FAMILY FILMGOER By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, August 11, 2000

Also Playing Okay for Tots on Up "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" (G). Alec Baldwin as minute Mr. Conductor searches for missing steam engine, magic gold dust in likable blend of live action, animation based on TV's "Shining Time Station," "Thomas the Tank Engine." Bullying diesel engine, Thomas sliding down hillside, spooky night scenes could all scare tots. Many slow moments. "Pokemon the Movie 2000" (G). Less violent, more colorful, second feature based on popular video game, TV series; Pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum and Pikachu restore balance of nature after ancient creatures of fire, lightning, ice do battle. Volcanic eruption, fight between winged Pokemons. Tot-friendly 22-minute short precedes feature. PG-13's "Space Cowboys"Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner as deli ciously cantankerous former Air Force test pilots who go on improb able space shuttle mission 40 years after being passed over by NASA, in amiable, rambling, enjoyable tale. Profanity, crude language; mild sexual situation; verbal sexual innuendo; bare tushes. "Coyote Ugly." Silly Big Apple success fantasy about wannabe songwriter paying rent by dancing and serving booze in raucous bar. Women in tight outfits dance sug gestively; non-revealing strip teases; chaste love scene and implied night together; liquor; rare profani ty. Iffy for preteens. R's "Hollow Man."Kevin Bacon as arrogant scientist tries invisibility serum on self, becomes invisible murderer, rapist in slick, mean, exploitative sci-fi thriller. Bloody violence … murdered lab animals, impaled humans; gross human, animal transformations; profanity; crude sexual innuendo; semi-nudi ty; steamy sexuality; implied rape. "Saving Grace." Brenda Blethyn, Craig Ferguson as English widow facing bankruptcy and her garden er teaming up to revive his failing marijuana crop for profit in droll, likable, adult farce. Unapologetic comic marijuana use; profanity; mild sexual situation; sexual innu endo; cigarettes. Mature oldest high-schoolers. – Jane Horwitz

"The Replacements" (PG-13)
Gene Hackman plays an eccentric football coach who comes out of retirement to lead a replacement team when the fictional Washington Sentinels go on strike in this likable, humane sports comedy. The movie neatly walks a tightrope, seeming not anti-union but rather anti-greedy millionaire foot ballers. A strong PG-13 not appropriate for younger kids, "The Replacements" includes crude locker room humor and profanity, along with suggestive dancing by replacement cheerleaders recruited from strip clubs, verbal and visual sexual innuendo, smoking, drink ing, a bar fight and head-banging and even vomiting on the field.

Coach Jimmy McGinty (Hack man) finds a motley crew of recent ex-jocks and yanks them out of obscurity. Sweet-natured former quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves) now scrapes barnacles off other people's yachts, but McGin ty's convinced he can handle the pressure this time. His new team mates include a small-time crook (Orlando Jones), a chain-smoking Welsh placekicker (Rhys Ifans) who thinks football is soccer, a former sumo wrestler, a jailbird, a cop and on and on…all worthy fellows. The movie's greatest asset is its comic celebration of individu ality over conformity.

"Bless The Child" (R)
A spiritually gifted child is kidnapped and threatened with death in this occult thriller. A hackneyed and disjointed fable, "Bless the Child" somehow manages to hold an audience anyway, with a dark, understated sense of mystery. It's a mildish R and suitable for high-schoolers. The movie includes gun violence, non-graphic attacks with tire irons, a lightning-quick be heading, swarming rats and gar goyles coming to life like bats out of Hell. It also refers to child murders, showing one body, and features rare profanity, understated sexual innuendo and a drug addict shooting up.

In this tale based on the book by Cathy Cash Spellman, Kim Basin ger plays Maggie, a lonely nurse. One day her drug-addicted sister (Angela Bettis) drops off an un wanted baby and disappears. Mag gie raises the slightly autistic child. When Cody (Holliston Coleman) turns 6, she begins to exhibit telekinetic powers and an unusual spirituality. Suddenly Maggie's sis ter resurfaces, married to the sinis ter leader (Rufus Sewell) of a self-help cult. They kidnap Cody and try to turn her toward Satan. Jimmy Smits plays a heroic FBI agent on the case.

"Cecil B. Demented" (R)
Writer-director John Waters harks back to his underground filmmaking days in this disappoint ingly crass anti-Hollywood comedy about a guerrilla director who kid naps a movie star to act in his no-budget epic. An R-rated film that flirts with NC-17, "Cecil B. Demented" isn't appropriate for under-17s. It buries Waters's neat premise about a revolt against Tinseltown assembly-line banality beneath pointless scenes of the young cast (except star Melanie Griffith) committing acts of public lewdness. While it contains no nudity, the movie shows characters seeming to masturbate and in a variety of other explicit sexual situations. There's also a porno flick excerpt that isn't graphic but implies much. The film also shows drug abuse, drinking, gun violence and self-immolation and contains much profanity and verbal sexual innuendo.

Stephen Dorff plays the quiet manager of a Baltimore movie palace who's secretly guerrilla filmmaker Cecil B. Demented. He and his Sprocket Hole gang terrorize a premiere and kidnap star Honey Whitlock (Griffith). They force her to play the lead in Demented's film. Soon the witchy star becomes a collaborator. The film never ex plains her change of heart, nor why the guerrillas wreak violence on lowly theater managers and ushers.