The massive investments made in Hollywood today mandate tight studio controls on mainstream cinema. As a result, one must often look to alternative outlets in order to see a movie intended
primarily as art--or even as a sincere effort at entertainment--instead of as a simple source of revenue. Foreign and independent movies thus often play the role of bellwether for the Hollywood
studios that are unable to experiment themselves: behind the look of the studio smash Sin City, for instance, was the rigorous pulp style of Road to Perdition; before the sadism and cynicism of
many current thrillers and horror movies there was the work of Neil Labute; and where would Hollywood's plots be without the harsh, fragmented narratives of Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro
Inarritu? By looking at these films, and at the people who created them,we can obtain a clearer sense of what movies really are at heart, and what they may still want to become.
