Good 'Intentions' By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, March 5, 1999

Also Playing Better for 8 and Up "My Favorite Martian" (PG). Reporter discovers Martian in dreary, effects-laden remake of '60s sitcom. Crude language; breast joke. Scary bits: Martian's one-eyed monstery self, comic scene about detached limbs. More for 10 and Up "October Sky" (PG). Neat, inspiring true story of NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam Jr. and his 1950s teen rocketry experiments in bleak mining town. Rare profanity; scary moments in mine; intense father-son dispute. PG-13's "The Other Sister." Mildly retarded young woman comes home after years in special school, finds romance in senitmental, uneven dramatic comedy. Focus on her sexual awakening with mild innuendo, biological terms; mild profanity. Problematic for teens. "Blast From the Past." Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone in droll tale of guy raised in fallout shelter who surfaces in modern L.A., shocking people with his good manners. Profanity; sexual innuendo; druggie-hippie jokes. R's "200 Cigarettes." Twenty-somethings drink, flirt, flounder toward 1981 Greenwich Village New Year's Eve bash in hip romanti-comic confection. Profanity; drinking, smoking, marijuana; non-explicit sexual situation; talk of losing virginity, sexual dysfunction. High-schoolers. "8MM." Nicolas Cage in dark, distasteful thriller as private investigator obsessed with finding those who killed teenage girl in pornographic snuff film. Approaches NC-17. Sado-masochism, explicit verbal, visual sexual innuendo; nudity; bloody violence; sexual situations; profanity; drinking, smoking, cocaine. 17 and up. "Payback." Mel Gibson as vengeful thief in slick thriller spoiled by ultra-violence. Shootings, smashings, women beaten; ethnic slurs, profanity; drug overdose; smoking, drinking; non-explicit sexual situations, sadomasochism; dog shot. Oldest teens. "Shakespeare in Love." Gwyneth Paltrow in literate, bawdy fantasy as Elizabethan lass who inspires young Shakespeare to pen "Romeo and Juliet." Steamy love scenes, some with semi-nudity; bloodless fights. High-schoolers. "Rushmore." Geeky prep school kid competes with Bill Murray's unhappily married millionaire for pretty teacher's love in kindly, oddball comedy. Profanity, verbal sexual innuendo; teens drinking, smoking; nude photos. High-schoolers. – Jane Horwitz

"Cruel Intentions" (R)
A lush, tragicomic fantasy about bored Park Avenue teens engaging in sexual gamesmanship, "Cruel Intentions" succeeds remarkably well as entertainment and in remaining true to its classy source material, which includes the 18th-century French novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." High-schoolers will want to see "Cruel Intentions," especially with idols Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe in the leads. The level of sexual explicitness doesn't begin to push the R envelope, but the movie is steamy, and the two central characters are cynical, mean and promiscuous – not appropriate material for younger teens. The rating reflects frequent profanity, strong verbal and visual sexual innuendo, gay themes, teen characters using cocaine, marijuana, cigarettes and champagne, and a moment of violence. Gellar plays a femme fatale who manipulates the emotions and love lives of others while satisfying herself with whomever she chooses. Her stepbrother (Phillippe) wants her but she demands that he first deflower a naive family friend to avenge an ex-lover of hers. Then she wagers him that he can't seduce a virginal fellow student (Reese Witherspoon). But he falls in love with his prey. Writer-director Roger Kumble does hit on the emotional brittleness that plagues many teens today.

"Analyze This" (R)
Just hearing the story line and the stars of "Analyze This" encourages laughter: A panic-attack-prone gangster (Robert De Niro) brings his angst to a nebbishy psychiatrist (Billy Crystal). Many high-schoolers will get the gimmick, but adults are more likely to appreciate De Niro's deft self-parody of those complex tough-guy roles he played so often. Appropriately rated, "Analyze This" bristles with standard wise-guy profanity, a few gay jokes, one fairly explicit sexual situation, verbal sexual innuendo and loud but relatively bloodless gunplay. It also treats infidelity and, despite its moralizing, makes gangsterism look like fun.

Things droop decidedly when De Niro is off screen and Crystal bickers with Lisa Kudrow as his worried fiancee. Still, the repartee among him, De Niro and the other goodfellas makes the movie a hoot.

"My Name is Joe" (R)
Edgy, well acted and intense, this Scottish blue-collar drama, set in the tough neighborhoods of Glasgow, actually has subtitles, so thick are the characters' accents. Simple and straightforward, "My Name Is Joe" is the sort of powerful "kitchen sink" drama that might please thoughtful high-schoolers interested in the subtler aspects of film acting and storytelling. The rating pertains to several mature elements, none of them carried to graphic extremes: language, which is streetwise and tough; moments of fist violence and threats; a suicide; scenes of drug use, heavy drinking and smoking; a mild sexual situation with partial nudity; a reference to prostitution; and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

The Joe of the title, played with charming desperation by Peter Mullan, is a 35ish bloke from the wrong side of Glasgow who's trying to get his life on track after spending most of his adult years drinking. He coaches a soccer team, does a bit of house painting, looks for a full-time job, collects unemployment and falls awkwardly in love with a nice public health worker (Louise Goodall). But when Joe tries to help a friend who's in debt to a dope dealer, he's nearly pulled back into the gutter. The ending is hopeful, though.