A 'Pleasantville' Experience By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, October 23, 1998

Also Playing More for 10 and Up "Antz" (PG). Bored worker ant with Woody Allen's voice rebels against ant society in comical computer-animated feature. Some jokes will go over young heads. Rare mild profanity; battle with termites, including soldier ant's severed talking head, may scare littlest. PG-13s, Etc. "The Mighty" Charming tale of outcast boys, one smart and disabled, the other an underachieving giant, conquering local bullies and an abusive dad. Theme of loss; understated but scary violence; toilet humor. "Shadrach." Bittersweet Depression-era tale of poor Virginia family taking in ancient former slave. Themes of segregation, poverty, death; blasphemous, scatological curses, racial epithets; implied sexual situation, mild innuendo; skinny-dipping; toilet humor; bootlegging, drinking. For mature 10s and up. "A Night at the Roxbury." Geeky, disco-loving brothers of "Saturday Night Live" fame in fun feature-length drollery. Comic sexual situations, one explicit enough to push PG-13 limit; crude language; skimpy bikinis. R's, Commercial or Artsy "Beloved." Oprah Winfrey as former slave haunted by ghost of murdered child in evocative, richly acted adaptation of Toni Morrison novel. Frightening flashbacks of slavery; assault, lynchings; off-camera murder of children showing bloody aftermath; sexual situations, nudity. Mature high-schoolers, please. "Slam." Small-time D.C. marijuana dealer does jail time, discovers true self when writing teacher takes him to poetry slam in uplifting, street-smart locally filmed feature. Graphic jail rape scene; nudity; understated gun, fist violence; sexual situation; strong profanity. Older high-schoolers. "Happiness" (not rated). Bleak, disturbing dissection of secret lives of several related characters, all loveless and with sexual problems. Theme of pedophilia strongly implied, but never shown; other graphic sex scenes and sex talk; masturbation; antisocial sexual behavior; gun violence, stabbing; profanity, children losing innocence. No one under 17. "The Impostors." Delicious neo-screwball comedy about out-of-work Depression-era New York actors who stow away on transatlantic ship, then act their way out of trouble. Semi-explicit sexual situation; profanity. Teens. – Jane Horwitz

"Pleasantville" (PG-13)
Two '90s teens are transported into a 1950s sitcom world in this ingeniously conceived, wonderfully acted comic fable. "Pleasantville" should appeal to thoughtful teens. Its not-so-subtle, but still profound, message is that conformity stifles human nature. Strong sexual innuendo, including a discreetly implied masturbation scene, nudges the PG-13 rating. Other sexual situations show teens making out. There's also rare profanity.

Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play siblings from a chaotic divorced household. Fighting over a newfangled remote control, brought by a mysterious TV repairman (Don Knotts), they zap themselves smack into a 1950s sitcom where everything and everyone in town is black-and-white and imagination-free. Soon the kids' '90s sensibilities shake things up. Through gorgeous special effects, the people they touch become more self-aware and burst into color. Soon the black and white holdouts start a McCarthyesque backlash.

"Practical Magic" (PG-13)
Two sisters, descended from a long line of benevolent witches, can't get a grip on their supernatural powers or their romantic lives in this likable comedy based on the book by Alice Hoffman. The rating covers muted scenes of violence, an exorcism, themes of loss and grief, mild sexual situations and innuendo, characters who drink and smoke, and rare profanity. Some parents may object to the witchcraft premise on religious grounds.

Nicole Kidman acts the trampy sister and Sandra Bullock the one who longs for true love. Their aunts (Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing) nearly steal the show as witches who wish their nieces would learn the Craft. The townsfolk ostracize them all at first, which becomes a nice sub-theme about acceptance. The younger sisters are haunted by a murderous boyfriend they've killed in self-defense. Explanations are in order when a cute cop (Aidan Quinn) comes snooping.

"Apt Pupil" (R)
A gifted high school senior becomes obsessed by the Holocaust in this disturbing story, based on a Stephen King novella, about the seductive nature of evil. Uneven and flawed in writing, performances and plot, "Apt Pupil" remains intriguing, but its use of genocide as fodder for what is really just a Gothic horror tale is plain unsavory. That also makes the film inappropriate for all but older high-schoolers. The R rating reflects a montage of gruesome images of Holocaust victims and other Holocaust-related scenes, graphic and bloody violence and cruelty to animals. The rating also reflects nudity, a sexual situation, gay themes, heavy smoking, drinking and marijuana use. Brad Renfro plays the kid as a blank page, but Sir Ian McKellen is perfectly creepy as an aged Nazi war criminal living under an alias. The boy blackmails him into talking about what it felt like to kill and torture.

"Bride of Chucky" (R)
A pair of dolls inhabited by the spirits of serial killers go on a rampage in this intentionally funny and not very scary horror sequel-the fourth installment (all rated R) in a series that began with "Child's Play" in 1988. High-schoolers into comic horror should find this one dumb but amusing. There are knifings, shootings and a painful death involving nails, but the gore isn't as gross as in many films of this genre. There are also explicit sexual situations, innuendo and strong profanity.