Tia Texada

It seems unlikely that David Mamet, one of the most admired American playwrights of the past 30 years, will ever become a great filmmaker. But that may not be his ambition. On the evidence of his last few pictures -- the show-business satire ''State and Main,'' the bluntly titled ''Heist'' and now ''Spartan,'' which opens today nationwide -- Mr.

Like its title, Jill Sprecher's ''Thirteen Conversations About One Thing'' is both straightforward and enigmatic: four fables of modern urban dissatisfaction woven into a fabric whose pattern is enchantingly elusive. What, for instance, is the ''one thing'' this collection of morose New Yorkers is supposedly talking about? It seems intuitively