With the year winding down, it's time to assess a few actors who haven't been on the radar lately. This is part of the vicissitudes of fame that sometimes your career is hot, other times it's in sleep mode and other times it's just over.

For example, what ever became of Helen Hunt? She won the Oscar for "As Good As It Gets" a decade ago, but was last seen in 2006's "Bobby," in one of many supporting roles. She does have a movie called "And Then She Found Me" coming this spring, but there's been little seen of her in quite some time.

One of her friends, Helen Slater, is in a similar situation. She's been doing some television, but hasn't been seen on the big screen in four years. That was in the long-forgotten "Seeing Other People."

Speaking of other people (a segue into anyone, I guess) Gene Hackman, my favorite actor, hasn't been in a movie since 2004's "Welcome to Mooseport," portraying the president. Once the only actor who rivaled Sir Michael Caine in appearances on the big screen, but aside from the dvd re-releases of the first two "Superman" films and his voiceover commercial work, he's done no movie work in almost four years.

What about Jason Biggs of the "American Pie" movies? The "Network" Oscar winner is coming in two movies in 2008, but his 2007 films, "Say It In Russian," "The Gene Generation" and "The Cougar Club" (a reference to gorgeous older women) never crossed my radar, and every movie released in theaters does.

Finally, whatever happened to Timothy Bottoms? His career looked so promising with "The Paper Chase" and "Last Picture Show:" and recently he's been portraying George W. Bush, however he's never reached the stardom many thought was his.

This is an unforgiving, tough business sometimes.