hi! i would like to suggest a broader use of tom gunning's notion of "cinema of atracitons". if you want to take action films as genre, then i would suggest to think about it not as a narrative structure, but as a means of holding viewer's attention. action is, first and foremost "attraction". of course, there is usually some narrative holding the pieces of action together, but i would consider retarded anyone who watches films like PREDATOR or CLIFFHANGER (or for that matter JURASSIC PARK or INDEPENDENCE DAY) because of the engaging story. the fact is that most of the today's box-office hits have more to do with atractions than with narration. and "action as attraction" has been very succesful. there are other attractions, of course (stars like leonardo dicaprio in TITANIC, just to name one of the freshest examples), and they are almost always non-narrative. but the fact is that action, like music in musicals (but also in other genres) or costumes and settings, is something that draws attention to itself without being attached to a speciffic genre. these are just some of my ad-hoc thoughts on the subject. i would be glad to get some response on this. cheers, boris vidovic finnish film archive helsinki ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama.