Alert Janeite Sylvia M. wrote to tell us that IMDB has two more cast members listed for Miss Austen Regrets, joining Olivia Williams as Jane Austen. Phyllida Law (Mrs. Bates in the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma) will play Mrs. Austen and Adrian Edmondson will play Henry Austen.

The IMDB is notoriously unreliable, so treat these as rumors until more solid proof arrives; but we have no reason to disbelieve these casting choices.

P.S. Andrea Galer is listed as costume designer; she also did costumes for MP99 and P07.

We happened to pop over to the Web site for Jane Austen’s House in Chawton today and noticed that the site has been given a lovely redesign. A little more poking around revealed something new and exciting–a Flash tour of the house and grounds. Check it out!

The film goes into wide release today, and the media has about a thousand reviews. We can’t link to all of them, but Rotten Tomatoes ranks the freshness rating at 59%.

We were amused by this article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Anne Hathaway looks at the poster for her new movie, Becoming Jane, and winces.

“‘Their love story was her greatest inspiration,’” she says, reading the tag line. “I wouldn’t have gone with that.”

We wouldn’t have, either. (more…)

Have to agree; we haven’t laughed that much in a movie theater since we saw Blazing Saddles. You know when you laugh so hard you think you’re going to throw up? That’s how it was exactly!

Thanks to Alert Janeite Paola for the link!

In Melbourne Sydney!

So says the NSW president of the Australian Hotels Association, John Thorpe, who has come out swinging against a plan by the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, to encourage more Melbourne-style boutique bars in Sydney.

“Melbourne is Melbourne. Sydney has a different outlook,” said Mr Thorpe, a fierce critic of the City of Sydney’s plans to make it easier for hole-in-the-wall bars to gain permission for extended trading. “We aren’t barbarians, but we don’t want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book.”

Maybe if it’s a good book, like Tom Jones or something by Mrs. Radcliffe. Nothing like that other stupid book, written by that woman they make such a fuss about, she who married the French emigrant.

Thanks to Alert Janeite Laura for the link!