This year will be an interesting one for RinkWorks . It will see a lot of gradual changes made in an effort to keep things more alive and dynamic here and to keep my own interest piqued enough for that to be possible. I don't think it will be long before this year goes down in history as an ignominious black mark in the awards show's history. Granted, choosing Gladiator for Best Picture over such masterworks as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Traffic is not quite so grievous an error as Citizen Kane losing the Best Picture award in 1941. It's the epic syndrome.
Roman epics are automatically good.
Drug movies, like Traffic , are too disturbing to be good, and foreign language films, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , are all too arty to be good. Ok, so I sound cynical, but the Oscars this year prove that many people abide by these arbitrary rules instead of thinking for themselves. I did, too, when I was about eleven years old. Wow, a Roman epic. Fortunately, I grew up.