Richard Cante wonders: "1. I finally saw LEAVING LAS VEGAS and found it to be notably unimpressive--aesthetically, intellectually, and emotionally. Is it the film's "bankruptcy" on these registers that's supposed to make it valuable? If that's the assumption, I'll stick with CASINO anyday. It's not the raving acclaim being heaped heaped on LLV from the industry/press that has me confused, since I'm not at all surprised that a film like this would commission such a response. Rather, it's the enthusiastic response of many of MY FRIENDS that has me baffled!" I certainly can't speak for your friends, here are some of my thoughts, FWIW: LEAVING LAS VEGAS is an impressive film which has left me thinking about it for days. Probably my reaction was heightened by seeing on the same day and immediately after SENSE AND SENSIBILITY(!). What I like about the film especially is its determination to play by its own rules--two characters who live their lives and accept their lives (degraded as they may be) without apology. The film could easily have veered to Kitchen Sink realism or Movie-of-the-Week uplift (Cage and Shue move to Minnesota, check in to a 12 Step program, and live happily ever after), but the film moves inexorably to its pre-ordained end. The contrast with SENSE AND SENSIBILITY actually suggested to me not only differences but similarities: S&S--A world of depth and plenitude (a firm social structure, stately homes built for display, fields in full bloom, Nature waiting to be experienced) LLV--A world of shiny surfaces and no depth (desert sameness to the weather, cheap motels and tacky apartments, an *apparent* lack of social structure S&S--A world in which context is everything: what family you come from, how you comport yourself, what you say or do not say, what you have done in the past LLV--A world without context: Why does Ben drink? Why is Sera a hooker? Why are the (Russian?) gangsters after Yuri? The answers are resolutely avoided and don't really matter (we can guess at them easily enough). But then come the variations. In LLV, what one says or does not say is almost as important as it is in S&S. It also turns out that beneath the veneer of the lack of social rules (you can drink yourself to death, be a prostitute, gamble, even have sex in public) there is still a rock-hard stratum of rules. Just count the number of times Ben or Sera is politely but firmly told to Leave and Not Come Back from one place or another because they have transgressed the Rules. One thing I haven't heard much discussion of is Figgis's use of distancing techniques--the echoey timbre of much of the dialogue, the backgrounds where people stop and stare or completely ignore the characters, the *lack* of background to provide what normally would be important visual information, the bitterly ironic use of Sting singing pop standards like "My One and Only" and the love theme from THE THIRD MAN (a pretty ironic film in its own right). There's much more I need to think about--and I probably need to see the film again, but if this film is a measure of our times, the desert heat turns out to be quite chilly indeed. Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN) ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]