Fanny Brawne

The 19th century gentlewoman Fanny Brawne might have been lost to history were it not for her love affair with the great romantic poet John Keats. Most certainly, Brawne would have been lost to the Twitterati generation were it not for 27-year-old Abbie Cornish's interpretation of her in Jane Campion's "Bright Star," which chronicles her attachment to Keats, who died of tuberculosis at 25. The film opens Friday. "They seemed like two peas in a pod," Cornish says of the couple. "The sense of humor, the sensitivity that was in her was also in him. That was a very rare thing to run into a man like that for her. She grew up in the country.

Michael Jackson's This Is It Sony, $28.96; Blu-ray, $39.95 Part performance film, part behind-the-scenes document, part memorial for a fallen star, "Michael Jackson's This Is It" compiles footage of Jackson's rehearsals for the London concerts he never staged. Fans looking for an approximation of those shows will be disappointed; "This Is It" doesn't include that many full performances of Jackson's songs. But for its rare glimpse at the star's creative process -- and its peek at how surprisingly vital Jackson looked just days before he died -- the film is invaluable.

As the air gets cooler and each week brings newer and better movies, don't forget the wonderful ones that are already in theaters. Especially don't forget "Bright Star," an exquisitely done, emotional love story that marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint, all in the service of the unapologetically romantic belief in "the holiness of the heart's affections." Those words belong to John Keats, and his romance with the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, is utterly transforming in the hands of writer-director Jane Campion and stars Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw.

Just in time to refresh Oscar voters' memories, and to give people who missed it a second chance to see it on the big screen, Jane Campion's "Bright Star" returns to Los Angeles. This exquisitely done, emotional love story marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint, all in the service of the unapologetically romantic belief in "the holiness of the heart's affections." Those words belong to the 19th century English poet John Keats, and his romance with the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, is utterly transforming in the hands of writer-director Campion and stars Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw.

Just in time to refresh Oscar voters' memories, and to give people who missed it a second chance to see it on the big screen, Jane Campion's "Bright Star" returns to Los Angeles. This exquisitely done, emotional love story marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint, all in the service of the unapologetically romantic belief in "the holiness of the heart's affections." Those words belong to the 19th century English poet John Keats, and his romance with the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, is utterly transforming in the hands of writer-director Campion and stars Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw.

"Bright Star" satisfies a hunger we may not have known we had, a hunger for an exquisitely done, emotional love story that marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint, all in the service of an unapologetically romantic belief in "the holiness of the heart's affections." The affections in question are those of the poet who wrote those words, John Keats, perhaps the greatest of England's 19th century Romantics, and Fanny Brawne, literally the girl next door. They met in 1818, when Keats was 23 and Brawne 18, a little more than two years before his dreadful death from tuberculosis.

Michael Jackson's This Is It Sony, $28.96; Blu-ray, $39.95 Part performance film, part behind-the-scenes document, part memorial for a fallen star, "Michael Jackson's This Is It" compiles footage of Jackson's rehearsals for the London concerts he never staged. Fans looking for an approximation of those shows will be disappointed; "This Is It" doesn't include that many full performances of Jackson's songs. But for its rare glimpse at the star's creative process -- and its peek at how surprisingly vital Jackson looked just days before he died -- the film is invaluable.

Abbie Cornish might not have been familiar with the work of 19th century poet John Keats or his muse Fanny Brawne when she first read the script for director Jane Campion's "Bright Star," but she says she immediately fell in love with the couple. Instantly connecting with their story informed her performance in the film, in which she plays Brawne, a spirited woman who carries on a brief and doomed relationship with Keats soon before he loses his life to tuberculosis. "There were so many different facets to [Fanny]

This very modern romance between a poet and a young fashionista is also a period piece respectful of its 19th century roots -- a neat trick director Jane Campion has managed with something close to perfection. This lush romantic drama puts its filmmaker's talents in sharp relief while it showcases the remarkable trio at the heart of this tale: Ben Whishaw as John Keats, the poet who would be dead by 25; Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne, the feisty fashion-centric girl next door; and lastly, the wonderful Paul Schneider as Keats' best friend, Charles Armitage Brown, whose attempts to derail the love affair were too little, too late.

In David Shepard's solo show "Keats" at the Asylum Theatre, Austin Pendleton portrays the brilliant British poet during the final days before his death in Rome. Attended only by his faithful painter friend Charles Severn, Keats ponders the ironies of his tragically short life, especially the rejection of his works by the British critical establishment--and his rejection by Fanny Brawne, the object of his obsessive passion.

Abbie Cornish might not have been familiar with the work of 19th century poet John Keats or his muse Fanny Brawne when she first read the script for director Jane Campion's "Bright Star," but she says she immediately fell in love with the couple. Instantly connecting with their story informed her performance in the film, in which she plays Brawne, a spirited woman who carries on a brief and doomed relationship with Keats soon before he loses his life to tuberculosis. "There were so many different facets to [Fanny]

As the air gets cooler and each week brings newer and better movies, don't forget the wonderful ones that are already in theaters. Especially don't forget "Bright Star," an exquisitely done, emotional love story that marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint, all in the service of the unapologetically romantic belief in "the holiness of the heart's affections." Those words belong to John Keats, and his romance with the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, is utterly transforming in the hands of writer-director Jane Campion and stars Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw.

"Bright Star" satisfies a hunger we may not have known we had, a hunger for an exquisitely done, emotional love story that marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint, all in the service of an unapologetically romantic belief in "the holiness of the heart's affections." The affections in question are those of the poet who wrote those words, John Keats, perhaps the greatest of England's 19th century Romantics, and Fanny Brawne, literally the girl next door. They met in 1818, when Keats was 23 and Brawne 18, a little more than two years before his dreadful death from tuberculosis.

The 19th century gentlewoman Fanny Brawne might have been lost to history were it not for her love affair with the great romantic poet John Keats. Most certainly, Brawne would have been lost to the Twitterati generation were it not for 27-year-old Abbie Cornish's interpretation of her in Jane Campion's "Bright Star," which chronicles her attachment to Keats, who died of tuberculosis at 25. The film opens Friday. "They seemed like two peas in a pod," Cornish says of the couple. "The sense of humor, the sensitivity that was in her was also in him. That was a very rare thing to run into a man like that for her. She grew up in the country.

Most people, aside from lit majors, think of the English Romantic poets as a group of distracted, pasty-faced airheads who never ventured out into the sun. Actually, they were a very diverse and sometimes randy bunch. Coleridge and Blake probably would have plugged right into the Melrose art scene. Shelley and Byron certainly liked to go to the beach; today they'd be making film deals in Malibu colony, driving BMWs and paying lots of child support.

Jane Campion has been many things, including the only woman to win the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and an inspiration, she only recently found out, to Quentin Tarantino, who confided that her success with "The Piano" emboldened him to feel "you could keep your own voice and find an audience." But she never thought she'd end up as a disappointment to the video split operator on her latest film, "Bright Star."