I saw QUINTET when it first came out, and at first I was very excited to be seeing an SF picture made by Altman with Paul Newman and the rest of that wonderful cast. About twenty minutes in, a guy in the back of the theater yelled, "Can someone explain to me what this is all about?" Ordinarily I hate that sort of thing, but his question led me to ruminate, which was considerably more absorbing than what was on the screen. I finally decided that it was about someone half remembering a second hand conversation about Lequin's THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, possibly while stoned at a party, retaining only the frozen planet setting. The game they played in QUINTET was almost interesting for a few seconds here and there, I'll say that much for it.