Sometimes, British news is tardy coming across the pond, and other times it simply takes us a little while to collect our composure after crushing disappointment. In this case, it's a little of both, as our longtime crush Helen Mirren has publicly returned the affections of a man who is neither her husband, Taylor Hackford, nor the chiaroscuro possessor of a raised eyebrow that is the mascot of our humble blogspot. No, instead she has fallen under the charms of noted ladykiller and purity ring-eschewer Russell Brand, and this can mean only one thing: trouble.Brand, who will soon be co-starring with Mirren in The Tempest, kicked off the flirtation in the Daily Mail:

A little over a year ago, we noted that celebrated director/visual-flourishist Julie Taymor would be tackling perhaps her most challenging source material yet. This project would afford no opportunities for portentous lion births, or soldiers lugging Lady Liberty across a model Vietnam in an extremely literal interpretation of a Beatles lyric. Rather, Taymor set about adapting Spider-Man into a Broadway musical. Helping to sell audiences on a hovercraft-enabled lead villain whose big showstopper, "Everything's Coming Up Pumpkin Bombs," closes the first act is none other than U2's Bono and The Edge, who came on board as composers. Now all that's left to round out this spider-shit insane idea is you, triple-threat Tobey and Kirsten types!

Taymor is the director who traded the fringe for the masses when she brought The Lion King and Spiderman to life on Broadway. One was a major success and one was a complete disaster. You guess which one's which.

Today's NY Times looks at the behind-the-scenes battle for control of the creative soul of psychedelic Beatles musical Across the Universe unfolding between Revolution Studios head Joe Roth and director Julie Taymor, in which Roth's helpful trimming of about a half hour from her cut and a subsequent test screening of his shorter version has a "helpless" Taymor threatening to take her name off the picture before it becomes a full-blown Rothian abomination. While Team Taymor carefully chose its words in responding to the Times' inquiry into the flap ("Sometimes at this stage of the Hollywood process differences of opinion arise, but in order to protect the film, I am not getting into details at this time."), Roth reminded everyone not to pay too much attention to the hysterical stage lady who can't take constructive criticism like a Mann: