Dear Roger: Do you honestly want me to believe that "Eyes Wide Shut," "The Thin Red Line" and "Traffic" have taken drama and motion pictures to a new place they've never been before? The rules of drama haven't changed in thousands of years, and are the same rules followed by Euripides, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and William Inge, to name but a very few. Drama isn't changing because human behavior isn't changing. I will repeat this for the one-thousandth time, you can't hope to go past the rules until you have mastered them. Art begins with superb craftsmanship, and you can't hope to achieve that unless you know all the rules, and how all of the past masters worked. When I say you must have a lead character, I mean to have a dramatically strong story. You can have multiple leads, your story will just be dramatically weak (like "The Thin Red Line" and "Traffic"). Let me try to put it on a level you might comprehend -- you can't just decide one morning to be a gaffer, then go stick your hand into the nearest circuit box and expect to know what you're going. You have to have some information first. Nor can you walk right onto a set and know how to light it -- you've got to know the rules of lighting first, then you can break them (which may very well not work as well as if you'd followed them). The elements of drama have not changed in a long time, and the movies you named are not forays into the realm of the brand new -- they're just poorly written films. Movies are not new and exciting and better than they've ever been, they're lame and weak and in the worst slump they've ever been in. "Paths of Glory" is infinitely superior to "Eyes Wide Shut," and that's mainly because it has a well-written script. Name: Elton Sebastian E-mail: eltonsebastian@yahoo.com Reviewed by: unionjacker Re: Avow Concept was cool. Film was not. I like the idea of a killer filming a confession of what's he's done and mailing it to the cops. But the film didn't show any of what he had done. Tiny glimpses that I couldn't even see properly because of the quality. The editing never seemed to pick up a pace, nor did music or sound effects. None of the imagery was horrific, gritty or gory. Should have a load of screaming in here, even some torturing when he kills who he said he killed. Show some more of the woman held at his apartment. The film had no impact on me. Seemed more like a teaser trailer that wasn't was shot, edited right. It doesn't go anywhere nor does it develop a mood. -- April 22, 2004 - 8:51 PM Review Id: 674077 From the first few pages, I could not stop. You are this century's William Goldman. This certainly is a stunning piece of intellectual farce on marketing, brutality and gore. Never has death been funnier. Elton Sebastian (Director of award winning 'Nerd Wars')