Thanks, Academy!

Gladiator is an okay 90-minute acton movie stretched out to epic proportions and shot in an epic style without any epic content. The story and the stakes are strangely small -- one dude wants revenge on another dude, but first he has to show off how invincible he is. There is also a woman who both men pursue for the simple reason that she is the only woman -- even though dude one is married and dude two is her brother. Also, dogs and tigers. It's just a sports movie pretending to be something it's not, and all that pretending leads to laughable artsy directorial choices and interminable conversations inside of tents. Brendan and I ponder how something like this even became popular, much less emerged as Best Picture.