After a long and winding journey, British director Andrea Arnold‘s film of Wuthering Heights finally premiered at the Venice Film Festival yesterday. Reactions were mixed as were the perceptions of those reactions. The UK’s Independent claims it was “met with befuddlement from the press,” while the Guardian reports that “critics lined up to praise the film’s radical disregard for the usual conventions of the costume drama.”

It may be “Bella & Edward’s favorite book” as the HarperTeen edition at left reminds readers, but it’s doubtful they would embrace this adaptation, which, says The Guardian, has “completely deprived the story of any romance.” The Independent describes it derisively as “a defiantly art-house adaptation…from the school of Robert Bresson rather than Merchant Ivory.”

Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff, a “dark-skinned gypsy” has been transformed into a runaway slave rescued from the Liverpool streets in this version which stars mostly unknown actors, a far cry from where it began. At one point, Lindsay Lohan and Keira Knightley were reported to be “battling” for the role of Catherine. Natalie Portman eventually won, only to turn around and drop out.

Clips are available on YouTube. One of the scenes might be considered Not Safe for Work, if it weren’t so difficult to see due to the jerkiness of the hand-held camera and reliance on natural lighting.

The film has not been scheduled for a U.S. release.

The NYT, among others, writes today about French singer Serge Gainsbourg, who was an icon in his native country from the ’60’s through his death in 1991. A new film about him, Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, opens this week.

NPR, however, focuses on the director, Joann Sfar, already well-known as an award-winning comics artist, because he “is as interesting as its subject.”

His books include The Rabbi’s Cat, (Pantheon/ Knopf Doubleday), Little Vampire (First Second/Macmillan) and The Little Prince: Graphic Novel (HMH), which was recommended by Lisa Von Drasek as a “Book to Give Kids You Don’t Know Very Well.” His latest, the fourth in the Night of the Ladykiller, Dungeon series (NBM/ComicsLit) came out in June. Booklist called it “A wonderful addition to the series”

Although some stories claim the movie  Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is based on a comic (it’s even listed that way in IMDB.com), Sfar says it is not, but that he applied “comic book techniques” to the live action movie,

I love [the] Russian way of storytelling, when you put strong picture close to other strong picture, and you expect the audience to do the job….a kind of montage way of editing a movie.

Gainsbourg may be less familiar to American audiences than Sfar. Some identify him only through his muse, Jane Birkin, the ’60’s British actress for whom the Hermes’ Birkin Bag was named (it’s the one Samantha lusted for on Sex and the City), or for the couple’s daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg who stars with Kirsten Durst in the upcoming movie Melancholia.

Playdates for Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life are listed on the films website,  GainsbourgAHeroicLife.com

In 1996, Al Pacino released a documentary called Looking for Richard, about his attempt to get to the heart of Shakespeare’s play, Richard III.

Ten years later, he performed in Oscar Wilde’s play, Salomé. A camera crew followed him around, creating footage for another documentary. The result, Wilde Salomé, debuts at the Venice Film Festival, which begins this week. No theatrical release date has been set.

The long-shelved movie, London Boulevard, based on the book by Ken Bruen, starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightly and Ray Winstone, has finally been schedule for a limited release on Nov. 18, to be preceded by a cable video-on-demand release on October 5,

Why, with all that star power, isn’t the movie getting a major release? Unfortunately, its U.K. debut in February brought mostly terrible reviews and did poorly at the box office.

The book, however, fared much better. When London Boulevard was published 2009, the NYT BR crime columnist Marilyn Stasio called it an “unnervingly clever reworking of Sunset Boulevard.” Clearly a fan, she has reviewed several of the author’s titles, saying, “Ken Bruen is hard to resist, with his aching Irish heart, silvery tongue, and bleak noir sensibility.”

The trailer is below and on YouTube

Bruen’s next book, the ninth in his Jack Taylor series, Headstone  is on the debut list from the newly relaunched Mysterious Press imprint, which Otto Penzler, who founded it in 1975, recently bought back and is now publishing in conjunction with Grove Atlantic.

Headstone (Jack Taylor) Ken Bruen Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Mysterious Press – (2011-10-04) ISBN / EAN: 0802126006 / 9780802126009

Coincidentally, another movie based on a Bruen title, Blitz (St. Martins, 2004), has just gone directly to DVD. It stars Jason Stratham.

Looks like Focus Feactures, the studio behind  the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, based on the book by John le Carré, has gotten cold feet. Instead of  releasing it on Nov. 18, when it would go up against Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1, based on the book by Stephenie Meyer, they have moved the opening day back to Dec. 9.

The later date also brings it closer to Oscar voting time, which may have been an even greater incentive. Directed by Tomas Alfredson, the movie has a strong cast; Gary Oldman (pictured at right in the movie poster), widely expected to be nominated for Best Actor in his role as Smiley, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong.

Reviews will begin breaking soon; it opens in the UK on Sept. 16. The trailer is available here.

No tie-in has been announced, but the book was recently re-released in paperback (for a full list of upcoming movies with tie-ins, cick here, Upcoming — with Tie-ins).

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: A Novel John le Carre Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) – (2011-06-07) ISBN / EAN: 0143119788 / 9780143119784

Featured on last night’s MTV Video Music Awards was the teaser trailer for the much-anticipated Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins. If you blinked, you may have missed it.

Many of the book’s fans were upset with the casting of blonde Jennifer Lawrence as the dark-haired, olive-skinned Katniss Everdeen. This, at least, shows that she looks the part, but the reaction, according to CBS News, is that, the trailer is catnip for fans, but confusing for newcomers.

The first in the four-part movie series arrives March 23, 2012.

Ray Bradbury turned 91 on Monday and received some enviable presents. Alice Hoffman published a tribute in the L.A. Times, describing how, as a teenager, his books insulated her “from the despair of a family that was breaking apart.”

News also broke that Mike Medavoy (Black Swan) is producing a film version of Bradbury’s 1957 novel Dandelion Wine (Knopf). Bradbury, who will write the screenplay, expressed his joy over the new project,

This is the best birthday gift I could ask for. Today, I have been reborn! Dandelion Wine is my most deeply personal work and brings back memories of sheer joy as well as terror. This is the story of me as a young boy and the magic of an unforgettable summer which still holds a mystical power over me.

For those who haven’t read the book in a while, this line is a reminder of the book’s magic,

Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered.

Many have called it “unfilmable,” but the Wachowski siblings (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run) will try their hands at adapting David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, beginning in mid-September, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

They face the challenge of adapting a book that connects six stories set in different time periods and locations. The actors will play multiple roles and the production will involve two parallel shoots.

The film stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, Ben Whishaw and Jim Broadbent.

W. Ralph Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress, points out, as have others, that the movie The Help glosses over “what a truly dark time it was in Jackson” during the Civil Rights era.

In the film, a young woman, Skeeter Phelan, writes a book about the lives of the maids in Jackson, Mississippi, which reflects the tense relationship between whites and blacks during that time.

On NPR’s All things Considered last night, Eubanks says that, in real life, Eudora Welty did something similar, but much darker. She wrote the short story  “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” about the murder of African-American civil rights worker Medgar Evers from the point of view of his white killer, “bravely capturing the feelings that were in the air in Jackson that year.” He concludes, “Whether or not you liked The Help‘s optimistic tone, read ‘Where Is the Voice Coming From?’ to fill in a piece of the story that’s missing from the minute the credits begin to roll.”

The story is included in The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (HMH; Mariner trade pbk, 9780156189217).

Called a “surprise summer hit” by USA Today, the film version of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help has brought in an estimated total of $71.8 million since it’s opening two weeks ago, which is “a rare success story for a modestly budgeted drama in summer.”

It rose to #1 at the box office, easily trouncing the weekend’s two book-to-movie debuts, both considered flops. Coming in at a lowly #9, One Day (based on last summer’s best selling original trade paperback by David Nicholls, Knopf) is the second film, and the second disappointment (after Reservation Road, based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz), from Random House’s joint venture with Focus Films.

Based on a series of short stories, (although more closely associated with an earlier film starring a former California governor) Conan the Barbarian came in at #4. Not only was it considered a bust, but also a sign that star Jason Momoa should forget about a sequel and that audiences are falling out of love with 3-D films. The NYT says a variety of factors hurt the film, including “…a lack of interest by women in the subject matter, terrible reviews and a release date when consumers were distracted with vacations or back-to-school preparations.”

Below are the estimates of this weekend’s top-grossing movies, as reported by Box Office Mojo. Titles in bold are based on books; for tie-in information, see our “Movies Based on Books, Upcoming — with Tie-ins”

1. The Help, $20.5 million; $71.8 million, second week 
2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, $16.3 million; $133.8 million, third week
3. Spy Kids 4D, $12 million, first weekend
4. Conan the Barbarian, $10 million, first weekend 
5. The Smurfs, $8 million; $117.8 million, fourth week
6. Fright Night, $7.9 million, first weekend
7. Final Destination 5, $7.7 million; $32.3 million, second week
8. 30:Minutes or Less, $6.3 million; $25.8 million, second week
9. One Day, $5.1 million, first weekend 
10. Crazy, Stupid, Love., $4.95 million; $64.4 million, fourth week

Below is the harrowing trailer for one of the sensations of the Cannes Film Festival, We Need to Talk about Kevin, based on the book by Lionel Shriver. The movie, directed by Lynne Ramsay, stars Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as the parents of the disturbed teenager Kevin, played by Ezra Miller.

It opens in a limited, Oscar-qualifying run in the US on Dec. 2 (the date at the end of the trailer is the British release date).

Tom Perotta’s forthcoming novel, The Leftovers, about what happens to those left behind after the Rapture, is being developed into a series by HBO, reports Variety. Perotta is writing the script and will co-produce. Two of his earlier books, Election and Little Children were made into film.

The Leftovers Tom Perrotta Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2011-08-30) ISBN / EAN: 9780312358341/ 031235834

Macmillan Audio

Talk about a long time between sequels; a third installment of Bridget Jones, both book and movie, are in the works. Entertainment Weekly has confirmed that Working Title Films, the company that produced both 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and the 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, is at work on a third.

The story references an earlier report in the London Evening Standard that Helen Fielding, author of the two Bridget Jones books, was at work on a third. She told the newspaper, “I will be working on both the book and the film but I don’t know if they are the same thing yet. It’s not been decided.”

Reviews are breaking for one of the season’s biggest movies based on a book, The Help. Disney imposed an embargo until yesterday, the movie’s opening day, but that was broken by many bloggers, including Tyler Perry, who shared his enthusiasm with his fans. The studio is concerned about the movie’s reception as evidenced by a special NAACP screening, part of what the L.A. Times refers to as Dreamwork’s “delicate task of selling the film to moviegoers, black and white, who might be reluctant to rekindle unpleasant memories of segregation.” UPDATE, 8/11: The Assoc. of Black Women Historians issued a statement about The Help, saying it, “distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers.” (via Entertainment Weekly).

On NPR’s FreshAir yesterday, David Edelstein says the movie is heavy-handed, but saved by strong acting. The Christian Science Monitor rounded up the reviews so far, calling them “mixed, but mostly positive.”

For a while, it looked like the adaptation of Max Brooks’ zombie apocalypse novel World War Z, (Crown, 2006) might not happen because of the $125 million budget. New investors came along and the movie began filming in Glasgow, starring Brad Pitt, with Marc Foster directing. As a further indicator that it will see the light of the silver screen, it now has a release date of Dec. 21, 2012.

That also happens to be the release date of  Ang Lee’s adaptation of The Life of Pi starring Tobey McGuire.