Kate’s Moment

Well, all I can say is, girlfriend better win Sunday or this TIME mag cover story will have been ill-planned. Mark Harris got the cover story:

Best Actress – Why it’s Kate Winslet
By Mark Harris

It’s 11 days before the Academy Awards, and Kate Winslet is giving her third best performance of the year. The occasion is a lunch at New York City’s Oak Room at which 100 or so invited guests have gathered to honor her performance in Stephen Daldry’s The Reader. This particular publicity event, orchestrated in the 26th mile of the Oscar marathon, has multiple purposes: it’s designed to entice any wavering voters in the few days before the last postmark lands on the last ballot. It’s also intended to defuse complaints that the movie’s treatment of the Holocaust is too manicured. Thus, Elie Wiesel has been drafted to host the meal, which would have been a masterly counterstroke of damage control for distributor Harvey Weinstein had Wiesel not bailed at the last minute to attend ‚Äî oh, bitter irony of the red-carpet campaign trail! ‚Äî a bris.