Oscar nominations and snubs

Let's start with the reactions to the Oscar nominations. First of all, reactions to Michael O'Connor's costume design nomination:

The Contra Costa Times quotes Michael O'Connor as having said,

"I'm absolutely thrilled and delighted to be nominated for my work on 'Jane Eyre.' "

Clothes on Film naturally looks at the nominations in depth, comparing them with other awards nominations such as the BAFTAs or the Costume Designers Guild (Michael O'Connor's work in Jane Eyre is nominated in the Period Film category):

Michael O’Connor for his bleak, deep and meaningful version of Jane Eyre. (Chris Laverty)

HitFix's In Contention:

Best Costume DesignThis is the one category where I was most confident in my predictions: “The Artist,” “The Help,” “Hugo,” “Jane Eyre,” “My Week with Marilyn.” Oops! I’m thrilled Mark Bridges pulled off his first nomination for “The Artist” and that Michael O’Connor earned his second nomination for “Jane Eyre.” It is also delightful, if unsurprising, to see Sandy Powell back in the race for her rich threads on “Hugo.” However, “My Week with Marilyn” and “The Help” were omitted in favor of “Anonymous” and “W.E.”  Three films -- “Anonymous,” “Jane Eyre” and “W.E.” -- were not nominated in any other categories. I say good on this branch for looking past the quality of the films in coming to their nominations?
As far as the race for the win is concerned, it seems to me as though the three solo nominees don’t have much of a shot against the two Best Picture frontrunners. Powell’s work is more obviously showy but Bridges’s intricate threads were cited by the BFCA and I think his film will ultimately triumph in the big category. So this could go either way. (Gerard Kennedy)

WIBW:

The past is again present in the Best Costume Design category, from an England Elizabethan ("Anonymous"), Edwardian ("W.E."), and Romantic ("Jane Eyre"), to 1920s Paris ("Hugo") and Hollywood ("The Artist").

And now for the so-called Oscar snubs:

The Philadelphia Inquirer sums it up:

Michael Fassbender had a great year, but came away empty, and his co-star in "Jane Eyre," Mia Wasikowska, was neglected. (Gary Thompson)

My Fox Phoenix:

4. Michael Fassbender for Best Actor in "Shame"
Easily the year's most daring performance and possibly the most intense. His portrayal of a sex addict in New York City combined both the savage and the subtle, a feat which few other actors could pull off. Fassbender had a banner year in 2011 for his additional work in " X-Men: First Class," "Jane Eyre" and "A Dangerous Method." The Los Angeles Film Critics and the Golden Globes saw fit to recognize him - it's truly a shame that the Academy didn't.

The Canberra Times:

Despite an endorsement from Hollywood legend Meryl Streep at the Golden Globe awards recently, Canberra-born Mia Wasikowska failed to pick up a nomination for her starring role in Jane Eyre. Wasikowska was also commended by top US critics for her performance in the new adaptation of the classic Charlotte Brontë novel. (Garry Maddox)

As far as we can see, no one has yet mentioned Dario Marianelli's wonderful soundtrack being left out. Quite a snub, that one too.

Anyway, onto the other recent Brontë film (and also snubbed at film awards like the BAFTAs). Television Without Pity's The Moviefile saw Wuthering Heights 2011 at Sundance:

The wise move would have been to just go home, but because the movie was Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights -- which I've been eager to see since its premiere at Toronto last year -- I sucked up my courage and gripped my seat as the bus drove through the blinding snow, slipping and sliding on the icy roads. We arrived at the theater moments before the movie started and Arnold was on hand to thank us for braving the storm. And may I just say that Wuthering Heights was absolutely worth the trek. A full review can wait for its release later this year courtesy of the good folks at Oscilloscope, but this is the kind of bold adaptation of a classic 19th century novel that I wish the recent Jane Eyre film had been. It's raw and emotional and vibrant in a way that too few period productions are. I can't wait to experience it again, preferably when I'm not exhausted after a day full of movies and junk food. (Ethan Alter)

Female First reviews the DVD (to be released in March) and gives it 5 stars out of 6.

The Yorkshire Post has an article on tourists from abroad coming to walk in Brontë country:

Brontë enthusiasts from as far away as Australia are preparing to make a pilgrimage to West Yorkshire to take in the countryside which inspired the novels.
The literary tourists are being encouraged to make the trip by Bradford businesswoman Helen Broadhead, a historian and Brontë expert.
Ms Broadhead leads Brontë fans on walks to buildings and places that were significant in the lives of the sisters.
After relaunching her website, www.helensheritagewalks.co.uk, she has seen a rise in interest from across the globe.
“I have already received several inquiries from Brontë enthusiasts in the USA and Australia about my guided Brontë walks around Haworth and venues, such as Oakwell Hall, Red House Museum – now, sadly, threatened with closure – and Shibden Hall in Calderdale.
“All these venues have Brontë connections: Oakwell Hall and Red House were used by Charlotte Brontë as models for her houses in Shirley, and it is widely accepted by Brontë scholars that, in her writing of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë was influenced by the stories and houses she came across during her time at Law Hill School in Southowram, near Shibden Hall.
“It seems that international tourists are not put off by the winter weather. This week I took two Korean ladies, a mother and daughter from New York, on a first ‘Taste of the Moors’ walk.
“The weather had taken a turn for the worse but they felt that the wind and rain only added to the atmosphere.
“The older lady said that her heart started to beat with excitement as she came onto the moors on Penistone Hill.
“Her favourite of the Brontës’ novels was Wuthering Heights, a favourite with many Korean females, her daughter said.”
Ms Broadhead said Haworth needed improved transport links to capitalise on international tourism.

MSNBC actually thinks these walks are a thing of the past:

Fifty years ago, the media’s archetypal American abroad—say, a fedora-topped Jimmy Stewart squiring Doris Day through Marrakesh—inspired adventurous viewers to go and see Morocco for themselves. In this, they were much like the 19th-century English tourists who visited the sites of Brontë novels—distant precursors of the newer, stranger breed that scholars call “media tourists.” (Chris Norris)

Speaking of Brontë walks, The Telegraph and Argus reports on the Stanbury Splash race,

The course, which involves over 1,300ft of climbing, is one of a classic series of races on the Bronte Moors above Haworth organised by Dave and Eileen Woodhead. (Colin Davidson)

More from the Yorkshire Post, as it carries a funny anecdote concerning Gary Verity, Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive:

SOMETIMES it’s hard being in the public eye.
Gary Verity, the chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, has had plenty to celebrate recently.
His team walked away with a world travel award earlier this month, so it’s hardly surprising that his face is becoming well known.
Mr Verity was recently visiting an exclusive club in London, when a woman seemed to recognise him.
Had she perhaps been inspired by his efforts to promote Yorkshire to a global audience? Or perhaps she wanted to say how much she was looking forward to visiting Brontë country?
Sadly, not.
“Aren’t you Hugh Bonneville?” she asked.
Mr Bonneville is, of-course, best known as one of the stars of costume drama Downton Abbey.

Patheos interviews the writer Taylor M. Polites about his forthcoming novel The Rebel Wife:

KAREN: Did you intentionally craft Gus as a more cunning Scarlett O’Hara?
TAYLOR: I wanted Gus to be a great heroine, tragic or heroic, but in the vein of the great women of fiction who always fascinated me.  Scarlett O’Hara was definitely a major player in my pantheon of women heroines.  But there were so many more, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, Lizzie Eustace from Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds, Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, even Cathy from Wuthering Heights, Isabel Archer from The Portrait of a Lady, Lily Bart from The House of Mirth.  These were women who captivated me, moved me, made me cheer or writhe in frustration.  Since The Rebel Wife is set in the South with a female heroine who survived the same upheavals that Scarlett faced, comparisons are inevitable, and I don’t shrink from those either.  Gone With the Wind was such an important book to me when I was growing up.  I hope The Rebel Wife embraces its best parts and challenges its worst.  There are whispers of GWTW throughout the book.  I want Augusta and The Rebel Wife to take their place in the tradition of Southern books and Southern heroines. (Karen Spears Zacharias)

Gather has a recap of Jane by Design: 'The Finger Bowl,' Season 1, Episode 4 where

All that talking brings Jane and Billy to school with Billy not having a chance to lay it out for Jane, and then it's too late. Lulu walks up to Billy and kisses him. Jane is gobsmacked, and not a little angry. She feels betrayed and she and Billy exchange dueling wrong summations of the theme of Wuthering Heights. The English teacher is apparently a bit dense and has no idea what is going in. (K Lee)

The following comes from the Guardian's live feed of the Pakistan vs England crciket match:

39th over: Pakistan 103-3 (Azhar Ali 24, Misbah-ul-Haq 1) Azhar leaves another beauty from Broad that seams back a long way and just bounces over the top of off stump. The next ball brings a huge shout for LBW that is turned down by Bruce Oxenford. I thought it was bat first but replays weren't conclusive either way. That was a fine over from Broad. "I'd like to hear – and (this is the important thing) see – Sir Geoffrey doing a rendition of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, interpreting the emotional plight of Heathcliff and Cathy through dance as well as song," says Sam Jordison. (Andy Bull)

And yet another unexpected Wuthering Heights reference comes from an article on Kim Kardashian on Heckler Spray.

Basically, that’s a lot of soul-searching over a 72-day marriage. The kind of soul-searching that saw the willfully stupid Kim going to the vapid, finance hungry Kardashian family for advice on what to do. It’s like Wuthering Heights or something. (Mof Gimmers)

Babyology makes quite a blunder when introducing the clothes available at Little Bookwormz:

I won’t pretend otherwise, my favourite design is ‘E is for Emily’ – I never tire of the Cathy and Heathcliff drama and the simple, stylised graphic of Emily Brontë is fabulous.

We are sorry to say, though, that that Emily is clearly not Brontë, but Dickinson.

OpEdNews quotes from Jane Eyre:

Tired of being mean? Tired of being on the receiving end of meanness? The nasty trait produces a lot of unnecessary suffering, both for the person who's being mean (the "hell of your own meanness," a character says in Jane Eyre) and for the recipient of the meanness. Meanness is often a compulsive behavior that's difficult to remedy without deeper insight. (Peter Michaelson)

The Book Jotter posts about Jane Eyre while A Classic Case of Madness needs some help with Adèle's French. La bobina writes in Spanish about the 2011 adaptation. Just Can't Know posts about April Lindner's Jane and Moi, Clara et les mots and J'ai pad d'idée write in French about Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre. Got Good Reads??? and Jesse's Books post about Wuthering Heights while Laura's Reviews writes about the 1939 adaptation.

Finally a reminder from The Telegraph and Argus:

CALENDAR: The Haworth Couldn’t Wear Less calendar is still for sale. It’s not too late to help locals raise money for Haworth Parish Church Restoration Fund and Bronte Spirit, the Bronte School Room development project. All profits will be divided between the two projects. Calendars are £6 each or £10 for a pair of ‘his’ and ‘hers’ and can be purchased from Haworth Main Street shops or visit their their website www.HaworthCalendar.co.uk, or Twitter @HaworthCalendar. (Kath Gower)