Winslet

HOLLYWOOD - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Kate Winslet half her wish, nominating her for best actress for her indelible performance as a one-time concentration-camp guard in The Reader, but skipping over her other acclaimed performance, as a suffering suburban housewife in Revolutionary Road, a film directed by her husband, Sam Mendes. Winslet apparently had hoped to avoid having her two performances go mano a mano by expressing her wish (via the studios' campaigns)

Everyone knows that with the right film at the right time, such as Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscars have an immediate impact on box-office take. But what influence do the Oscars have on movie history, or even on keeping titles prominent in people's minds? Best pictures always have a spot in the record books. They also figure into the comparisons that emerge from the endless award-season handicapping, even if they're dissed the way the delightful Shakespeare in Love (1998) usually is for besting Saving Private Ryan.

Revolutionary Road is a small-spirited depiction of a golden couple in mid-1950s America. As they crash on their own failed hopes and dreams and fall into the trap of a comfortable, convenient life, you wonder whether you'd keep watching were it not for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The movie never draws you into their summer of discontent. Revolutionary Road isn't just a failed literary adaptation. It's a failure of the worst kind: It doesn't even make you want to read Richard Yates' deservedly legendary book.

HOLLYWOOD - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Kate Winslet half her wish, nominating her for best actress for her indelible performance as a one-time concentration-camp guard in The Reader, but skipping over her other acclaimed performance, as a suffering suburban housewife in Revolutionary Road, a film directed by her husband, Sam Mendes. Winslet apparently had hoped to avoid having her two performances go mano a mano by expressing her wish (via the studios' campaigns)

85 Bil Keane Family Circus cartoonist 56 Karen Allen Actress 53 Bob Geldof Rock singer 32 Parminder Nagra Actress 32 Kate Winslet Actress

"Guys, don't talk to me about how long we have to be in water. Hello, been there, done that. I wasn't remotely fazed by it." -- Titanic star Kate Winslet, who spent hours in an oversized kitchen sink while shooting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

EXTRAS: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON -- HBO Video -- $29.98 Before decrying the sad state of TV comedy, check out the first six episodes of the HBO series, Extras, from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, creators of the original BBC version of The Office. From poignancy and pathos, to slapstick and sex-romp farce, Extras offers an emotional range unmatched since the days of M*A*S*H (1972-'83 CBS). Gervais (pronounced Jer-vase), who starred as narcissistic office manager David Brent in the original version of The Office, here plays Andy Millman, an embittered 40-year-old movie extra endlessly scheming for a speaking part.

Enigma, named for the Nazi secret-coding machine, has everything going for it except a pulse. The real-life subject of the brilliant misfit Brits who broke the Nazis' codes couldn't be more compelling. The fictional story of a genius mathematician (Dougray Scott) who carries the torch for a femme fatale (Saffron Burrows) also working at the code-breakers' headquarters, Bletchley Park, brings home the risky excitement of life during wartime. Kate Winslet emerges once again in all her fleshy, brainy glory as another toiler at Bletchley Park and the woman of mystery's roommate.

Thank goodness for the singing slugs. Flushed Away, a tale of pampered versus plucky rats that's the latest effort from the twisted Brit studio that gave us Wallace & Gromit, spends a good bit of its time stuck in comedic neutral - spinning its wheels and debating whether to concentrate on being witty or settle for grade-school-level funny. Fortunately, it shoots more often for the former. When the latter wins out, though, Flushed Away shifts from the sublime to the ordinary, from inventive to pedestrian.

Everyone knows that with the right film at the right time, such as Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscars have an immediate impact on box-office take. But what influence do the Oscars have on movie history, or even on keeping titles prominent in people's minds? Best pictures always have a spot in the record books. They also figure into the comparisons that emerge from the endless award-season handicapping, even if they're dissed the way the delightful Shakespeare in Love (1998) usually is for besting Saving Private Ryan.

... Benjamin Button What it's about : In 1918, Benjamin Button (the never-better Brad Pitt, above) is born with an old face, dilapidated plumbing and wrinkled skin over an infant body. Then he ages backward. Rated: PG-13 The scoop : Every chapter of Button's story brings a fresh air of discovery. And the movie's emotional completeness leaves you poised between sobbing and applauding - it comes from a full comprehension not just of one man's life, but of the intersection of many lives over the course of the 20th century.

Revolutionary Road is a small-spirited depiction of a golden couple in mid-1950s America. As they crash on their own failed hopes and dreams and fall into the trap of a comfortable, convenient life, you wonder whether you'd keep watching were it not for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The movie never draws you into their summer of discontent. Revolutionary Road isn't just a failed literary adaptation. It's a failure of the worst kind: It doesn't even make you want to read Richard Yates' deservedly legendary book.

The Reader ** The Reader wonders what would have happened if Benjamin Braddock had discovered that Mrs. Robinson was a Nazi war criminal. OK, that summary may be a little flippant, but not much. And it suggests the forced solemnity at the heart of this forced allegory about guilt, responsibility and how much succeeding generations should pay emotionally for the sins of their fathers. Ralph Fiennes, in one of his most emotionally stilted performances, plays Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a wide-eyed teenager, had an affair with an older woman, a streetcar conductor named Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet)

85 Bil Keane Family Circus cartoonist 56 Karen Allen Actress 53 Bob Geldof Rock singer 32 Parminder Nagra Actress 32 Kate Winslet Actress

EXTRAS: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON -- HBO Video -- $29.98 Before decrying the sad state of TV comedy, check out the first six episodes of the HBO series, Extras, from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, creators of the original BBC version of The Office. From poignancy and pathos, to slapstick and sex-romp farce, Extras offers an emotional range unmatched since the days of M*A*S*H (1972-'83 CBS). Gervais (pronounced Jer-vase), who starred as narcissistic office manager David Brent in the original version of The Office, here plays Andy Millman, an embittered 40-year-old movie extra endlessly scheming for a speaking part.

When Hollywood was still adult, they were called "women's pictures." They revolved around eternal issues like the tension between personal happiness and wifely duty or motherhood, and the shape these issues took could range from powerhouse tearjerkers such as Imitation of Life to no-holds-barred melodramas such as Mildred Pierce. Today they are called "chick flicks," and they refer to any movie that a girl or a woman is most likely to attend alone or with her gal pals, or with her local chapter of Oprah's Book Club.

The fact that some novels are unfilmable doesn't stop filmmakers from trying. Certainly many thought "The English Patient" was such an impossibility, but along came Anthony Minghella to change all that. Now here's "Jude," a literal version of Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" to try the same trick. But unlike "Patient," it remains a nasty piece of work, made nastier by the big screen and the brilliant cinematography.The film has several definite pleasures, but one stroke so monstrous it takes your breath away and will render the food tasteless in your mouth for a couple of weeks.

The Reader ** The Reader wonders what would have happened if Benjamin Braddock had discovered that Mrs. Robinson was a Nazi war criminal. OK, that summary may be a little flippant, but not much. And it suggests the forced solemnity at the heart of this forced allegory about guilt, responsibility and how much succeeding generations should pay emotionally for the sins of their fathers. Ralph Fiennes, in one of his most emotionally stilted performances, plays Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a wide-eyed teenager, had an affair with an older woman, a streetcar conductor named Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet)

Thank goodness for the singing slugs. Flushed Away, a tale of pampered versus plucky rats that's the latest effort from the twisted Brit studio that gave us Wallace & Gromit, spends a good bit of its time stuck in comedic neutral - spinning its wheels and debating whether to concentrate on being witty or settle for grade-school-level funny. Fortunately, it shoots more often for the former. When the latter wins out, though, Flushed Away shifts from the sublime to the ordinary, from inventive to pedestrian.

As the eccentric Edwardian playwright J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, Johnny Depp gives a subtle, uncanny and, by the end, convulsively moving performance. With a lilting Scottish burr and an unflappable confidence in whimsy, he makes an honest tearjerker out of what could have been the palest ode to imagination. In the movie's fictionalized version of Barrie's life, the writer befriends the widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her brood of sons at a time when his creativity has dried up and his marriage to a fetching, society-minded former actress, Mary Ansell (Rhada Mitchell)