A CINDERELLA STORY (PG) In the guise of one Sam Martin, Hillary Duff gets to take her turn at playing everyone's favorite debutante forced into proletarian servitude. In this instance, our yet-again contemporized heroine is delivered into the clutches of her evil stepmother and wicked stepsisters when her father is killed in an earthquake. Salvation comes not in the form of the traditional fairy godmother magic but via the Internet. Think The Simple Life, only with a less skanky subtext. Also stars Jennifer Coolidge and Chad Michael Murray. (Not Reviewed)
THE CLEARING (PG-13) A more grownup role for Robert Redford (complete with semi-grownup haircut and an on-screen wife who's roughly his own age), but nothing much else to write home about. Redford plays a successful businessman who's kidnapped by a disgruntled former employee (Willem Dafoe), while Redford's wife and family sit at home trying to keep it together. While not as flashy as something like Memento, the film eventually reveals that its dual his-and-her storylines aren't actually taking place at the same time, a device that provides a few interesting moments but isn't really crucial to what's happening in The Clearing. Redford and Dafoe's characters do a lot of talking out in the woods, and the movie is ultimately more interested in functioning as an engaging character study than in offering up the expected payload of suspense or mystery. The film is carefully crafted and atmospheric, with strong performances from Redford and Helen Mirren, but it's not quite the human drama it wants to be, nor does it really add anything new to the thriller genre. Also stars Matt Craven and Melissa Sagemiller. 
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (PG-13) Having built a career on destroying the world (by, among other things, aliens in Independence Day and giant lizards in Godzilla), Roland Emmerich is up to his old tricks again. This time, however, we've only got ourselves to blame, as global warming and an out-of-control greenhouse effect create a new Ice Age, making life very difficult for a courageous scientist (Dennis Quaid) and his dreamboat son (Jake Gyllenhaal), not to mention a couple billion bit players. The movie's first hour is a straightforward eco-disaster movie featuring scads of massively proportioned, apocalyptic imagery. The movie's second half prompts more than its share of unintentional laughter, though, with bland heroics, wooden dialogue and every cliche in the book taking center stage. Also stars Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum and Sela Ward.
DE-LOVELY (PG-13) This latest bio-pick on legendary American tunesmith Cole Porter reportedly focuses on the man's not-so-secret homosexuality (something that was strictly taboo in previous Porter pics) and takes a stylistic approach that sounds suspiciously like what Bob Fosse did in All That Jazz. A number of contemporary musicians are on hand too, including Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette, performing various Porter standards. Stars Kevin Kline, Ashley Judd and Jonathan Pryce. Opens July 16 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed )
DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY (PG-13) Despite much talk of aiming low, debuting writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber finds a nice middle ground with material that would be offensive if it weren't funny; but most of it is funny. Corporate shark Ben Stiller's attempt to swallow Vince Vaughn's funky neighborhood gym is settled by a David vs. Goliath championship dodgeball match in Vegas. Stay through the credits for Stiller's final scene.
—Steve Warren
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (R) Michael Moore's new movie is indisputably important, but not so much as a film as a phenomenon. (And why not? If terrorist attacks now decide elections in places like Spain, what's so wrong with the idea of a film swaying an American election?) Moore wears his agenda on his sleeve, and most of the points he drums home are already familiar to most of us, regardless of what our politics may be. Still, it's more than a little unnerving to see all those points rattled off in rapid succession, and with such iron-willed eloquence (Moore's movies aren't exactly great cinema, but they sure make effective use of all the tricks of editing, not to mention rhetoric.) Yes, we all know the 2000 election was a sham. Yes, we know Bush is a doofus (also lazy, hypocritical and quite possibly pretty mean-spirited). And yes, we know that the Bush clan is wallowing in bed with the Saudi royal family, and that, where our foreign policy is concerned, Arab oil money probably speaks louder than suicide bombers. Still, what is Moore really saying by all this, besides pleading with us to dump Bush posthaste? Much is made of how the government uses paranoia as a tool to control voters, but at the same time Moore seems to be saying that America needs to be better protected. Did we go too far in making war on Afghanistan, according to Moore, or not far enough? And does the filmmaker really believe that cutting loose the Saudi high rollers would lead to anything but a void to be immediately filled by yet another angry Islamic fundamentalist state in the Middle East? Reading between the lines of the film prompts dozens of questions like these, and none of them is ever really addressed. Still, the movie is glib enough that we barely notice Moore talking out of both sides of his mouth (exactly what he accuses Bush of doing), and it might just be the most effective political advertisement of all time. Faults aside, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a big deal — more passionate and, in its way, more serious than anything Michael Moore has ever attempted, and a movie that deserves to be seen, pondered and carefully debated. 1/2
