FAMILY FILMGOER By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, October 27, 2000

Also Playing Kids 5 and Older "Digimon: The Movie."(PG). Feature based on hit TV toon puts cyber-savvy kids in adventures with Digital Monsters, or Digimon, that materialize via computers, turn from cuddly pets into good or evil monsters, do battle, eat Internet data, launch missiles in incoherent kid flick that looks like wallpaper. More violent than G-rated "Pokemon" features; toilet humor. PG-13s "Bedazzled." Brendan Fraser as nerdy computer techie, Elizabeth Hurley as Devil who offers seven wishes in return for his soul in funny, slick mainstream remake of 1967 British cult hit. Crude comic sexual innuendo; occasional profanity; gag with Fraser as Abraham Lincoln facing John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre. "Pay It Forward." Haley Joel Osment, Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt in affecting but clumsily plotted, miserably ended fable of boy who tries to start a good-deed movement and also pair up his alcoholic mom and physically, emotionally scarred social studies teacher. Alcoholism, drug addiction, school violence; adult characters recall childhood abuse; profanity; racial slur; mild sexual situation; burn scars. No preteens. R's "A Time for Drunken Horses." Beautiful Iranian film about orphaned children in Kurdish village – brother risks his life smuggling goods, sister accepts arranged marriage, all to help their handicapped sibling, in wrenching tale of hardship, courage, love. Poverty, illness, ill treatment of animals. Teens curious about the world. "Billy Elliot." Delightful film about 11-year-old boy in northern English coal-mining town who feels need to dance and ballet teacher who sees his talent and fights with his dad and brother – striking miners with macho attitudes – to let him do it. Strong profanity; violent family arguments; miners' strike mayhem; drinking, smoking; homophobic slurs against male dancers. Teens. "The Yards." Grim, tense, wonderfully acted Dostoevskian fable with Mark Wahlberg as well-meaning ex-con quickly embroiled in crooked family business, civic corruption. With Joaquin Phoenix, James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway. Gun, knife, fist violence; strong profanity; drinking, smoking; mild sexual situation; partial nudity. High-schoolers. "Two Family House." Charming, warm story of 1950s Staten Island about lovable loser with nagging wife who buys rundown house with plans to open a tavern and live above it, but finds he can't evict a destitute Irish woman with her mixed-race baby. Racial, ethnic slurs; explicit sexual situation; adultery theme; profanity; drinking, smoking. High-schoolers. "Stardom." Intermittently effective, overly glib satire of instant-fame, tell-all TV culture traces career of naive supermodel from small-town Canadian roots to jet-set life as she's exploited by one man after another. Toplessness; crude sexual slang; strong profanity; toilet humor; smoking, drinking. High-schoolers.

"The Little Vampire" (PG, 94 minutes)
"The Little Vampire" proves a charming adventure for kids 7 or 8 and older, with a witty script that turns the vampire myth on its (pointy) ear, whimsical design, and a first-rate cast. It's not for tots because the vampires first appear quite fierce and hungry. Also, the young, non-vampire hero (adorable Jonathan Lipnicki) receives a dead mouse as a gift and is locked in a tomb, both scary moments. Cows fly (and dung splatters), plus there are schoolyard bullies and a crazed vampire killer. Even for some kids over 8, the subject matter may be too creepy.
Based on children's books by German writer Angela Sommer-Bodenburg, "The Little Vampire" tells of 9-year-old Tony (Lipnicki) who has moved to Scotland with his folks. At school he's beset by bullies. At night, he dreams of vampires. Then a bat flies through his window when he's awake and morphs into a boy, Rudolph, who's a 300-year-old vampire. Now Tony has a new friend who can take him flying. He lets Rudolph's family sleep in the basement. They drink cow's blood, not human's, and hope to become mortal again. Tony's dreams hold the key.

"Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" (R, 90 minutes)
In this disappointing sequel, the violence that occurred off-camera in the 1999 low-budget original appears in graphic, bloody form here. "Blair Witch 2" tries to take the cheeky "Scream" approach but fizzles. It opens with a disclaimer that it's a "fictionalized re-enactment of events that occurred after release of 'The Blair Witch Project,'‚" a case in which "violent art has inspired real-life violence."
Though many teens and preteens will want to see it, the movie isn't appropriate for pre-high-schoolers. In addition to profane dialogue, there are hallucinations and flashbacks showing knives in the gut, smashed heads, hangings, miscarriages, a sexual situation, and nudity, along with drinking and drugs. The story follows five young "Blair Witch" fans so obsessed with the first film that they sign up for a trek in the woods to study the locale. They perhaps fall victim to group hysteria and murder.

"Lucky Numbers" (R, 108 minutes)
A cynical, longwinded comedy about cheating on the lottery, "Lucky Numbers" scores a few good laughs. That's because stars John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow have a great time playing a pair of local TV personalities, neither one a brain trust. But the movie takes such a condescending tone toward its middle-American setting that no character escapes looking dumb, which sours the experience. Inappropriate for teens younger than high school age, "Lucky Numbers" contains profanity, a sexual situation, occasionally lethal violence played for comedy, and use of marijuana, liquor and cigarettes.
Even for high-schoolers, this story of middle-aged people lurching after lottery loot may have limited appeal. Based on an actual 1980 Pennsylvania scandal, "Lucky Numbers" follows TV weatherman Russ Richards (Travolta), who's nearly broke. Desperate, he conspires with his girlfriend, amoral TV lotto girl, Crystal (Kudrow), to rig the lottery and keep the winnings. Stupidity + greed = disaster, of course.