FAMILY FILMGOER By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, August 18, 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. PG-13's "The Replacements." Gene Hackman as retired football coach who leads team of eccentric replacement players during strike in genial sports comedy. Locker room humor; strong profanity; suggestive dancing by stripper-cheerleaders; other sexual innuendo; smoking, drinking; bar fight. "Space Cowboys." Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner as deliciously 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 profanity. "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps." Eddie Murphy in vulgar but riotous sequel as Professor Klump, working to extract crude Buddy Love from his DNA, while Klump family has earthier problems. Jokes on flatulence, fat, impotence, erections, breasts; S-word, other profanity; comic sexual situations; gross sexual humor with giant hamster. "What Lies Beneath." Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer as empty nesters troubled by wife's fear that home is haunted in absorbing but self-conscious tale of ghosts, witchcraft, foul play, infidelity. Violent, bloody climactic struggle; steamy though non-explicit sexual situations; sexual innuendo; profanity. R's "The Original Kings of Comedy." African American standup comics Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley, Cedric The Entertainer, captured by filmmaker Spike Lee in Charlotte, N.C. concert. All kinds of profanity; vivid descriptions of sexual acts, bodily functions; racial differences hilariously analyzed – no one's spared. Material requires maturity; not for under-17's without parental permission. "The Tao of Steve." Beer-bellied, pot-smoking, frisbee-tossing slacker uses Eastern philosophy to seduce women till he meets one who sees right through him in droll cautionary tale. One semi-graphic sexual situation, more muted love scenes; profanity; much marijuana, liquor, cigarettes. Oldest, most mature high-schoolers. "Girl on the Bridge." Touching fable about down-on-his luck knife-thrower who finds sad girl poised to jump in Seine, talks her into becoming assistant in his act; they develop psychic bond, unspoken love. Suicide, promiscuity themes; strong sexual innuendo, muted sexual situations; rare profanity; smoking. Mature teens. In French with subtitles. "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-nudity; steamy sexuality; implied rape. "Cecil B. Demented." Melanie Griffith as witchy movie star, Stephen Dorff as guerilla filmmaker who kidnaps her to be in his anti-Hollywood epic, in flawed, too-crude farce from John Waters. Though clothed, characters masturbate and engage in sexual situations in public; gun violence, self-immolation; strong profanity; drug abuse, drinking. No under-17's. – Jane Horwitz

"Godzilla 2000" (PG)
Japan's Toho Studios have resurrected their world-famous radioactive monster and the cheesy-looking special effects that go with him in this enjoyable sci-fi throwback. Though set more or less in the present, "Godzilla 2000" feels black-and-white. It even has dopey dubbed English dialogue. Parents can enjoy this funky flick with monster-mad kids as young as 8, who'll appreciate the slapstick gags, too. None of the fake-looking mayhem shows graphic injuries or deaths, though it's loud. There's a little crude language and characters smoke.

As with all the Japanese Godzilla films since the first in 1954, ("Godzilla, King of the Monsters," with actor Raymond Burr inserted in the American version), the giant, roaring, fire-burping lizard has sympathetic qualities, the poor lonely fellow, despite his yen for flattening Tokyo. Parents can tell worried kids that Godzilla is mostly a stunt man in a rubber suit. This time he confronts a monster created by an alien spaceship disguised as a meteorite. Don't ask. The science is murky.

"Autumn in New York" (PG-13)
As gooey and sentimental a chick flick as you're likely to find, "Autumn in New York" takes a May-December romance and gives it that added lilt of terminal illness. Hollywood has done this sort of weeper for ages, and this isn't a great example. Yet there were sniffles aplenty at a matinee the Filmgoer attended, and preteen and teen girls may find the story affecting. The movie implies a sexual relationship, but it's all very gauzy and impressionistic. Other elements include profanity, a mild ethnic remark and a subplot about an illegitimate child. The film looks good. Winona Ryder as Charlotte, a talented hat designer and Richard Gere as Will, a promiscuous restaurateur redeemed by her love couldn't be better dressed. Elaine Stritch as her boozy grandmother bites into a tart couple of scenes. But the stars' chemistry is flat, and Charlotte's medical condition sounds like a writer's last resort.

"The Cell" (R)
This vile thriller about a sadomasochistic serial killer isn't appropriate for anyone under 17. In fact, With its sexualized violence, "The Cell" should be rated NC-17. The killer kidnaps, tortures and drowns young women in a glass cell programmed to fill with water, and gets sexual pleasure from watching videos of their torment. There is considerable nudity, naked corpses, strongly implied verbal and physical child abuse and the drowning of a child in a fantasy baptism. Characters use pot, cigarettes and profanity. Vince Vaughn plays the FBI agent whose team finds the killer. Jennifer Lopez plays a lip-glossy psychologist who as part of a research project is sedated and, through chemical and electrical means, enters the subconscious of a comatose patient. The FBI asks her to get into the killer's mind. She does. It's not prime real estate in there. The film's surreal images are dazzling, but director Tarsem Singh's visual gifts are wasted in such a grotesque exploitation.