World War II is all over the cinemas these days, with a slew of recent films attempting to go against the grain of received wisdom, focusing on the exceptions, not the rule. Thus we have Jews who fought back fiercely against the Nazis ("Defiance"), Wehrmacht officers who opposed Hitler ("Valkyrie"), and concentration-camp guards who were hot and had a conscience ("The Reader").
"The Reader" earned an Oscar for Kate Winslet — though her performance in Stephen Daldry's wan weepie was hardly her best — but the actress must wince every time that YouTube clip of her from 2005 on the British sitcom "Extras" gets a hit. Quote: "I've noticed if you do a film about the Holocaust, you're guaranteed an Oscar." She was joking, but I doubt the filmmakers were.
"Valkyrie," which features Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, who came this close to blowing up the Fuhrer with a briefcase bomb, went home empty- handed on Oscar night. Obviously, the "good German" story was only good once ("Schindler's List," a multiple Oscar-winner).