Some might question whether Brideshead Revisited, the classic novel by Evelyn Waugh, needed to be revisited in a film adaptation; the novel, after all, has been adapted once before in a lengthy and well-beloved British television serial. Fortunately for fans of Waugh's work, this film version of Brideshead, directed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane) off a screenplay written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, is beautifully shot, painstakingly directed, and well worth watching. For the most part, the filmmakers avoid mutilating Waugh's work, although the end result does place a greater emphasis on certain aspects (romance) and limit or eliminate others altogether (the brilliantly written discourses on religion and love that permeate the book).

The film is shot in Castle Howard, also the setting for the miniseries version, and Brideshead itself is a majestic, imposing character that looms over all who encounter it. The screenplay is rather a masterful adaptation; the film handles the compression of years through the storyline with a bit of book-ended time-jumping to both introduce us to the lead characters and close out the story, and Brock and Davies do an able job of whittling the story down to meet the needs of a cinematic experience without losing the feel of Waugh's novel in the process.

While the collection of features that began with Red Road never got off the ground, the UK is trying again, with a different sort of feature. (One that will hopefully be fully completed and released.) Forget about a long drama like Zodiac -- Variety reports that three directors have signed on to helm films about the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper in the 1970s and early 1980s -- each taking a certain time-span of the crimes, based on David Peace's collection of books called Red Riding Quartet.

The books were adapted by Tony Grisoni, who did a heck of a job on the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas adaptation, with Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane) to cover Nineteen Seventy-Four, James Marsh (Man on Wire) to tackle Nineteen Eighty, and Anand Tucker (Shopgirl) to helm the final installment, Nineteen Eighty-Three. (Nineteen Seventy Seven will be split amongst the three other features.) The films will be brought together into a television series, with a theatrical release to follow (one that hopefully includes overseas distribution).

The tale of the Yorkshire Ripper -- Peter William Sutcliffe -- is pretty grisly. (Check that link for the whole story.) He was convicted in 1981, and while he is still alive, he has gotten a bit of the "eye for an eye" treatment from fellow criminals.

The works of snarky author Evelyn Waugh are no stranger to cinematic adaptation, although his writing rarely gets big-screen love like William Shakespeare or Jane Austen. Perhaps it is because his novels are rife with dark humor, rather than heart-wrenching drama or light romance. The last to hit the screen was Vile Bodies in 2003, which became Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things. However, beyond the satire, Waugh also had controversial words to spare on religion. In fact, his novel Brideshead Revisited was considered by George Orwell to be untenable.

Even without the defense of his fellow English writer, Brideshead gets its share of attention. It was made into a television miniseries in 1981, and director Julian Jarrold is now trying to get a big-screen version off the ground. The project, which has been in development for years, is set to start shooting this spring, although the cast has not yet been confirmed. (Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly were previously attached.) Although Jarrold is best known for his recent film, Kinky Boots, he's no stranger to literary adaptations. For television, he's directed classics ranging from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.

The screenplay comes from Bridget Jones screenwriter Andrew Davies and Last King of Scotland scribe, Jeremy Brock, which bodes doubly well for the film. Brideshead tells the story of Charles Ryder. At Oxford, he strikes up a close friendship with Lord Sebastian Flyte and joins him on the family estate. There, he falls for Sebastian's sister while experiencing the collide of families, politics and religion. It'll be a particularly relevant film to today's society ... if things continue as planned.

"These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do. But one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you..." - Nancy Sinatra

If you loved Calendar Girls and The Full Monty, you'll love Kinky Boots, directed by Julian Jarrold. Kinky Boots is another film in the genre of British films with quirky, rural characters doing something outrageous. In The Full Monty it was a group of laid off guys doing well, the full monty; in Calendar Girls it was a group of older women shedding their clothes and inhibitions to make a fundraising calendar. In Kinky Boots, we have a reluctant heir to a shoe factory owner who decides to save his family's factory from shutting down by switching the company's product from reliable, well-made English brogues to reliable, well-made, sexy boots - for drag queens and transexual men.

The film stars Joel Edgerton (Star Wars: Episodes Two and Three) as Charlie Price, who takes over the shoemaking factory that has been in his family for four generations after the sudden death of his father, and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Melinda and Melinda, Red Dust, Love Actually) as Lola the drag queen, who helps save Charlie's factory by desiging the sexiest boots the quiet burg of Northampton has ever seen. Rounding out the cast are Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead) as Don, a factory worker who takes an instant dislike to Lola, Sara-Jane Potts as Lauren, the feisty factory worker who makes Charlie believe in himself, and Calendar Girl Linda Bassett.

When Charlie takes over the factory, he soon learns the large order of brogues they are working on has been canceled, and the factory is in dire financial straits. He is forced to make 15 employees redundant, but Lauren challenges his complacency by telling him to stop asking "what can I do" and saying "it's not my fault", and find a way to save the factory.