Move over Claire Danes! Keira Knightley is currently being courted to star as Eliza Doolittle in a bigscreen remake of My Fair Lady. (Ms. Danes was pretty boring in the recent stage revival). Ms. Knightley will continue with the period movies with a romantic twist. She's already made her name as an actress in King Arthur, Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and maybe you can throw Pirates of the Caribbean in there too. She does look very pretty in those huge Victorian gowns that cinch at her teeny tiny waist.

In My Fair Lady she'll play the rag-tag Cockney girl who is transformed into an elegant lady by a conniving professor. Variety reports:  read more »

The genuinely talented Joe Wright has made a film to make us believe in movies again. MORE ...  read more »

Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt think stripping for the camera—any camera—is poor form. But Keira Knightley sure doesn’t seem to mind. For Interview’s December/January issue, the Atonement star says sayonara to her fashionable frippery. (Never mind that she looks like actress Famke Janssen’s evil, thigh-clamping character in GoldenEye on the cover; at least the poor thing doesn’t have Tom Ford chewing on her ear.) But, hey—that’s okay! Human beings are deeper, more complex than just a two-dimensional photo or a clip of their bosoms-n-bums. “People are many different things at once,” Ms. Knightley told the floppy pub. “We can be complete wankers one minute and totally fantastic the next.”

Next! At just 22 years old, Ms. Knightley—who must by now have more magazine covers under her, um, garter than Cindy—thinks of her present self as enjoying a “Hollywood-glamour phase.” Gone are the days, the actress said, of her “girl next door” persona, and thank God for that! “I think it’s wonderful to have those aesthetic fantasies [of Hollywood-glamour]. Those films pretend that you can wake up in the morning with bright red lipstick and perfect false eyelashes and hair,” she said, seemingly forgetting about people like the singer Eve, who needn't pretend at all. “I have always loved being transported to another time and place, and I love to be carried away in a fantasy.” Yup, that is pretty fun.

Those who want to be hauled off to Lala Land by Ms. Knightley, can take a trip to director Joe Wright’s Atonement, which opens on Friday.

Despite all expectations, 2007 is turning out to be a sorry year for movies. That’s why Atonement has rejuvenated my flagging energy at the very last minute. Elegantly directed by Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice), meticulously acted by a perfect cast, immaculately adapted by the great British screenwriter Christopher Hampton and lavishly filmed with a respect for both intimate detail and sweeping narrative, Atonement is everything a true lover of literature and movies could possibly hope for. It is unquestionably, without any reservations, my favorite film of the year.  read more »

Joe Wright’s Atonement, from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by Ian McEwan, transforms a misguided adolescent error of judgment with tragic consequences into an ironic epic of a heroic period in British history. This serves to illuminate how helpless we all are when we try to swim against the current of global forces, not to mention the inexorable tide of time itself. This film is also one of the most successful adaptations of a distinguished novel I have ever seen. It gives me renewed faith that good and great movies can still be made even under the present chaotic conditions in the world’s film industries, and in the proliferation of technological substitutes for old-fashioned habitual moviegoing.

I must confess at this point that, try as I may, I cannot explain why Atonement is so good without giving away its convoluted trick plot. So those of my readers who have either not read the book or read or heard anything about the twists in the film’s narrative are advised to read no further in this essentially rave review, if they are in the habit of feeling betrayed by the critic’s disclosure of the story’s details.  read more »

To the odd outsider, Keira Knightley may appear to maintain a fairly constant cotton-candy disposition. But apparently that’s not the case…at all. In the December issue of Elle, Ms. Knightley, 22, explains that she is, in fact, “a moody bastard.” During the midst of an apparent rant, the Atonement star admitted that she’s been banned from reading newspapers, because the way they’re written makes her furious. “If I want an opinion, I’ll read the opinion part of the newspaper. I do not want it when I’m trying to get the facts. I get incredibly angry. It really f—ks me off. See, I have to calm down about it.” Whoa! F—ks me off?

Other things that have been banned from Ms. Knightley’s life: the word “cute” and answering her cell phone. “I hate them. It rings, and then I realize that I don’t want to talk to anyone. So I always press ignore.”

Keira Knightley: “I’m a Moody Bastard” [US]