Thanks to Eric Rabkin for his typically astute comments: "But action-thrillers are not alone in leaving our intellects unoccupied. As I watched _True Lies_ and _I Love Trouble_ I kept thinking that when such movies were made in the 40s, there was some wit to the dialogue, some depth of emotional involvement and change of character. But now, zip. It's as if the movies want to key us to the proper responses in the opening sequences and if that works right they want to race on through the whole without risking a different response. And action-thrillers are not alone in this. _Close Encounters_ has no dramatic conflict, just a straight-line build from miracle to miracle. Straight lines have a certain appeal. But they don't give us much to think about after a while. So we wind up talking about the techniques of film-making themselves." Speaking of dumb--I was leafing through the novel FOREST GUMP last night in the bookstore and decided that I will have to read the thing now. The bits I read at beginning and end seemed much SMARTER (if that isn't an oxymoron) than the film. The bit of Gump' s narrative voice I caught seemed sharper and saltier than the dialogue that Hanks is given (though I understand that Winston Grooms likes Hanks in the part). Also [SPOILER ALERT] in the novel, Jenny lives! And she's married (happily it seems) to someone else (named Donald--a prototypical name in film and tv for solid but dull and often dense males. sigh.) It suggests to me that Gump's character and the plot were dumbed down for the film. I'm starting to want to see DUMB AND DUMBER (based on Carrey in THE MASK and it does have Jeff Daniels, whom I'll forgive for playing Dead Meat in SPEED). The premise (if you can call it that) of the film intrigues me. Why is stupidity a drawing card now. My son ocassionaly watches (on Fox--fill in your own comment) a cartoon show called TWO STUPID DOGS (tag line: "They're so stupid, they don't even know they're dogs!"). Then there's reruns of F TROOP on Nickelodeon and the enduring popularity of Curly. Something is at work here! --Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN