"Artcore" is a term that was coined by
The Weekly Standard's David Skinner. In his mind artcore is:
An 'Artcore' movie may be hard to define, but you'll know one when you see it at the local art house. Unbearably ponderous, these movies can mope along on almost nothing. For action, they show long-faced characters silently brushing their teeth. For repartee, they have chain-smoking lovers volleying the most banal of truisms. For a climax, they have, well, climaxes, which are often and numerous, with characters shagging like convicts on furlough.
It's porn for poseurs, and a hallmark of this new genre is French director Catherine Breillat's seedy 1998 "Romance."
I guess by this
definition, artcore could be described as a
foreign,
independent film, with graphic sexual content. The difference mainly between artcore and American independent film being Europe's open
sexuality.
Although, I think the term could probably be better defined as an independent (or arty) movie were sex overwhelms the movie and puts any kind of narrative in the background. Sort of the middle ground between mainstream cinema and porn.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/678hldfd.asp