(We’re in a rather sailorish mood now, after writing about PERSUASION below. Have some gratuitous gaping frilly shirtage. It’s really not that off-topic, his name IS D’Arcy after all.)

More reviews today, and previews for those of us on the western side of the big pond.

The News & Star reviews the film in strong, though not perfectly well-spelt praise. (Ha! More Persuasion! We’ll convert all you hopeless Darcy fans yet.)

However, all pre-expectations put aside I was pleasantly surprised. Constantly witty and brilliantly played by all involved. Even Keira is acceptable and MacFadyn (Mr Darcy) will continue to garner female followers to add to his Spooks fans. This is old news to the fans but this may have the power to convert cynics.

Adaptation. Adaptation. Adaptation. Everyone write it 100 times on the board, please.

Does NO ONE copy edit anymore? *buries head in hands*

And poor Matthew Macfadyen. He’s right up there with Ioan Gruffudd for creative spellings of his surname.

Moving on: the Belfast Telegraph reviews a version of the film that is subtitled for the hearing-impaired, unusual for being shown during a regularly scheduled showing. The story is less a review of the film than of the technology. Apparently the same film featured audio descriptive facility for the visually impaired. More Jane for all, we say!

Film Review magazine has a short piece on the film, anticipating its arrival on American shores. A lot of blah blah blah about Gritty Realism™, and then this:

So what’s new about this? Well début director Wright chooses to reinvent and contemporize the heroine Elizabeth Bennett by placing her flaws, dilemmas, lies and pride as central, whilst supplying her with barbed dialogue, a complete absence of ladylike accomplishments and the ability to have a blazing row when Darcy lets her down!

Um…is that supposed to make us WANT to see the movie?

And in what we promise is our last Persuasion allusion of the evening, one might, like Sir Walter Elliot, find “occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one” at the IMdB.com message forum for P&P3; but then, like Lizzy Bennet, we find that “follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert us.”

The 1995 adaptation of PERSUASION starring Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds (the Editrix’s favorite Austen film adaptation) will be broadcast in the U.S. on IFC on Thursday, October 6 at 9 p.m.

The New York Times TV reporter is clearly hip.

9 P.M. (IFC) PERSUASION (1995). Amanda Root stars in Jane Austen’s restrained, poignant and satisfying story of a seemingly resigned Regency-era old maid (she’s 27) who is presented with a second chance. Ciaran Hinds is the sea captain she almost married when she was 19. Sophie Thompson is priceless as the heroine’s sister, a comically self-involved character that Bridget Jones would recognize on sight as the original “smug married.”

“I am so ill I can hardly speak.”

IFC’s Web site provides additional showtimes: Friday, October 7, 12:15 PM; Friday, October 7, 6:00 PM; and Wednesday, October 19 11:00 PM.

No, not Irish Spring, but the stage production of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE that just finished up its run in Tucson and will be moving this week to Phoenix.

Reader emdee posted a review of the play in comments of a previous thread:

I saw this production at a matinee on Saturday and loved it. It was witty, romantic and right on the money. Anthony Marble as Mr Darcy owned every scene he was in, just the right mixture of ego with a slightest hint of vulnerability. He looked perfect, taking your breath away as he walked out in his period costume like he was born to it.

Nothing like a Darcy who is TEH HAWT, as the kids say.

The Arizona Republic talks about the story’s appeal to both genders.

“Who says guys aren’t interested in romance?” asks Seattle scenic artist Robert Dahlstrom, whose designs for ATC’s production have been the talk of Tucson and are poised to crank up Valley word-of-mouth once it opens at the Herberger Theater Center Thursday.

“Most of us want to find a woman who’s beautiful, loving and brings out the best in us,” Dahlstrom says. “That’s what happens in Austen’s novels - the boy gets the happy ending of his dreams. What guy can’t buy into that?”

Indeed!

We were bemused by the article’s declaration of Friends of Jane of whom we had not previously heard–including John F. Kennedy, Brad Pitt (who remembers back in the day when Brad was rumored to be playing Darcy in P&P3?), Kenneth Branagh (not surprising) and…Hulk Hogan.

But the story about the soon-to-be-former Disney chief made us laugh a little, enough to pass it on.

I first met Eisner in 1986. In those days, he had a wonderful, avuncular P.R. man—the late Erwin Okun—who made sure Eisner knew enough about a journalist to flatter him or her into a state of near senselessness. Before that first meeting, Okun learned that I liked Jane Austen. Almost as soon as I sat down in the chair, Eisner told me he was re-reading Pride and Prejudice in my honor. “Quick,” I wanted to say. “What’s Darcy’s first name?” (Answer: Fitzwilliam.)

Soon after the interview, an envelope arrived at my office (then at the Daily News in the San Fernando Valley). Inside was a pamphlet, “The Jane Austen Map of England,” and a red-ink note written in Eisner’s boyish scrawl.

Dear ‘Janeite’ Kim,

I thought you would enjoy the Jane Austen Map of England as I start my abandonment of Romanticism (goodbye Hawthorne, Melville, Dumas and even good old Emily Bronte) toward realism and order and discipline. And I’ve already read 100 pages of Pride and Prejudice.

Neoclassically yours,
Michael

Yes, I was cynical of this gesture. What harried assistant had really tracked down the Jane Austen Map of England? Did he or she also supply an executive summary of the major themes of English literature? Yet, the fact that I kept the note shows how effective it was. And looking back, I realize that it underscores a point in which Eisner took considerable pride. “I was an English major!” the note screams. “Unlike those schmucks David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and even Barry Diller—one of the few people who actually intimidates me on God’s earth—I have a college diploma!”

After 100 pages, we would be astonished if he had been able to tell Mr. Darcy’s Christian name–but perhaps the P.R. flack would have read the Cliff Notes.

And Mike, buddy–if you’re such a bloody great Austen fan, couldn’t you have reined Harvey in a little on MP2? Sheesh.