MOVIES . . . HUGH GRANT'S NEW FILMS

"It is an axiom of modern show biz that every scandal is a career move," saysTIME's Richard Corliss. So it is that Hugh Grant may actually have the last laugh after his one-night tour of Sunset Strip. His recent talk show tour to apologize for his encounter with Divine Brown has become very good publicity for his two upcoming films "An Awfully Big Adventure" and "Nine Months." Grant does wonderful work as an actor in the former movie as a vicious, smooth-as-snake-oil director of a theater troupe in postwar Liverpool. Grant is assured, residing inside this rotter as if he'd been waiting to play the role all his life. But it is the other, lesser performance in "Nine Months" that showcases Grant in the role Hollywood wants: Movie Star. The film, which tracks a child psychologist who hates children and his wife from pregnancy through delivery, has a cleverness that is as irresistible as it is predictable. Both films, says Corliss, should make the public forget all about Grant's misadventures. "The odds are that moviegoers will contribute to the Hugh Grant Defense Fund one movie ticket at a time."