Winnie the Pooh meets Ghostface and Jane Eyre's sister

Let's begin, as usual on a weekend, with a Jane Eyre 2011 review:

The Coast (Halifax):

A palette of muted colours, moody grey skies, and candlelit interiors envelop you in Jane’s bleak world---the sun only shines during the film’s tearful finale. Moira Buffini’s screenplay is more heartbreak than humour---though, Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench), the manor’s housekeeper, delivers a few well-timed witticisms. Gothic landscapes and an impeccable cast make it a must-see period piece. (Molly Segal)

More reviews: Like/Don't Like, Mary's List, The Cinematic Experience of Forizer, Heather Anastasiou, Notes on Films, Epist, By the Sea, The Modern Allegory, Janet Charlton's Hollywood, It’s my way… my rules… and my life… (in Russian) and Three Brothers Film.

Assignment X publishes a very positive review of Dario Marianelli's soundtrack for Jane Eyre 2011:

Though she’s a woman who endures the trials of Job before coming out on top, Jane Eyre wasn’t written as a women’s libber. Yet she’s no wallflower either as Marianellli fills her with lilting chamber violins and piano, music that’s always yearning for salvation, yet not about to shout it to the heavens. It’s a subtle, beautifully somber approach that certainly doesn’t lack for empathy, especially when a stirring orchestral theme kicks in to play the unspoken, desperate desire that Eyre and Rochester have for each other. (...)
Dario Marianelli never fails to astound with his melodic and emotional sumptuousness, with each score like Jane Eyre almost impossibly besting the other. The Brontë sisters couldn’t have found a better man to musically speak for their heroines in the form of an Italian who can so beautifully play England’s agelessly repressed class system and the mental wreckage it reaps. (Daniel Schweiger)

The director Wes Craven reveals himself as an unexpected Jane Eyre enthusiast in the Boston Globe:

Thoughtful, so soft-spoken his words barely register on the recorder, and dressed in casual shoulder-to-toe black topped by gray hair, the 71-year-old Craven confesses that his taste in movie leads runs more toward Jane Eyre than Ghostface. (Lynda Gorov)

A new Haworth tourist campaign is featured in The Telegraph & Argus:

A presentation about how the Worth Valley is being marketed nationally and internationally featured at an event in the district.
The Whoyano Rural Business Network organised the gathering at Slack Lane Baptist Church, Oakworth, near Keighley.
Liz Tattersley, head of operations at Welcome to Yorkshire, delivered a presentation about her group’s efforts to promote the district.
Activities have included marketing a new Jane Eyre film – based on the novel by Haworth author Charlotte Bronte – to viewers in the US.
She said: “Our number one priority is to make Yorkshire the most popular visitor destination in the UK.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is looking forward to next week's opening of Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights opera:

Opera fans are in for a rare opportunity. Composer Bernard Herrmann put the last touches on his only opera in Minneapolis during the summer of 1951. It tempted opera producers, although they wanted changes to which Herrmann wouldn't agree, so it was never performed in his lifetime. Herrmann did record the piece in 1966, and its lone appearance onstage was at Portland Opera in 1982. Minnesota Opera is reviving the work to mark the centenary of Herrmann's birth. Eric Simonson ("Grapes of Wrath") directs, and Michael Christie ("La Traviata") conducts. Sara Jakubiak and Lee Poulis headline the cast. (Graydon Royce)

The Times reviews (again) the Shared Experience's Brontë performances:

Shared Experience lost its Arts Council funding this month. It’s unjust, even if Brontë isn’t its best work. Polly Teale’s feverish but shapeless play has the three sisters itching to write, tugged between shame and ravening ambition. Emily wanders the moors and tames a hawk; Anne frets about the mechanisation of labour. Only Charlotte (the fine Kristin Atherton) balances rigour with unchained imagination. It’s brother Branwell who has opportunities that he repeatedly squanders. His sisters are hampered by shawls, full skirts and heavy boots — in Nancy Meckler’s production, they clump and whoosh over the stage while characters from their books spill around them.
“We are all of us monsters in our thoughts and feelings,” Emily cries; but scenes of lacerating force are buried beneath too much information and hobbled by chronology. (David Dougill)

Abigail's Ateliers reviews the performances of The Brontë Boy in Bradford:

Maybe not for dedicated Brontë purists as the characters of the Sisters are interpreted very differently to how many would see them. Also this is not a costume drama, the settings and costumes are minimalistic so please don’t going expecting to see a pretty Victorian drama but it is well crafted and thought-provoking which is surely all one needs in a play. One or two members of the audience emerged looking a little grim but most seemed to have really enjoyed the play and  several members of the audience commented to me on how much they enjoyed it and asked me to pass on their comments to the cast so it seems I was not in a minority in my enjoyment of the play.

The Independent reviews Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson's and Her Family's Feuds:

All great writers need champions of their lives and works after they have gone. Charlotte Brontë had Elizabeth Gaskell; George Eliot had John Cross. It's startling to realise how many of those writers who fade from view are those who have no dedicated family to keep their light burning, or who alienated their family through selfish or harmful behaviour. Emily Dickinson was loved by hers. (Lesley McDowell)

The Observer explores... erm... Winnie the Pooh's country:

Literary Britain has many sacred groves. There's Wordsworth's Lake District and the Brontë sisters' Yorkshire. You cannot visit Bath without reminders of Jane Austen, or Fleet Street and overlook Dr Johnson. Outside London, Warwickshire is actually signposted on the M40 as "Shakespeare Country". In Dorset there's no end of local pride in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Tolkein's "shires" are to be found all across the Midlands, though perhaps only a Hobbitomane would know that. Finally, there's the little world of AA Milne, whose estate derives millions worldwide from the antics of Winnie-the-Pooh. The adventures of this infuriating teddy bear and his juvenile partner, Christopher Robin, took place in the Home Counties amid the domestic acres of Ashdown Forest, a symbolic haunt in the landscape of the English mind. (Robert McCrum)

The Miami Herald reviews the latest of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next installments, One of Our Thursdays is Missing:

The strong literary bent to Fforde’s humor is hard to miss: “This is our Siblings of More Famous BookWorld Personalities self-help group,” explained Loser. “That’s Sharon Eyre, the younger and wholly disreputable sister of Jane; Roger Yossarian, the draft dodger and coward; Brian Heep, who despite admonishments from his family continues to wash daily; Rupert Bond, still a virgin and can’t keep a secret; Tracy Capulet, who has slept her way around Verona twice; and Nancy Potter, who is . . . well, let’s just say she’s a term that is subject to several international trademark agreements.” (John Williford)

We wonder what book by the Brontë brother could possibly have the Pioneer Bookstore in Orem, Utah according to The Utah Daily Herald:

Many readers are familiar with Emily Brontë, but Pioneer had a book written by Brontë’s brother. They have even had a book or two that were printed within decades after Gutenburg invented the printing press. (Genelle Pugmire)

Neufeldt's anthology? Tom Winnifrith's?

The Manila Times is not very accurate (to put it mildly) in this comment:

Nineteenth century American women writers are ignored based on sex discrimination of what critics call “phallic criticism.” When Wuthering Heights by Emile (sic) Brontë (1847) was first published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, it won much praise from the critics but this changed to pejorative when the author’s female identity was revealed. (Ester Vallado Daroy)

A mention of a child reading of Jane Eyre in ManhattanBeach Patch, Tiverton-LittleCompton Patch and Dawn (Pakistan); Songs and Stories, Elizabethw2010Academy and El Tren de mi Vida... Mis libros (in Spanish) post about the book; The author Myne Whitman admits in Love, Romance, Passion to her love for Jane Eyre.

A few years after this, I happened on romantic fiction through Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Ahhh Jane Eyre… Charlotte Brontë was an amazing storyteller. Not only was the plot in the story as tight as a drum, the romance was so sweet. What an emotional rollercoaster. The build-up of their love was soft and touching, there were twists to keep you turning the page. I ended up reading the book several times in the following years.

And another Brontëite, Morgan Gallagher, is interviewed on Kipp Poe's Blog:

Who are some of your favorite authors and What are you reading now?
Harlan Ellison, Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King, John Wyndham, James White, Tanith Lee, Minette Walters, Arthur C Clarke, James Herbert, LM Montgomery, The Brontes, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, J Michael Straczynski, Joss Whedon, Alan Moore, The Pinis... I could go on for some time....  I’m not reading anything at the moment.

The Bookworm's Apple reviews Wuthering Heights and Katherine's Blog continues posting about it.

Finally, the Brontë Society organizes today its annual 2011 Spring Walk:

10 April: The Brontë Society. Annual spring walk in the area of Cowan Bridge.

Categories: Brontëites, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Opera, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights