it will be released on February 1. You might remember that IFC and the Weinsteins nabbed the rights in Toronto last year, set it up for release in April, and then stopped it all to focus on "its core business of smaller-budget indies." You'd think they could've at least put out what they'd purchased. Luckily, Summit head Rob Friedman says: "It is the kind of material that will allow our marketing group to really shine," and it looks like its time has finally come. (Crosses fingers.) While we wait, you can check out Kim's review here, and the trailer here.

Chew on this:

• I've more casting news to bring you for the remake of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which I posted about here and here. Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw will be joined by relatively new actress, Hayley Atwell. Her most notable role to date is in Woody Allen's upcoming film, Cassandra's Dream, which will be released in October. In Brideshead, Atwell will play Julia Flyte, the sister to Whishaw's Sebastian and the lover of Goode's Charles Ryder. Being paired with Goode should make for some steamy scenes. The film is set to shoot this May.
• If there is something better than Bill Cosby's Julia Child impression, it might be the news coming out of ShoWest today. It seems that Ratatouille director Brad Bird has divulged that Peter O'Toole will be one of the voices in the upcoming ratty film, that opens June 29. The epic actor's voice is bringing life to a food critic character named Anton Ego. That's enough to make me curious about the film. Basically, the movie is about a rat who wants to become a French chef, but obviously, rats aren't desirable in a kitchen, so craziness ensues.
• The director of Assault on Precinct 13, Jean-François Richet, is setting up a double-feature project based on an infamous gangster named Jacques Mesrine, who is known in France as "the man with 1,000 faces." The first, Death Instinct, has added Gérard Depardieu to the cast as Mesrine's mentor and fellow gangster. Vincent Cassel, who was François Toulour in Ocean's Twelve, has already signed on to play Mesrine. Gerard is probably not the man I'd think of first for the role, but maybe the addage should be: take as much Depardieu as you can get. No?
  

Ever since Woody Allen fled Paris for London and started shooting his still-untitled Summer Project, we've been incredibly frustrated in our search for details about the movie's plot. We know all about the cast (Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Hayley Atwell, Tom Wilkinson), sure, but all we knew about what the hell they were up to was basically a single line: "Two brothers with financial problems ... are persuaded by a third party to turn to a life of crime." Fantastic, right? Jeez Woody, you're days from finishing filming -- throw us a bone here, huh?

But this morning, I found this. Whether they acquired the information via legal means or through kidnapping and torture isn't clear (I think it's best we don't ask), but the folks at Cineuropa have pulled together the first detailed plot summary for the movie, and it includes some encouraging wrinkles. Yes, Farrell and McGregor are brothers (who, randomly, are restoring a boat), and yes, they're drawn into a life of crime -- but apparent it's the Atwell character who does the manipulating rather than Wilkinson, or some big, hulking brute. Here's what Cineuropa has got: "When McGregor's character falls in love with [Atwell's character], she becomes aware of her power to attract the opposite sex and uses this to the point of leading the two brothers, who are in financial difficulty, into crime, and creating a dangerous rivalry between the two men." Hmm. So could this be another dark, nasty Allen flick? We can only hope.

The film is currently scheduled for a spring 2007 release, and could possibly debut at Cannes.

In a report that surfaced first in European publication Screen Daily, it's been revealed that the female lead in Woody Allen's next film (aka I Hate Paris, Get Me Back to London) is the little-known Brit Hayley Atwell.* Atwell has done some stage work and also starred in the BBC's The Line Of Beauty; though she's currently filming a pair of new BBC projects, her only major exposure so far seems to have come from that show. That, however, didn't stop Screen International (the parent publication of Screen Daily, which explains the latter's glee at the news) from naming the girl one of their "Stars of Tomorrow" earlier this year. For his part, Allen is fully stoked to have Atwell in his film, and has told the press that he his "going to present her so [we] can see what [he is] talking about." He wants all of us, you see, to "Share [his] enjoyment of her." (Does that choice of words sound creepy to anyone else?)

The movie, which also stars Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell and Tom Wilkinson, is about "two brothers with financial problems who are persuaded by a third party to turn to a life of crime;" it will shoot in London this summer.

*Sorry about the picture. Come on, she's been in ONE TV SHOW -- what do you want from me? And yes, that's her on the left, without the massive head.