An audience in New York City sits in a darkened movie theater, every face glued to the screen, fascinated by Matrix-like marshal arts moves during “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” a film that has raked in two Golden Globe awards and already generated plenty of promising Oscar talk.Meanwhile, ISU students are sitting in an Ames movie theater counting how many times Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott say “dude” in the teenage dumb-guy comedy “Dude, Where’s My Car?”It isn’t as if Ames doesn’t attract a lot of popular films; they just don’t make it to the screens here as quickly as many people would like. For example, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was originally released in New York on Dec. 8, but it has taken over a month to trickle down to Iowa. It will finally be released this weekend in Des Moines. But Ames is still anticipating flicks such as “Quills,” “Requiem for a Dream” and “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”It was the same story with “American Beauty” last year. Movie buffs all over the country were spewing rave reviews for the film, while Iowans squirmed impatiently to see what all the hype was about.If films like these nab prestigious awards and critical acclaim, why aren’t they available sooner in smaller towns like Ames?There are several reasons that movies get stalled for so long in big cities.The first and foremost reason has to do with city size and location, says Des Moines Register Datebook Editor and Movie Critic Kevin Cox.”The fact that Iowa doesn’t have as many people as you might find in larger cities is the biggest thing,” Cox explains. “There is a perception that small town people may have more small town values and may not be open to some of the more independent films.”Evidence of this phenomenon is the lack of foreign films that make their way to big screens in Ames.”The fact is that foreign films do not do well here,” Lee Poague, professor of English and instructor of ISU’s film class, says. “If they have the choice between showing “Gladiator” for a dollar at the dollar theater versus showing the Ang Lee film [ ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’], they will probably go with ‘Gladiator.’ I don’t know the last time when a non-English film showed in Ames.”Without large numbers of people supporting these films in small towns, it is hard to generate the essential buzz, or word on the street, that movies need to survive.So instead of a movie like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” being a wide release, in which the film opens in theaters all over the United States in one day, it begins as a platform release to help build word-of-mouth momentum,” Cox says. “In a platform release, the film is initially sent only to select cities, usually New York and Los Angeles. If it does well there, it opens in a few other major cities. And if its success continues, it is finally opened nationwide.”Nemer, Fieger and Associates is a Minneapolis-based advertising and public relations firm that deals with the promotional aspects of the movie industry, particularly for the Midwest. “If they open in big markets and fail miserably or aren’t profitable, they may not make it everywhere,” the company’s vice president of entertainment marketing Chad Olson says. “So they see how it does in bigger cities before they release it to smaller markets.””Studios work very hard to maximize their investments,” Poague adds.Another component is overcoming the industry’s cookie-cutter formula of what makes a film a success or a failure.”Hollywood has this mentality that there are very few films that they can predict will be hits,” Cox explains. “Those are the ones that they release to the whole country. For example, ‘The Wedding Planner’ has two big stars. It’s a romantic comedy. It sort of fits the formula.”But there are some films that excel even though they don’t fit the mold.”A film may open only at an art house theater and generate enough buzz that it can survive on its own,” Olson says.”Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is an example of one such film.”It is an Asian martial arts film in Chinese,” Cox says. “When films like that do well, it throws them for a loop. They get it opened in big cities, and, surprise, surprise, it does well. Then they have to sort of scramble to get it into other cities.”In most cases, with the exception of smaller, independent theaters, decisions as to what will show on the screens are made by corporate theater chain offices. “This might be the case with some of the bigger movie theater companies,” Cox says. “They may get a certain number of prints and decide to release one in Minneapolis and one in Des Moines. Big theater companies like to think in bulk. They don’t want it to just do well at one theater, they want it to do well in an entire major city.” Both Movies 12 and North Grand 5 Theaters in Ames declined to comment on their movie selection process. So do all of these factors add up to mean that Ames movie-goers are doomed to biting their nails in anticipation of the more obscure or independent films?Probably.But there is hope.”People should have faith that movies may take a long time, but most will eventually show up in Ames or Des Moines,” Cox says. “You just have to keep your eyes peeled, because it may only appear in one small movie theater.”