When Costner's cowpoke delivers a eulogy for a faithful pooch that was gunned down by scalawags, two horses grazing near the grave site lift their heads as if to acknowledge the nobility of his words. It's exactly that kind of sappy touch that sometimes spoils Open Range, a well-acted but all-too-predictable western, which Costner (see page 67) also directed.
The film, shot in Alberta, Canada, but set in the fictional Wild West town of Harmonville, is visually splendid with its panoramas of majestic mountains and rolling grasslands. A fight over grazing rights on those grasslands kick-starts Range's familiar plot: A moneybags rancher (Gambon) forbids grizzled cowboys Boss Spearman (Duvall) and Charley Waite (Costner) from letting their cattle munch on his land. Things get nasty and the inevitable big shootout ensues. Range's best moments come during a romantic subplot between Waite and a doctor's assistant (Bening), whom Spearman aptly describes as the sort of woman "who makes a man think about putting down roots." (R) BOTTOM LINE: Nothing much new in this sturdy tale of the Old West
Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning
A well-meaning comedy-drama about two troubled rich girls who teach each other to cope with life, Uptown Girls is so flimsy that there's really no point working oneself into a lather knocking it. Sure, it's sentimental twaddle, exists in a never-never land of Manhattan's superrich and can make a cynical grown-up cringe. But the adolescent girls targeted by the movie will doubtless find it heartwarming and moving. I probably would have at their age as well, and that, in the end, is what counts.
Murphy is Molly, a whiny, immature heiress who learns shortly after turning 22 that her money manager has filched her fortune. Forced to work, she reluctantly signs on as nanny to Ray (Fanning, see page 75), a bossy 8-year-old whose dad lies in a coma and whose record-exec mom (Heather Locklear) is largely absent. Though these two princesses despise each other at first, they soon--let's all say "awww"--learn to act their respective ages. Murphy, whose performances often give off a whiff of desperation, carries on here as if there was an Oscar in the offing. Fanning, a prim little miss, maintains her dignity amidst all the hysterics. (PG-13) BOTTOM LINE: Strains to be adorable
Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis
Critic's Choice
In a summer populated by mutants and monsters, Harvey Pekar is the real-life comic-book hero. The film cleverly combines documentary with drama, so that Pekar, a cartoonist, appears in person but is also played by Giamatti in a career-defining performance. Grubby, chubby and downright schlubby, Pekar is an Everyman who has long since recognized that he is, in his own assessment, "all grown up and going nowhere." His particular nowhere is Cleveland, where he toils as a lowly file clerk and writes an autobiographical underground comic-book series, called American Splendor, chronicling his woebegone life. Over the course of the film, he meets and marries a fan, writer Joyce Brabner (Davis, in another swell performance), adopts a daughter and fights a serious illness, all with the air of a man who expects the worst from life and isn't sure he's happy when he fails to get it.
Written and directed with a sure hand by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, Splendor is that rare thing, a movie that shows life as it really is, not as we wish it could be. (R) BOTTOM LINE: Truly splendid
Robert Englund, Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter
In the bombastic tradition of Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Godzilla vs. the Thing, two fabled monsters meet to duke it out. The result: a whole mess of dead teenagers and a whole lot of shrieking before the titular Freddy (Englund) and Jason (Ken Kirzinger) finally go mano a mano in a prolonged, blood-soaked struggle. Is the fight worth waiting for? Only for adolescent horror-film fans and those who've devoured the seven previous Nightmare on Elm Street films (featuring the singed-skinned Freddy) and the 10 Friday the 13th movies (with hockey-mask-wearing Jason).
Englund has his Freddy shtick down cold, purring menacingly and slashing away with his knife-blade fingers. Kirzinger, a stuntman making his acting debut, lumbers through as Jason. As two of the tastier teens on view, Keena and Rowland (of Destiny's Child) act appropriately feisty in the face of obvious danger. (R) BOTTOM LINE: Monstrous
•Grind
Strictly for those who live to skateboard. This dopey teen comedy follows four board-toting youths as they take to the road in a van—the heck with college—seeking sponsors to fulfill their dream of turning pro. While the skateboarding sequences feature daring stunt work, it's obvious that we're seeing doubles doing the triple turns. The cast features Mike Vogel, Adam Brody, Joey Kern and, in an over-the-top turn as an obnoxious goofball, Vince Vieluf. (PG-13)
•The Secret Lives of Dentists Campbell Scott is top-notch yet again, as a dentist who fears his wife (Hope Davis), also a dentist, may be cuckolding him. (R)
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
