Daily News from New York, New York • 672

1 1- 0 Mow movies Happy DagmasDS -ffnir Experts like it for Best Picture, but 'Shine's' in line, too tual rebirth. Grove: "Box-of-fice success doesn't usually translate to a win." Barker: "It has a lot of followers in the Academy." Secrets Lies (8-1): A white woman reunites with the half-black daughter she put up for adoption. Zakim: "An amazing movie, but not the winner." Shine (even Pictures Classics. Here are the Best Picture nominees and panelists' comments (with Del Genio's odds): The English Patient (even money): Dashing explorer has a doomed love affair during World War IL Maltin: "It's headed for a win when 12 Academy branches nominate it" Zakim: "It's going to win." Barker: "Not a By ROBERT DOMINGUEZ Daily News Staff Writer QF HISTORY IS ANY INDI-cation, "The English Patient" with 12 nominations should receive a healthy dose of Oscars Monday night. Films with a high number of nominations usually end up sweeping the Academy Awards, notes Las Vegas odds-maker Lenny Del Genio, who nonetheless also lists "Shine" as an even-money possibility to win for Best Picture.

"I wouldn't bet against 12 nominations," says film analyst Martin Grove. "That means 12 branches of the Academy think it's strong." Besides Grove, a Hollywood Reporter columnist and CNN analyst, the Daily News' panel of Oscar experts includes Leonard Maltin of "Entertainment Tonight," Universal exec Stu Zakim and Michael Barker, co-president of Sony 'GODFATHER' TWOSOME: Pacino and Brando ui Greatest hits live money): True story of troubled Australian pianist David Helfgott, who had a nervous breakdown. Grove: "A strong contender. Could be an upset" Zakim: "Its momentum may sure thing." Fargo (5-1): Black comedy about a small-town cop solving a botched kidnaping. Grove: "Can't rule it out" Jerry Maguire (3-1): Tom Cruise stars as a slick sports agent who undergoes a spiri- have already ahem again in a blood-spattered de- nouement intercut with the religious solemnity of his godson's But "The Godfather" isn't merely a violent tale about an underworld inhabited by bloodthirsty mobsters.

Its story is mainly about family ties, blood and honor. "The Godfather's" status as a film classic was forged by career-making performances from Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, Pacino as youngest son Michael, Robert Duvall as adopted brother Tom Hagen and James Caan as the impulsive, doomed Sonny. Despite Brando's limited screen time, his presence overpowers the film. Yet it's Pacino's performance, as the idealistic war hero turned ruthless crime lord -that takes on new meaning the second time around. To compare the role of Michael Corleone to Pacino's poignant portrayal of real-life- THE GODFATHER.

Reissue. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. At Astor Plaza. Running time: 175 mins.

Rated: R. FROM ITS OPULENT opening wedding sequence to the climactic baptism of blood, "The Godfather" still grips an audience 25 years after its initial release. The saga of Don Vito Cor-leone, head of a powerful 1940s New York mob family, remains as compelling as it was in 1972, when little-known director Francis Ford Coppola turned Mario Puzo's novel into a movie masterpiece. As opposed to the recently rereleased "Star Wars" trilogy, which has had a major renovation, "The Godfather" returns to theaters with only its soundtrack digitally remastered from mono to stereo. Coppola's vision of a twisted American Dream returns to the big screen virtually intact and filmgoers again can revel in all-too-familiar scenes the bloody horse's head; the eye-popping execution of assassin Luca Brasi; the machine gun massacre of Sonny Cor-leone, and the unforgettable finale, when Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) "takes care of all family business" mobster as middle-aged los- er in the new Donnie Braseo" is to see a great carreer come full circle.

Robert Dominguez (Rated Violence.) In its original review on March 16, 1972, the Daily News awarded to 1 "The Godfather." 1 lid i ONE F1ENNES DAY: Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Rennes in tragic romance "The English Patient" lUhere (Directors Come First p3. NEW DIRECTORSNEW FILMS. At Museum of Modem Art, 11 W. 53d (212) 708-9500, today through April 6. Cedric Klapisch is a gifted young director who learned his craft at NYU's film school.

Dave Kehr LOVE SERENADE today at 9, tomorrow at Australia Australian comedies have acquired a reputation for aggressive cute- NCE THE SMALLER SIBLING OF THE NEW York Film Festival, the New DirectorsNew Films series is now 26 years old, and a fully inal sensibility at work. A discovery. O.K. LITTLE ANGEL Sunday at 8:30, Tuesday at Germany A more pitiable character than Ramona (Susanne Lothar) you will not find. This Berlin wallflower works on a lipstick assembly line, dreams all day of love and family and at night has to witness the violent dysfunction of neighbors across the way in her apartment complex.

After bursting out of her shell, Ramona slips into a universe where dreams die hard. Nick Charles THE EIGHTEENTH Sunday at 6, Tuesday at 9:1 Denmark Denmark's vote on whether to join the European Union is the backdrop for this somber tale of random encounters among a handful of ordinary citizens, all caught up in their own struggles. The plot meanders at times and the pace can slow to a crawl. Writerdirector Anders Ronnow-Klarlund's use of black-and-white as wed as color scenes is interesting. But it can also be distracting.

N.C. THE APARTMENT Tomorrow at 9, Sunday at 1 France There's enough homage here to Alfred Hitchcock to warrant a credit, and writerdirector Gilles Mimouni has made a quicksilver-paced I romancesuspensemystery that's worthy of the late film maker. The corkscrew plot exposes the hopelessness of love and the dangers of obsession. A lush score and an attractive cast amid the splendor of Paris complete the too-good-to-be-true portrait. (The film has no relation to the Billy Wilder classic.) i NX.

formed adult in its own right Co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the parent organization of the NYFF, and the Museum of Modern Art, this year's event includes 32 features and shorts from 22 countries, including 14 first films among the features alone. Screenings begin today. Tickets are $8 ($6 for MoMA or Film Society members). WHEN THE CArS AWAY today at 6, tomorrow at France A search for a missing cat leads a lonely young Parisienne, Chloe (Garance Clavel), to a new understanding and appreciation of her neighborhood, a working-class district threatened by gentrification. ness in the wake of "Muriel's Wedding," and this one, a first feature by Shirley Barrett, doesn't entirely avoid that charge.

But Barrett has a few narrative surprises up her sleeve. D.K. CHRONICLE OF A DISAPPEARANCE tomorrow at 6:30, Sunday at Middle East A disarmingty wry political comedy from Palestinian film maker Elia Suleiman; the first half is a deadpan, frequently hilarious account of the ordinariness of life in Nazareth, the second a more pointed examination of what it feels like to be a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem. There is plenty of evidence here of a sharp and orig.