Andie Macdowell

In one of Andie MacDowell's favorite scenes in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," her character, Carrie, shocks her British swain with a detailed recitation of her sexual history. "She had had 33 lovers," MacDowell said. "She was like a man in a lot of ways. I'm 35, and I think our generation - the way we grew up - it was sort of like women's liberation and we were trying to be like men. "(There's) a certain group of women out there that really can relate to the fact that they have had a lot of experiences that men have been able to do, and it's not like they're whores.

The trouble with most cover-girls-turned-actresses - and this includes Lauren Bacall, Twiggy and Isabella Rossellini - is that whatever quality enables them to glow in still photographs dissipates when they move on screen. The revelation of cover girl Andie MacDowell, surprise star of the surprise hit sex, lies, and videotape, is that the remote quality she has in photographs is dynamically contradicted by the urgency she creates on screen. As Ann, the dream "wifey" trapped in a nightmare marriage, she stammers and drawls what's on her troubled mind, commanding the film with a tentative sensuality and coltish intelligence.

The idea, which probably started in the days of the cave people, is that opposites are supposed to attract, which seems like very odd behavior. But consider most of your big-screen couples and just how odd they are - the oddest probably being King Kong and Fay Wray. In the current movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray does a good impression of Kong getting up on the wrong side of the bed. He's a Pittsburgh weathercaster reluctantly in Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover the big day, and he treats his sweet producer (Andie MacDowell)

Sam Chwat was a master of accents who taught Robert De Niro to talk like an Appalachian ex-convict, Olympia Dukakis to sound like a Holocaust survivor, and Peter Boyle to play the character of a Southern bigot. A modern-day Henry Higgins, he also trained some actors to lose accents, helping Julia Roberts drop her native Georgia drawl and Tony Danza his distinctive Brooklynese. Mr. Chwat, 57, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma March 3 on Long Island, N.Y. He ran the Sam Chwat Speech Center in New York City, which has helped thousands of people with speech challenges, including politicians and corporate executives.

There are weddings, there is a funeral, and there is Andie MacDowell. There is also "Duckface" - the actress Anna Chancellor, whom Hugh Grant almost marries in Four Weddings and a Funeral. So, in Crush - a sour-turning escapade set in thatched-roof English countryside - you are forgiven if you start experiencing a queasy sense of deja vu. The story of three single sex-and-romance-hungry best friends who assemble once a week to recount disastrous stories of blind dates, embarrassing flirtations and horrible ex-spouses, Crush starts off in a larky, amiable way. Kate (MacDowell)

In biblical times, angels were fearsome creatures who descended on chariots of fire, slew the enemies of God with bolts of lightning and protected the innocent with shields of righteousness. But these are the '90s, and each generation must re-imagine angels in its own way, in its own image, to address its own problems. Thus, we have angels who look like Della Reese and help people retrieve missing pets. And angels like the title character in "Michael" - a chubby, middle-aged white guy who likes the Beatles.

"Four Weddings and a Funeral" is like a long-playing version of that coffee commercial featuring the prolonged courtship of an English guy and the woman he keeps meeting by happenstance. Hugh Grant stars as a handsome, charming London bachelor named Charles whose many pleasant but ultimately passionless experiences with women lead him to question whether he'll ever find true love. This doubt is laid (excuse the expression) to rest at a wedding, where he meets Carrie (Andie MacDowell)

Violence is so pervasive in our movies that a film that discusses its impact instead of simply exploiting it is a welcome and all too rare event. Wim Wenders, the German master whose films include the great Paris, Texas, might seem an ideal choice to cast an objective eye on violence in American culture. His views in The End of Violence yield a provocative work that is at its best in considering those who reap immense profits by purveying images of violence in various media. The movie has its faults - most notably in bending its plot and the behavior of its characters to support an appeal for radical changes in attitude - but it is a better and more deserving piece than its release history suggested.

There's no getting around it: French movie star Gerard Depardieu is one ugly dude. He has stringy hair, a thick protruding jaw and a long nose that starts out sleek and then widens into an unsightly bulbous mass. Depardieu is perhaps the only actor in history whose honker would have to be shortened to play Cyrano. That he is France's most celebrated actor is not surprising. The French have an evident hunger for homely men. They are a people, after all, who also worship Mickey Rourke as cinema god. Rourke, in fact, has begun to spend more time in France, preferring Gallic adulation to the more measured criticism of American audiences.

If you had to choose one word to describe the kind of image that John Malkovich has cultivated on screen, that word would be "scumbag. " When a role calls for a sneaky, conniving, randy little cheat, Malkovich is first in line. Who'd have believed it? He seemed like such a sweet guy at first. In "Places in the Heart," for instance, he played a blind man who helped Sally Field gather the cotton crop in time to save the family farm. Soon, however, we began to glimpse at what has become the quintessential Malkovich character - the unprincipled, diabolical, selfish womanizer.

WILL SMITH will attend his first Sixers game tomorrow as part owner and sit courtside as the team takes on the Bobcats on Jrue Holiday bobblehead night. The Overbrook-native superstar is in the area shooting "After Earth" with director M. Night Shyamalan . The futuristic thriller also stars Smith's son Jaden . The team's been waiting for the chance to present Smith with his custom No. 76 jersey, which the team made for members of the new ownership group when they were announced in October.

Sam Chwat was a master of accents who taught Robert De Niro to talk like an Appalachian ex-convict, Olympia Dukakis to sound like a Holocaust survivor, and Peter Boyle to play the character of a Southern bigot. A modern-day Henry Higgins, he also trained some actors to lose accents, helping Julia Roberts drop her native Georgia drawl and Tony Danza his distinctive Brooklynese. Mr. Chwat, 57, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma March 3 on Long Island, N.Y. He ran the Sam Chwat Speech Center in New York City, which has helped thousands of people with speech challenges, including politicians and corporate executives.

There are weddings, there is a funeral, and there is Andie MacDowell. There is also "Duckface" - the actress Anna Chancellor, whom Hugh Grant almost marries in Four Weddings and a Funeral. So, in Crush - a sour-turning escapade set in thatched-roof English countryside - you are forgiven if you start experiencing a queasy sense of deja vu. The story of three single sex-and-romance-hungry best friends who assemble once a week to recount disastrous stories of blind dates, embarrassing flirtations and horrible ex-spouses, Crush starts off in a larky, amiable way. Kate (MacDowell)

Harrison's Flowers - a compelling and unnerving tale of one woman's determined traipse through the killing fields of 1991 Croatia - comes out of a tradition of foreign-correspondent movies that includes Oliver Stone's Salvador, Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, and the historically concurrent Michael Winterbottom drama, Welcome to Sarajevo. What makes filmmaker Elie Chouraqui's story different is that its protagonist is a woman: Sarah Lloyd (an extremely good and edgy Andie MacDowell)

TOM CRUISE and Nicole Kidman will be divorced next week. Is it about time, or what? Six months after filing divorce papers, Cruise went to court for a fast-track finale to their 10-year marriage, and Superior Court Judge Lee Smalley Edmon yesterday said yes. The divorce will be final next Wednesday. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 4 to set trial on financial and property claims. Good thing the couple has no money - that should be a snap. Neither actor made an appearance in court yesterday and neither one had anything to say for a change.

"Town and Country," a comedy about well-to-do Manhattan couples, tired marriages and adultery, is not quite as funny as "Eyes Wide Shut. " Not quite as long either. I don't remember the last time I saw a movie that seemed to have so much stuff cut out of it. All I can say to the editors is. . .thank you so much. Had this gone on much longer, it would have been "Ishtar," Warren Beatty's legendary comedy, and one that might have scared a lesser man off the territory. But Beatty is back, with a Buck Henry script about a wealthy New York architect (Beatty)

"War is horrible. Even just acting the war is horrible. " - Andie MacDowell, on her role in "Harrison's Flowers," a drama set in the former Yugoslavia If a supermodel can't pitch an occasional diva fit, is she still super? We'll find out with Naomi Campbell, who has reportedly just completed more than three weeks of anger-management therapy at an Arizona clinic. The glamorous Campbell, who stands out even in a business known for bad attitude, is said to have attempted something of a temper rehab at Tucson's Cottonwood facility.

"The Muse," with its faith in mysticism and mythological creatures, seems like a fanciful story, but it's based on a very believable premise. That in Hollywood, there's only one person with original ideas. The problem for Steven Phillips (Albert Brooks) is finding that person. Steven is an aging screenwriter just dumped from his studio contract by a shallow young executive, who informs him that he's lost his "edge. " To get it back, Steven consults a more successful colleague (Jeff Bridges)

Three great moments in the life of Albert Brooks: The night Stanley Kubrick telephoned to tell him that he found Brooks' picture Modern Romance just about brilliant. The time Jack Benny, sitting next to Brooks on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show couch, called him "the funniest kid I've ever seen. " And the day Carl Reiner told him his material was lousy. Actually, Brooks, who was 22 at the time, a rising star in stand-up with a steady gig on Dean Martin's summer variety show (Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers, for those keeping score)

A slice-of-life film from the British Isles tops this week's new movies on home video. My Name Is Joe . 1/2 (1998) (Artisan) 105 minutes. Peter Mullan, Louise Coodall, Gary Lewis, David McKay, Lorraine McIntosh. A recovering alcoholic looking for a job finds love instead in his Glasgow neighborhood. Director Ken Loach's tasty slice-of-life is drolly funny and intensely dramatic. In Scottish-dialect English with English subtitles. R (drugs, profanity, violence, discreet sex).