REALITY BIT

Reality is hard to capture on screen. When The Real World's Pedro Zamora died of AIDS on Nov. 11, there were no cameras. Reality Bites, a movie whose Gen X characters distrust every media message, got at death's unreality too. When Janeane Garofalo's Vickie (right) worries she might be HIV-positive, she tells Winona Ryder's Lelaina, ''It's like I'm watching it on Melrose Place I live in the building, and I teach everybody it's okay to be near me . And then I die. And there's everybody at my funeral wearing halter tops and chokers.'' Lelaina understands: ''Melrose Place is a really good show.''