Andrew:

The majority of your letter-writers so far seem to be holding onto hope. Well, we all hope for the best, but I'm afraid your assessment of the situation is a lot closer to reality.

For those who focus (hopefully) on the differences between Beijing '89 and Tehran '09, here are a couple more parallels: the Soviet bloc countries from 1945 to 1989; Burma since the quashed election of Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990; Zimbabwe since the denied election of Tsvangari last year; virtually every country in Central America up to about the past decade. Each is a different, unique case; what all have in common is the use of force against people who want their rights.

Look around the history of the world and you will find many more examples of regimes that will stop at nothing to repress the will of the people. On the other side, how many examples does all of world history hold out of repressive regimes with the means and the will to kill their own people that voluntarily give up power? Not too many. Arguably the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, and what else?

A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague: "After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate."

The quotation should read:

"After all," he said, "after the tragedy, nevertheless...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate."

A new WayLay! I enjoy the old stuff, but I really appreciate the lighter, airier lines of Carol's new style. "Uncertainty" is a winner.

3D is basically just one more tool in the filmmakers' toolbox. Stephanie is absolutely right to point out that, in the end, good story-telling and story-telling alone is what will make or break a film.

Case in point: the 1981 flick "My Dinner with Andre," in which an almost entirely static camera films a dinner conversation between characters played by Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn for nearly two hours. Boring, right? Not at all -- their conversation brings more scenes to vivid, 3-D life than the fanciest CGI ever could. To be honest, "Andre" could have been a radio play and would have remained just as fascinating (and as paradoxically visual).

A contrary example: I watched "Journey to the Center of the Earth" on DVD recently, and very soon found myself wondering why the film kept on focusing on weird details that were completely irrelevant to the story, like birds that flew perilously close to the camera or sharp objects pointing in the camera's direction. After about the fourth time this happened, I grabbed the dvd box to check and, yep, there it was: filmed in 3-D. That explained it! The temptation to use the 3-D tool as a simple gimmick will always be there (that is, unless or until the technology becomes so ubiquitous that everyone, even the director, is bored of the pointing spear trick).

Final example: "Coraline" did use the tool as a tool, not a gimmick, and in my experience it enhanced an already engrossing story.