Why do all foreign movies that get play in the US use that same annoying cut-and-paste techniques?

hehe. what no guy ritchie on yuor list?

i think run lola run is the movie that is referenced. and the snazzy=good attitude mihgt have somethign to do with tarrantino. the people who maed those films are propbably very embarased now, like girls who turn up on a party wearign the same clothes. or proud, like really dumb girls who turn up on a party wearing the saem clothes. im afraid the latter applies to whoever directed reconstruction.

I think you can blame Tarantino and Trainspotting for this one, though the gimmick should be kinda passé already.

I would say that "Pulp Fiction" and "Trainspotting" had some influence on the overuse of this technique in American indies, and maybe some influence on foreign pictures, but the more likely source in European cinema history.

European narrative cinema (especially French) has always been more attuned to the poetic & non-linear, rather than the linear tales of American cinema. I think Godard said it best when he stated that American filmmakers are the storytellers, and French filmmakers are the essayists. An essay can jump around different times/places/etc. as long as they all help support the thesis.

Tarrantino was highly influenced by world cinema, especially Godard (his production company is named after an early Godard film, and Uma Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction is an obvious homage to Anna Karina).

I do agree, however, that the blatant use of stylized time jumps has become cliched and annoying. But that's the nature of a popular medium: someone tries something new, it sells, so everyone else cashes in on it until the audience gets bored of it (as in our conversation here).

yeah like bullet time in the matrix d00d

When I saw it in Run Lola Run, I thought it was a bit annoying, but at least it sort of made sense because the whole movie was this high concept thing about time blah blah blah. Since then it's just gone downhill. Y Tu Mama Tambien is the only movie on that list I enjoyed in spite of the stylization, which I thought was kept to a comparative minimum.

Oh I forgot L'Auberge Espagnol, which was also ok.

Is non-linear chronology too hard to follow? Will putting Ben Stiller in every film add to your comfort level too? I guess you didn't complain about Eternal Sunshine since it was American. The damage TV has wrought...

I liked Reconstruction, playful and smart; it's fine if you didn't, but calling it "really bad" in a list that includes pandering swill like Amelie and Y Tu Mama is unfair.

Fractured Time Sequence RoXoR U R Hollywood meethead.

"Is non-linear chronology too hard to follow? Will putting Ben Stiller in every film add to your comfort level too? I guess you didn't complain about Eternal Sunshine since it was American. The damage TV has wrought..."

This is rather presumptuous on your part, don't you think?
If any film on that list was "pandering" I'd say it was Reconstruction, with its warmed over cliches about the Genesis myth, author as God, films as "constructions," etc. I followed Reconstruction all too well. Furthermore, the acting was god awful with the exception of the writer/narrator character, and the story was painfully predictable. Glad you enjoyed it.