Hollywood bores as art films shine

That's (almost) a wrap.\nThe year is not over yet, and a number of noteworthy films are still to be released. But as the fall semester is coming to an end, it's a good time to reflect on the movie scene this year.\nMany critics and moviegoers agree that 2000 has been an unremarkable year for Hollywood. Most films that come off the Hollywood assembly line are mediocre at best. Summer blockbusters such as "The Perfect Storm," "X-Men" and "Mission: Impossible 2" all came and went without truly capturing the nation's fascination. Early Oscar favorite "Erin Brockovich" still remains a serious contender in the year-end awards race.\nThe lack of movies people can really be excited about has resulted in many theater chains such as United Artists, Edwards, General Cinemas and Carmike all filing bankruptcy this year. Theaters often decide to put potential blockbusters on several screens, but many of these event movies just don't perform to the theaters' expectations. Unfortunately, these theater chains haven't learned anything, and they continue to build even more multiplexes. This year, Bloomington saw the Kerasotes Theaters take away our beloved three-screen Von Lee Theatre to open the 12-screen, stadium-seating Showplace West 12. \nOn the indie front, a number of movies have become modest hits this year. But there is no breakout hit that is worthy the comparison to the box-office record of "The Blair Witch Project." Even the "Blair Witch" sequel "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" fails to achieve half the success of the original. This year, independent movies such as "Billy Elliot," "Saving Grace," "Croupier," "The Tao of Steve," "Sunshine," "Up at the Villa," "Dancer in the Dark" and "The Virgin Suicides" have thrived on very limited releases in select cities.\nOn average, the foreign-language movie business was better than usual. There are a number of minor hits such as the Oscar-nominated "East-West" (France), the crowd-pleasing "Shower" (China), "The Girl on the Bridge" (France), "Bossa Nova" (Brazil), "Kikujiro" (Japan), "Not One Less" (China), "The Butterfly" (Spain), "The Color of Paradise" (Iran) and "Mifune" (Denmark). Although no foreign-language movie this year has yet reached the same level of commercial success as Italy's "Life is Beautiful" or Germany's "Run Lola Run," many industry watchers are predicting Taiwan's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" will become a runaway hit. \nAnother welcoming trend in the foreign-language film business this year is that distributors are taking chances on many non-European films. Aside from some of the aforementioned movies, other non-European titles that have made it to this side of the Atlantic include "Non-Stop" and "Adrenaline Drive" from Japan; "Suzhou River" from China; "Lies," " Nowhere to Hide" and "Chunhyang" from South Korea; "A Time for Drunken Horses" and "The Wind Will Carry Us" from Iran; "The Cup" from Tibet; as well as "Yi Yi (A One and a Two)" from Taiwan. \nJudging from the increasing attention and commercial success some of the independent and foreign films are receiving, it's clear that more and more moviegoers are fed up with the mind-numbing Hollywood products. \n"Erin Brockovich" is the sole Hollywood entry in this critic's 10-best list this year. Those movies that have made the list are not only emotionally powerful, they are also stylistically impressive. Most importantly, the filmmakers really have something of significance to say with these films that have made the list. Although many movies mentioned probably won't ever play in Bloomington, hopefully you will be able to track them down at a video store in the not-too-distant future. \n