Titanic was on TV yesterday, and I happened to get swept into about an hour of it, briefly remembering when an affair with Kate Winslet seemed like the most exciting thing ever. All the tweens had Leonardo DiCaprio and “true lovem” and what have you, but all the guys had was a sweeping epic romance with a few minutes of Kate Winslet’s PG-13 nipples.

Ever since then, Eternal Sunshine, Little Children and, now, The Reader have all tempted me to have a fling with Kate Winslet (who is married to Sam Mendes, who obviously will be too busy with Preacher to notice me coveting his wife).

I’ll let The Reader tell it’s own story for the most part, but there are two interesting facts about it:

1) The film’s release date (12/10 in NY and LA, expansion on Christmas and nation-wide on 1/09/09) was hotly contested between Harvey Weinstein whose company produced the film and producer Scott Rudin, who wanted the film held until 2009 to make way for Revolutionary Road, his Oscar contender that also stars Winslet, who will be getting nominated again this year, possibly twice. Harvey won because that’s what he does.

2) Kate Winslet appeared on Ricky Gervais’ BBC series Extras as herself where she was doing a film about the Holocaust because she was tired of losing out on Oscars, as at the time she had been nominated four times, and that everyone who does a film about the Holocaust wins an Oscar. Granted, in that she played a nun, but still. Here’s her Holocaust movie.

Trailer after the cut!

The Reader stars Ralph Fiennes, David Kross and Kate Winslet, and is directed by Stephen Daldry (the Academy Award nominated director of THE HOURS), from a script by David Hare, and based on the award winning novel by Bernhard Schlink. Schlink’s The Reader has been translated into 39 languages and was the first German novel to reach number one on The New York Times Bestseller List.