Triple Threat At The Multiplex

It has been more than a month since Hollywood has offered a weekend of choice at the box office. It has been one opening after another through successive weekends of July.

But this weekend, three big new movies are going into wide release, and that gives Early Show Contributor Laurie Hibberd lots to chew on.

Here's a look at Space Cowboys, The Hollow Man, and Coyote Ugly.

• Space Cowboys, dubbed "Geezers in Space" by some wags, stars James Garner, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and Clint Eastwood (who also directed) as a quartet of astronauts who are called back into space when a Russian satellite runs amok, and they are the only ones who can fix it.

  It's a film with an interesting premise that was made with the cooperation of NASA, and some scenes were shot at the Kennedy Space Center. But, as Hibberd says, "As a novice, I don't know a lot. But I know that four guys who haven't been really practicing space aeronautics since the '50s can't jump into the millennium and jump into a shuttle and know what they are doing with 30 days' training."

  It is, however, "charming to see these four guys. They were all huge studs in their day, and they are great-looking older men. It's fabulous to see them on camera."

• The Hollow Man stars Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, and Josh Brolin in a new spin on the old Invisible Man story.

  "Talk about special effects! They have pushed the envelope," reports Hibberd. "They do incredible digital special effects. But also they take blue screen, green screen and black screen to a new level. Working in water, you have to go black screen." Bacon, she says, spent much of his time on the set being painted black in order to remain invisible.

  But, beyond special effects, says Hibberd, "The Hollow Man is a great story, everybody's secret fantasy to be the invisible man" And it's a movie with a message: It's amazing what you will do when you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror the next morning.

• Coyote Ugly is more of a fairy tale than a gritty reality drama, and some are categorizing it as a "chick flick."

  But Hibberd says, "It's a chick flick if you're 14 and believe that's what life is going to be like for you if you go to New York with $20 in your pocket," says Hibberd. "I could dance on the bar until I was blue in the face, and I wouldn't get a record contract."

  Hibberd adds that the story of Coyote Ugly actually gets in the way of the dance sequences in the bar, which bring "lots of fun" to the movie.

  A few weeks ago, a new ending of the film was shot to include singer LeAnn Rimes. It is a big party scene in which the main character, who is a struggling songwriter, sells her song, and LeAnn puts it on her new album. They have the album release party at the bar. LeAnn contributes four songs to the movie's soundtrack.