Winona Ryder

The shoplifting case against actress Winona Ryder moved closer to trial with a judge setting pretrial proceedings and suggesting the trial will start in October. Ryder, 30, did not appear at the courthouse yesterday for a conference between her attorney and the prosecutor to determine the schedule. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox set a hearing for Thursday and said he expected the trial to begin within 30 days of that date. Ryder previously pleaded innocent to charges of second-degree burglary, grand theft, vandalism and possession of a controlled substance.

David Wain, director of Wet Hot American Summer, creator of the sketch comedy series The State and founding member of the improv troupe Stella, brings his popular brand of surrealist yet mundane humor to the big screen with more or less dreadful results. A collection of short films based on the Ten Commandments, The Ten is presented by Paul Rudd as a narrator character who lives in a black void with a pair of gigantic stone tablets lurking in the background. His marriage (Famke Janssen plays his wife)

"How far should I go?" Winona Ryder asked Richard Benjamin, director of "Mermaids.""You're 15, crazy about him, thinking outrageous thoughts . . . ," he suggested, letting the film roll as Ryder fell onto her love interest (Michael Schoeffling) and -- behind his back but in plain view of the camera -- gave the actor's jacket a surreptitious lick.That touch is one of the more inspired in the film, a coming-of-age drama in which Ryder plays the religious daughter of a promiscuous mom (Cher)

WASHINGTON - On Christmas Day, it will be 20 years since Michael Jackson's Thriller album debuted on the pop charts. Twenty years since the rules changed, 20 years since the record book was rewritten, 20 years since the onset of a globe-straddling phenomenon. And 20 years since Michael Jackson disappeared. I know what you're saying. "What do you mean, disappeared? Didn't I just see him on television, dangling his baby over a balcony? Didn't I hear about him going to court wearing a surgical mask?

A mug shot could be your ticket to a bit part in a movie. You won't see your name in lights, but you may make it to the big screen next year.Work as an extra with Winona Ryder and the cast of "Boys" in a week of carnival rides and greasy french fries. Extra work may not lead to fame and fortune, but it offers fun and remuneration.Pay is $60 a night for a job full of "rolls" and "cuts" and labor that promises to be more tedious than strenuous."There will be a lot of sitting around while the crew is setting up shots," said Jennifer Milstein, casting agent for a Baltimore company charged with finding the extras.

Winona was in Westminster on Friday.The clues were all there for the many male fans yearning for a glimpse of Winona Ryder."BOYS" printed on a large orange sign marked the spot on Route 140. Dressing rooms with starred doors were loaded on a tractor-trailer near the state police barracks. Cameras, production gear and thick black cables covered the parking lot.For weeks, it had been rumored that Ms. Ryder would be filming scenes from her newest movie -- "Boys" -- in Carroll County. Exact time and location were a secret as dark as the star's ebony tresses.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Film star Winona Ryder was convicted yesterday of felony grand theft and vandalism for shoplifting more than $5,500 in designer merchandise from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. The Oscar-nominated actress, who was acquitted of a burglary charge, sat motionless as she watched the Superior Court clerk read the verdicts. Ryder refused to discuss the case before leaving the courthouse, saying only, "I'm sorry. Thanks for asking. I just can't talk right now." Although the actress faces a possible three-year prison term, prosecutors said they do not plan to demand jail time at her sentencing hearing, scheduled for Dec. 6. Deputy District Attorney Ann Rundle said she will ask the judge to place Ryder, who has no previous criminal record, on probation.

Los Angeles Winona Ryder sits cross-legged and barefoot on a sagging green couch in an empty living room.Ms. Ryder, who likes to say that she has come of age on screen about 900 times, is, equally painfully, coming of age in bTC "Mermaids," "Edward Scissorhands" and real life.Six weeks past her 19th birthday, she has recently acquired a number of Hollywood necessities: Starring roles in two new Christmas movies, an engagement ring from a television star who has tattooed "Winona Forever" on his right arm, her own house in the canyons north of Beverly Hills -- and the knowledge that youth and a kind heart will not keep you out of the supermarket tabloids.

Hell, it is said, hath no fury like a woman scorned, but that statement has a corollary that bears repeating: Movies about scorned women are really cool.Why, then, one wonders, does "The Crucible" lose interest in its second half with Winona Ryder's crazed and evil yet astute Abigail Williams, who is driving it ahead like an evangelical in full froth? The story at the halfway point exiles her to its environs, and seldom again do we feel the lash of her dementia, the whip of her wit, the focus of her anger and crucifying will.

Now that we're at the end of the year -- and fed up with articles on how to stay trim and have that box of Christmas cookies -- it's a perfect time for the self-reflective pieces offered in the December issues of Vogue and Esquire. The reflecting is being done by movie stars Winona Ryder and Sylvester Stallone. Both actors talk about seeking liberation from the images that brought them stardom -- Ryder in an OK Vogue article that could have dug deeper, and Stallone in a long, fascinating Q & A with interviewer Susan Faludi, the feminist author of "Backlash."

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Film star Winona Ryder was convicted yesterday of felony grand theft and vandalism for shoplifting more than $5,500 in designer merchandise from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. The Oscar-nominated actress, who was acquitted of a burglary charge, sat motionless as she watched the Superior Court clerk read the verdicts. Ryder refused to discuss the case before leaving the courthouse, saying only, "I'm sorry. Thanks for asking. I just can't talk right now." Although the actress faces a possible three-year prison term, prosecutors said they do not plan to demand jail time at her sentencing hearing, scheduled for Dec. 6. Deputy District Attorney Ann Rundle said she will ask the judge to place Ryder, who has no previous criminal record, on probation.

The shoplifting case against actress Winona Ryder moved closer to trial with a judge setting pretrial proceedings and suggesting the trial will start in October. Ryder, 30, did not appear at the courthouse yesterday for a conference between her attorney and the prosecutor to determine the schedule. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox set a hearing for Thursday and said he expected the trial to begin within 30 days of that date. Ryder previously pleaded innocent to charges of second-degree burglary, grand theft, vandalism and possession of a controlled substance.

SUN SCORE * Simone sets itself an impossible goal. Then doesn't achieve it. That might seem like a tough thing to blame a movie for, but writer/director Andrew Niccol set the bar high, not me. Here's the movie's set-up: Once-flourishing film director Viktor Taransky (Al Pacino) has hit rock-bottom. His last few movies have tanked, his egomaniacal star (played with discomfiting relish by Winona Ryder) has walked off his latest picture, no other actress is willing to work with him, and the studio (in the person of his ex-wife, played by Catherine Keener)

Dear person in charge of teen movies: I just saw Not Another Teen Movie, and I thought it was just a hoot. It expertly wove all the cliches of teen flicks into a modern, raunchy lanyard of tribute, parody and pop savvy. All that and Randy Quaid! Still, it did make it clear as the head cheerleader's complexion that the genre is stagnating. The movies are so transparent and predictable, even the dumbest jock in all the land knows the formula. Enough Freddie Prinze pap; enough touchdowns and uppity cliques already.

There's a reason brides wear veils on their wedding days and it has nothing to do with tradition: It's a safeguard against bad hair. Here's an extra one: Richard Marin -- hair stylist to Jodie Foster, Cindy Crawford and Winona Ryder -- will do the 'do of one bride-to-be (and those of her entourage) at her home on the big day. To get him to your house, all you have to do is win the Helene Curtis "Hair Comes the Bride" contest, which you can enter online at www.helenecurtis.com. The contest ends Aug. 15. --T.B.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dermatologist Vail Reese has two passions: skin and the movies. The result: A Web site devoted to both.On his 3-year-old Web site, www.skinema.com, Reese analyzes movies and movie stars in terms of skin, hair and nails."I always loved film," says Reese, 35, who studied at American Conservatory Theater's Young Conservatory and considered becoming an actor.But his Web site, he says, is more than entertainment. It serves a medical purpose.He uses the characters in movies as well as actors to illustrate the skin ailments he sees in patients.

* ''Edward Sissorhands'' A fairy tale about a young man whose creator, a mad inventor, never got around to giving him human hands. Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder and Dianne Wiest star.* ''Havana'' Robert Redford is a gambler who becomes involved with the wife of a Cuban revolutionary. Lena Olin co-stars.

David Wain, director of Wet Hot American Summer, creator of the sketch comedy series The State and founding member of the improv troupe Stella, brings his popular brand of surrealist yet mundane humor to the big screen with more or less dreadful results. A collection of short films based on the Ten Commandments, The Ten is presented by Paul Rudd as a narrator character who lives in a black void with a pair of gigantic stone tablets lurking in the background. His marriage (Famke Janssen plays his wife)

Johnathon Schaech has it all: A starring role in TNT's new film "Houdini," a beautiful actress girlfriend, and all the buzz in Hollywood as the next "it" actor.But what the Maryland native wants may be more difficult than any of the death-defying stunts he recently performed as the famed magician: for the Orioles to regain some of their lost powerhouse players."We lost Palmeiro," groaned the 29-year-old actor during a telephone interview from the New York set of his new independent film, "Who's On First."

Hell, it is said, hath no fury like a woman scorned, but that statement has a corollary that bears repeating: Movies about scorned women are really cool.Why, then, one wonders, does "The Crucible" lose interest in its second half with Winona Ryder's crazed and evil yet astute Abigail Williams, who is driving it ahead like an evangelical in full froth? The story at the halfway point exiles her to its environs, and seldom again do we feel the lash of her dementia, the whip of her wit, the focus of her anger and crucifying will.