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Critics lurch toward Oscars
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LOUSY, discouraging, useless: these and many other unflattering words are being used by critics to describe last year's crop of movies in the run-up to the Academy Awards. "I can't remember going so late in the year without being able to fill a Top 10 list," many of them complained. Although nominations for the 73rd Oscars are being prepared, no films are shining particularly brightly.
But some movies do stand out.
Traffic, a widely acclaimed film, explores the drug trade across the US-Mexico border. The epic movie calls into question the American war on drugs, which has been waged for almost three decades and cost billions of dollars.
Critics say 2000 was a time of screenplays about well-known persons, such as the Quills, Erin Brockovich, George Washington, Pollock and Before Night Falls, which are all biographies of famous people.
Last year non-English movies caused a splash, especially the Chinese-language "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
But altogether, critics grumble, it was a terrible year for mainstream Hollywood.
(Alfred Zhang)
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