Here are some interesting facts about my household:
-When we bought our first DVD player, which was probably in 2002 when they became mainstream, Gladiator (2000) was the very first DVD we purchased.
-When a social media poll recently asked, “what movie do you think you’ve watched the most,” my answer was, not surprisingly, Star Wars, and my wife’s answer was Gladiator.
-The Gladiator score was composed by Hans Zimmer and featured memorable vocals by Lisa Gerrard, who is one half of an Australian duo named Dead Can Dance, who is one of our household’s most favorite bands. Gerrard’s work on the Gladiator score is, in my opinion, what makes it so unique and memorable. Zimmer and Gerrard share the credit for composing the score and they both were officially nominated when the score was one of the film’s twelve Oscar nominations in 2001. It is, in my opinion, one of the best film scores of all time, despite having lost the Oscar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Dun Tan).
-Whenever we want to have fun, we love to re-create Elizabeth Taylor’s seemingly drunken announcement of Gladiator’s Best Picture win at the 2001 Golden Globes.
So, needless to say, Gladiator has had a large presence in my life. Since it came out in 2000, it has been in seemingly constant rotation on cable, so, like Godfather or Ocean’s Eleven, it’s one of those films that we are never able to scroll by when we see it’s on. If Gladiator is on, no matter where it is in the movie, we stop and watch. It is a film that is the perfect combination of action and art, of sentiment and brutality, of heart and heroism, of beauty and violence. It is Ridley Scott’s finest film and that’s saying a LOT, considering he also made Thelma and Louise, Blade Runner and Alien. It delivered Russell Crowe’s finest performance, features the best score in cinema history, and, as previously noted, was nominated for twelve Oscars, winning five, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Oh, and it also was a huge hit, becoming the second-highest grossing film of 2000.
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