There are some who might claim that 2000 was a particularly bad year for the cinema. And this may be true - that is, if you have the misfortune of being a patriotic European.
     Of course, it has long been conventional wisdom that Europe is the traditional power in world cinema. Perhaps it is the seeming unshakability of this conventional wisdom that has helped to disguise an increasingly apparent shift in influence in the movie industry. While Europe - with its endless asexual French love triangles, unintentionally androgynous British identity crises, vapid Italian costume dramas, etc. - has gradually been on the wane, American upstarts have been steadily making up ground.
     Last year, a series of movies - culminating with American Beauty's triumphant Oscar-night triumph - made it clear that the American movie has finally arrived. In addition to the Lynch-Lite of American Beauty, 1999 gave us the teen sex romp American Pie, the Hughes Brothers' gripping documentary American Pimp, and of course the true American Movie: American Movie: The Making of Northwestern . Although the documentary about a fairly deluded beer-drinker and would-be Sundance auteur from Wisconsin was correctly identified by the sensible as a sort of second-rate Crumb with a less compelling subject, its imaginative and powerful title nevertheless carried it over the top, making it a crossover indie flavor of the month.
     But as it has turned out, 1999 was merely a taste of things to come. The year 2000 has truly proved to be the one in which the chickens of cinematic taste, fashion, and influence have come home to roost. Mary Harron's long- awaited adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's embarrassing novel American Psycho is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A quick look at just some of the "American" titles produced in the last year is sufficient to demonstrate how quickly Hollywood has moved to solidify its place as the world's moviemaking capital: The American Astronaut, American Babylon, American Dreamer: The High Adventures of a Card-Counting Low Roller, American Gypsy, American Slices, American Standard... not to mention two straight-to-video outings for Spielberg's long-running Maus knockoff series An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster and The Treasure of Manhattan Island. Whoever said the sequel symbolizes artistic death obviously ain't never been to the real Hollywood.
     And let's not overlook the further triumphs this past year of the true "American Girl," Mena Suvari, who was such a key element in the unexpected success of both American Beauty and American Pie. Of course, the sex-romp-deflowering-farce in which she plays the daughter of porn king Robert Loggia was sensibly renamed just prior to release from Live Virgin to American Virgin. But perhaps even more indicative of her continued reign is the unmistakable implication of the word "American" in Penelope Spheeris's Loser, in which Suvari plays alongside fellow American Pie costar Jason Bigges as an NYU coed who's banging hotshot lit professor Greg Kinnear (who, incidentally, enjoys his finest film performance since Mystery Men).
     Equally important to the advances made by the "American Movie" in the year 2000 have been the further steps taken in the documentary direction pioneered by American Movie last year. On the one hand, the genre has boldly investigated certain little-explored topics in U.S. history, from the aftermath of World War II-era concentration camps in An American History: Resettlement of Japanese Americans in Greater Cleveland to the pre-Brigham Young and pre-bigamy bastardization of the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints (i.e., the Mormons) in the PBS-produced American Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith.
     And then there's what is probably the truest indicator of the fledgling "American Movie" genre's preternatural confidence - its new tendency toward self reflection that shows up in a pair of documentaries about the "American Movie" industry itself--The American Nightmare (featuring lengthy interviews with such classic horror directors as John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, George Romero, and even Canadian David Cronenberg) and Kevin Mukherji's American Storytellers (which talks in depth with the likes of John McNaughton, John Sayles, Harold Ramis, and Forest Whitaker). And let's not forget Joseph Castelo's American Saint, in which the dreaded Woody Harrelson has the balls to play himself (this factor, of course, being thankfully mitigated by star Vincent Schiavelli, whom you might lovingly remember as the tall, droopy-eyed teacher from 1980s teen classics such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Better off Dead).
     Need a second opinion on just how runaway-freight-train-popular the genre is? Look no further than the former cinematic powers-turned sycophantic suck-ups from across the sea. The above-mentioned American Virgin was directed by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Marois, while American American is German director Alexander Weimer ludicrously titled look at a "young American who checks out German girls on his first day in Germany." And the critics complain that Hollywood directors could use a little reality check.
     Thankfully, the time has finally come when an American director can walk haughtily down the red carpet a European film festival and scoff: "Out of my way, plebes... I'm an American!"