Three years ago, reviews for "The Da Vinci Code" were savage, with the film adaptation of the Dan Brown bestseller rating only 46 at Meta Critic and a jaw-dropping 10 among the top tier of reviewers surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes. Tom Hanks was ridiculed for growing long tresses to play the part of crime-solving professor Robert Langdon. And helmer Ron Howard came under attack for his handling of the fanciful plot.

Indeed, the Oscar-winning director ("A Beautiful Mind") received the only Razzie nomination of his career for "The Da Vinci Code." In an ironic twist, he lost this dubious honor to M. Night Shyamalan, who had helmed "Lady in the Water," which featured Howard's actress daughter Bryce Dallas Howard in the title role. Shyamalan would win a record four Razzies that night as he also wrote, produced and costarred in this dud.

Howard had the last laugh as his film took in  $217 million in the U.S. — to rank fifth for the year – and a staggering $540 million in the rest of the world. "The Da Vinci Code" even landed a 2007 People's Choice Award nomination though it lost the title of favorite movie drama to the No. 1 domestic box office draw "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

With his win for "Milk," Sean Penn became the ninth man to have matching lead actor Oscar bookends, having earned his first in 2003 for "Mystic River." While Penn only had to wait five years to win that second Oscar, last year's champ Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") didn't gain entry to this exclusive club until 18 years after winning his first Oscar in 1989 for "My Left Foot."

The first seven actors to pull off this impressive feat were:

Spencer Tracy ("Captains Courageous" 1937; "Boys Town" 1938);

Fredric March ("Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" 1932; "The Best Years of Our Lives" 1946);

Gary Cooper ("Sergeant York" 1941; "High Noon" 1952);

Marlon Brando ("On the Waterfront" 1954; "The Godfather" 1972);

Dustin Hoffman ("Kramer v. Kramer" 1979; "Rain Man" 1988);

Tom Hanks ("Philadelphia" 1993; "Forrest Gump" 1994); and

Jack Nicholson ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" 1975; "As Good As It Gets" 1997).

Eleven women — Luise Rainer, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Vivien Leigh, Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, Glenda Jackson, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Jodie Foster, and Hilary Swank — each have two lead actress Oscars. And then there is Katharine Hepburn who reigns supreme with a staggering four lead actress Oscars.

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Good news for Sean Penn fans: At the end of "Milk" — SPOILER ALERT — you get to watch your hero get blown away by gunfire.

Sorry, but that seems to be the price Penn must pay if he wants to win another Oscar to match the chunk of academy gold he nabbed for 2003's "Mystic River." That's because gay roles that win Academy Awards for actors almost always must suffer ghastly deaths.

No star has ever won an Oscar for portraying a gay, lesbian or transgender person who lives happily ever after. The character of Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) gets to live, yes, at the end of "Capote," but we know that he'll end up croaking from booze and pills someday while stumbling around Joanne Carson's house in Beverly Hills.

The five other roles that paid off with Oscars have horrible ends on screen: Tom Hanks dies of AIDS in "Philadelphia," Hilary Swank gets beaten to death in "Boys Don't Cry," Nicole Kidman commits suicide in "The Hours," Charlize Theron is executed in "Monster," and William Hurt gets shot — much like Sean Penn — in "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

If you don't count roles that just hint at a character's homosexuality (Paul Newman in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" or Tom Courtenay in "The Dresser"), I've tallied up 28 gay, lesbian and transgender roles that have been nominated for Oscars. (Have I missed any? If so, click the comments link below.)

Nine get killed off. Some snuff themselves: Kathy Bates uses a pistol in "Primary Colors," Ian McKellen drowns himself in "Gods and Monsters," Ed Harris jumps out a window in "The Hours, " Javier Bardem dies of AIDS in "Before Night Falls."

The fact that Sean Penn is heterosexual in real life hikes his Oscar hopes significantly. No gay person has ever won an Academy Award for playing gay, and only two openly homosexual actors have been nominated for portraying someone with a lavender lilt: James Coco and Ian McKellen. Coco wasn't officially and fully "out" of the closet, but he was candid about his private life to friends and colleagues and frequently flaunted a flamboyant nature in public.

ACTORS NOMINATED FOR GAY ROLES
(X = Winner)
Estelle Parsons ("Rachel, Rachel") (1968)
Peter Finch, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971)
Al Pacino, "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975)
Chris Sarandon, "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975)
John Lithgow, "World According to Garp" (1982)
Marcello Mastroianni, "A Special Day" (1977)
James Coco, "Only When I Laugh" (1981)
Robert Preston, "Victor, Victoria" (1982)
Cher, "Silkwood" (1983)
X - William Hurt, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985)
Bruce Davison, "Longtime Companion" (1990)
Tommy Lee Jones, "JFK" (1991)
Jaye Davidson, "The Crying Game" (1992)
X - Tom Hanks, "Philadelphia" (1993)
Greg Kinnear, "As Good as It Gets" (1997)
Ian McKellen, "Gods and Monsters" (1998)
Kathy Bates, "Primary Colors" (1998)
X - Hilary Swank, "Boys Don't Cry" (1999)
Javier Bardem, "Before Night Falls" (2000)
Ed Harris, "The Hours" (2002)
X - Nicole Kidman, "The Hours" (2002)
Julianne Moore, "The Hours" (2002)
X - Charlize Theron, "Monster" (2003)
X - Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Capote" (2005)
Felicity Huffman, "Transamerica" (2005)
Heath Ledger, "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)
Jake Gyllenhaal, "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)
Judi Dench, "Notes on a Scandal" (2006)

Photos: TriStar, Island Alive, Miramax, Fox Searchlight

While Kate Winslet made Oscar history by racking up five nominations before she was 32, this English beauty has yet to win. If, as expected, she gets a nod for one of her upcoming performances in "Revolutionary Road" and "The Reader" and loses again, she will have tied the dubious achievements of lead Deborah Kerr and supporting player Thelma Ritter with six losses. And if, as some in the forums are speculating, she pulls off that Oscar rarity and reaps nominations for both roles and remains winless she would stand alone as Oscar's biggest loser among actresses. (Peter O'Toole is the biggest loser among actors with eight defeats).

To perform that Oscar double act means Winslet will have to decide which role is leading and which supporting as performers cannot compete twice in the same category. And the debate in the forums about which role is which is fierce. To date, Winslet has had no luck in either race with two losing supporting nods – "Sense and Sensibility" (1996) and "Iris" (2002) and three losing lead bids – "Titanic" (1998), "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2005) and "Little Children" (2007).

"Revolutionary Road" reunites Winslet with her "Titanic" leading man Leonardo DiCaprio under the direction of her Oscar-winning husband Sam Mendes ("American Beauty"). This domestic drama set in the '50s has a glossy look about it but one wonders whether it is all style and no substance. With the recent news that Mendes will not even begin the final polish of the film till September, this puts it out of the running for launching at one of the film fests –- Venice, Toronto and New York –- that are gaining in importance as starting off points for Oscar campaigns. Rather, the movie will open in the last week of December but this may well be too late to build momentum given the accelerated nominating schedule as of late.

On paper, Winslet's other December release, "The Reader" certainly seems like the kind of prestige production that gets showered with Oscar nominations. Adapted by David Hare from the bestselling novel (and Oprah book club pick) by Bernard Schlink, the film is directed by Stephen Daldry ("The Hours") and co-stars Ralph Fiennes.

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Hurry, weekend! I can't wait to see HBO's new miniseries "John Adams," which commences at 8 p.m. ET this Sunday, then continues through seven installments at 9 p.m. every subsequent Sunday till April 20. See the full TV sked HERE plus background info at the program's special website — HERE.

What looks great about this inevitable future winner of the Emmy Award for best miniseries is that it takes a leisurely pace to tell the tale of American independence through the perspective of our least statuesque, most bungling, most bizarre and most interesting founding father.

Produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman ("Band of Brothers") for $100 million, it was directed by Tom Hooper ("Longford," "Elizabeth I") and written by co-exec producer Kirk Ellis ("Into the West") based upon David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller. It stars Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as his firebrand wife, Abigail. Timespan covered: Boston Massacre of 1770 to Adams' death in 1826.

"I don't think any film that's been done about this all-important part of our [national] story has ever been done with such authenticity," McCullough boasts in the promo video below.

Oh, yeah? That's what I hope to see, all right, but am skeptical. From the trailer and early PR info, this looks like the classic, butt-smooching, flag-waving treatment instead. First off, why, oh, why did they cast Giamatti? Sure, he has a schlubby, everyman quality about him, which Adams did too, but that was a secondary characteristic of America's second president. Adams was widely loathed and despised because he was insufferably smug, lording over everyone with cartoonish pomposity. I don't see any of that coming through in the video trailers below.

Nor have I heard that this miniseries bothers to show us Adams' creepy dark side — why his enemies believed he was a dangerous buffoon who secretly plotted to wipe out democracy in favor of a Federalist aristocracy that could rule with absolute, unchecked power.

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Today's announcement of the first wave of presenters and performers at the 80th annual Oscars included both the expected (all four of last year's acting winners will be on hand) and the somewhat surprising (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in a tux).

It is easy enough to predict that last year's Oscar-winning quartet of actors will be bestowing awards on their opposite sex counterparts this year (i.e., Forest Whitaker will hand out best actress, Helen Mirren best actor, and Alan Arkin and Jennifer Hudson the supporting gongs). In a year when so many of the winners seem obvious, it is more of a guessing game to figure out who will be giving them their awards.

While a trio of two-time Oscar winners are scheduled to appear -- Tom Hanks (an Academy governor to boot), Denzel Washington, and Hilary Swank –- it could well be Harrison Ford who hands out the best picture award. He has done it twice in the past –- first in 1993 when his pal Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" won as expected and then in 1998 when Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" was pipped at the post by "Shakespeare in Love." Hanks has handed out this honor only once, in 2001, when his pal Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" prevailed.

With Martin Scorsese there to possibly present best director, Hanks could be handling the "In Memoriam" segment or perhaps a tribute to the first eight decades of the Academy. Regardless, it would be surprising of these double Oscar winners — along with a pair of one-time winners who are nominees this year, George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, and previous winners Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger -- did not dole out the top tier of prizes. Washington and Swank could preside over the screenplay awards while Kidman and Zellweger, one-time co-stars in "Cold Mountain," present best foreign film and "The Good German" stars Blanchett and Clooney could award cinematography and editing.

For Clooney, the other option might be to present the clip from best picture contender "Michael Clayton." With Josh Brolin there for "No Country for Old Men," James McAvoy "Atonement," and Jennifer Garner "Juno," only "There Will Be Blood" is without a representative.

Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz seem like a good fit for costume design and art direction while another beauty, Jessica Alba, will be recapping the technical Oscar ceremony she presided over last weekend.

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A day after being snubbed by the SAG awards, this A List project is doing well with a good critics' score at Rotten Tomatoes (78 was based on 90 notices), but less so at Meta Critic, averaging 66 based upon 23 reviews.

Among those who enjoyed the movie most was Lou Lumenick of the New York Post who thought, "Oscar winners Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mike Nichols, with the help of 'West Wing' scribe Aaron Sorkin, find considerable laughter in this allegedly fact-based mission improbable."

Writing for AP, Christy Lemire calls the film, "a crisp, biting satire that confidently mixes sex and politics, glides along so smartly and smoothly, it makes you wonder how it's possible that director Mike Nichols and writer Aaron Sorkin have never teamed up before." She says, "When you're thinking about a Scotch-guzzling, good ol' boy bachelor, Hanks may not immediately spring to mind, but he finds the sweetness within Wilson's legendary charisma. (Amusingly, one of the many women Wilson dated over the years was Nichols' current wife, Diane Sawyer.) He and a brash, breezy Roberts enjoy some appealing flirty exchanges, if not much sexual chemistry. But then Hoffman, a force of nature in every character role, storms in and blows away everyone in his path."

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Tonight in New York City was the first media screening of "Charlie Wilson's War." At the end, there was respectful applause. A journo pal who accompanied me as guest pretty much summed up what I thought, too: he liked it, but wasn't wowed, as he had hoped, given the pedigree of its creators.

That is "Charlie's" biggest problem. Expectations are stratosphere-high considering who's involved — past Oscar champs Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman enacting a script by Aaron Sorkin (author of Emmy winner "The West Wing" and Oscar best-pic nominee "A Few Good Men") that's directed by Mike Nichols (Oscar champ for helming "The Graduate").

Now that we've seen it: Will it be nominated for best picture? Well . . . hmmm . . . perhaps . . . but it's certainly not going to win. The lead film critic of one of New York's top three newspapers doesn't think it'll get a best-pic bid. Told me he even expects it to flop at the box office — I wouldn't predict that outrght, but I could see that happening. Not that it's a bad film. It's quite good. Solid. Well made and well played. But it's yet another Iraq/Afghan war film in a year crowded with many and it doesn't do what "The Kite Runner" does: doesn't take the wind out of you, like great movies are supposed to do. That's why "Kite" probably has the best shot for a best-pic bid from among all of these war pix.

"Charlie Wilson's War" is everything you expect when you learn the premise from advance promos: Tom Hanks does a solid acting job as boozy playboy congressman who teams up with a hawkish Texas tycoon (Roberts) and an obnoxious slob from the C.I.A. (Hoffman) to help rebels oust the Russians from Afghanistan. There's much high-minded talk about freedom and fine scotch and there's much boozing and smoking and sex and eating throughout this pic. But at no point was I gripped and breathless, wondering what would happen next. And at no point did I look back at the last scene and think, "Marvelous!"

However, Aaron Sorkin's script snaps and crackles with enough bon mots that he might get nommed. Hoffman is a strong contender for supporting actor. He has the best shot among potential performance nominees, I think. It's not impossible for costars Julia Robert or Tom Hanks to nab a nom, but neither one of them will win.

Bottom line: "Charlie Wilson's War" is good, but it isn't the great movie people expect. How forgiving will Hollywood be?

No Oscars expert is permitted to have a casual opinion on this hotly debated question: Which film really deserved to win best picture of 1998 — "Saving Private Ryan" or the one that pulled off a last-minute upset, "Shakespeare in Love"?

Beware: It's the most controversial Oscar question you can ask today. Every time it gets posed in The Envelope's message boards, a nuclear cyber-war erupts — and everybody gets burnt in the fallout.

As far as I'm concerned, the answer's obvious: "Shakespeare in Love" was clever, dramatic, richly imagined and brilliantly written and performed.

People who claim to prefer "Saving Private Ryan" are blinded, I say, by the starpower of its actors (Tom Hanks, Matt Damon) and director (Steven Spielberg) and overwhelmed by the BOOM-BANG-KABOOM of that magnificent opening segment on Omaha beach. They don't see through the paint-by-numbers plot or hear the one-dimensional characters recite dialog that would embarrass actors in an elementary-school play. The writer responsible for that travesty, Robert Rodat, eventually got exposed for his hack work. The only big movie he wrote afterward was that gawdawful "The Patriot," in which "no cliche was left unturned," noted TV Guide.

By comparison, "Shakespeare in Love" was penned by Tom Stoppard, arguably the greatest living playwright in the English language. He holds two records at the Tonys: most awards won by a play (7 for "The Coast of Utopia") and most victories for best play ( 4 - "Coast of Utopia," "The Real Thing," "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and "Travesties"). He knows how to write fun commercial pix, too: he was the uncredited script doctor on "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

"Shakespeare in Love's" Oscar-winning script is a masterwork full of perfect-pitch drama, intriguing mystery, crafty dialog, fascinating characters and jokes that dared to aim over the heads of 95 percent of its audiences, which never seemed to care or perhaps didn't even notice. They jammed theaters anyway, turning "Shakespeare" — zounds! — into a surprise hit. Oh, come on! It deserved the Oscar just for making the Bard sexy again!

But many gritty film critics — you know, the macho, unwashed, snarly pussed downtown type — love to blast away at "Shakespeare" because it's so, you know, "sappy." Movies full of unabashed romanticism must be punished and mocked by them because, frankly, those critics are incapable of feeling it and don't understand what it is.

Those are the kind of hyper-guy-guy critics who I love to hate because testosterone predictably blinds them to obvious things like the awful script of "Saving Private Ryan," which they don't notice while being lost in hormonal ecstasy over Spielberg's spectacular killing spree on screen. Sure, that was great action and cinematography, but that alone does not a movie make. Someday when those critics go, inevitably, to hell, I imagine they'll be held captive in a screening room, blindfolded, where Lucifer, at his most sinister, forces them to listen to the words of "Saving Private Ryan" running in the background.

PRIVATE REIBEN (Edward Burns): "Hey, Doc, I got a mother, all right? I mean, you got a mother. Sarge's got a mother. I mean, s**t, I bet even the captain's got a mother. (He turns and looks at Miller, who has a bemused expression on his face.) Well, maybe not the captain, but the rest of us got mothers!"

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Such clever wit must really be heard over and over and over again — for eternity — to be fully appreciated, don't you agree? Let's give those film critics exactly what they deserve.

Have I gotten you "Saving Private Ryan" fans all ticked off yet? Hope so. Having this fight is the fun part of being an Oscar expert. Load your "Private Ryan" rifles and let me have it right back! I dare ya! Click on the "Comments" link below.

(Photos: Miramax, DreamWorks)