The three major limited openings are also tough sells. Warners is launching Ed Harris’ “Appaloosa,” which I call the best western since “Open Range” in my three-star review today (it’s 64 percent positive at RT) on 14 screens with plans to expand the New Line hand-me-down wide on October 3. It should do better than “The Assassination of Jesse James,” but westerns are a marketing challenge at best. I think Keira Knightley will get an Oscar nod for “The Duchess,” but our very own Kyle joins Mahola Dargis in mercilessly panning this today (it rates a fairly ambivalent 62 percent at RT). It’s opening at seven locations (three in Manhattan) with unclear plans for expansion by Paramount Vantage, which has been put on a very short leash by big Paramount. The Empire Film Group, the shlockmeisters who gave the U.S. “The Hottie and the Nottie,” are opening the much-reviled “Hounddog” (aka “The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie”) on 11 screens to still more critical abuse: one star from me, 25 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. I’d guess the only way they’re going to meet their target of a 290-screen expansion by mid-October (prior to an announced Janaury debut on DVD) is four-walling, or renting, most of the auditoriums. Especially since they’d be directly competing with Fox Searchlight’s “The Secret Life of Bees,” a somewhat better movie wherein Dakota is also helped past trauma by what Spike Lee likes to call “Magical Negroes.”