Winslet on Reader Role: It's 'Blown My Mind'

(NEWSER) - The Reader is an “incoherent, exculpatory film” that offers false redemption for "ordinary Germans" involved in the Holocaust through a tired trope and far too much nudity, Ron Rosenbaum writes in Slate. The industry has already erred deeply by nominating the film and Kate Winslet’s performance for Academy Awards. “Please, Hollywood, don't compound the error by giving the Oscar to The Reader.” More»

Actress reunites with DiCaprio, stars in two films likely to earn her some hardware

(NEWSER) - Kate Winslet isn’t a demure lady, she just plays one on the screen. The foul-mouthed, roll-your-own-smokes former “fat girl” was ecstatic to be the youngest actress with five Oscar nominations two years ago, but “you bet your (expletive) ass” she wants to actually win one this time around, the 33-year-old tells Vanity Fair. She’s got a shot with two upcoming films, one with famed on-screen flame Leonardo DiCaprio. More»

(NEWSER) - The trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Inglourious Basterds, is just 100 seconds long, but that's enough. "Perhaps there will prove to be a level of postmodern self-ironising,” Paul MacInnes writes in the Guardian. “Perhaps serving up Kill Bill with the Holocaust as a backdrop will be a fabulously worthwhile endeavor.” More likely, he writes, "This is going to be the worst film ever made!" More»

'Nazi porn' asks use to 'empathize with mass murderer'

(NEWSER) - Mounting criticism of The Reader as an apologia for the Nazis is seriously undermining Kate Winslet's chances for an Oscar, reports the Telegraph. Critics have blasted the film as "Nazi porn," and the author of a book on Hitler charged in a recent article in Slate that it "asks us to empathize with an unrepentant mass murderer." Winslet plays an illiterate concentration camp guard who later seeks redemption by learning to read. More»

Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones return for alien flick

(NEWSER) - Sure, no one was that desperate for a Men in Black 3—but it's actually a pretty good summer movie. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back defending the planet from aliens, and this time, Josh Brolin's along for the ride as a young Jones.

• The movie "turns out to be so much fun," writes AO Scott in the New York Times . While it "carefully fulfills its blockbuster imperatives—with chases and explosions and elaborately contrived plot twists—it swerves into some marvelously silly, unexpectedly witty, and genuinely fresh territory."