Over-Hyped Hollywood Idiocy

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2001)

Everything about Gladiator was completely *wrong*. Everything--every single thing about this movie--was handled in the wrong way. An excellent example is the gore and violence in this film--while the director made sure to include huge amounts of blood and guts in the fight scenes for no discernable reason, he weasled out in the one scene where such a graphic display might have made an emotional impact on the viewer (the murder of Maximus' wife and son). Why? Because it would have added a tiny smidgen of controversy to the film, and everyone knows that controversial films *never* get Oscars.
And speaking of which, the number of Oscar nominations this film received is a joke, exceeded only by the number of Oscars it actually won. I'm not saying that Joaquin Phoenix and Russel Crowe aren't good actors it's just that they were given so little to work with that their lack of conviction was inevitable. I was especially surprised with Russel Crowe's victory over Geoffrey Rush, who I thought had given an exceptional performance in Quills.
Well, at least Best Director went to Steven Soderbergh. Seeing that evil scowl on Ridley Scott's face when they presented the award almost made the whole rest of the evening worth it.