'Gladiator' makes a big kill

LOS ANGELES, MARCH 26. The ancient Roman epic `Gladiator' took Best Picture and earned Russell Crowe an Oscar for Best Actor at the 73rd Academy Awards here, while Taiwan's `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and the drug docu-drama `Traffic' won four Oscars apiece.

British director, Ridley Scott's swaggering, sword- swinging tale of ancient Rome won a total of five golden statuettes, beating out `Crouching Tiger,' `Traffic,' `Erin Brokovich,' and `Chocolat' for the top film award, but lost out in seven other categories in one of the tightest Oscar races in years.

The movie was a throwback to a genre that the film industry had turned its back on decades ago but producer Douglas Wick said that this year's awards showed just how wrong Hollywood conventional wisdom can be.

Crowe - as the valiant Maximus in the movie - completed his transformation into one of Hollywood's most bankable leading men, winning the best actor Oscar.

The New Zealand-born Aussie also thanked director Scott, who lost out to Steven Soderbergh in the vote for Best Director.

The Best Actress award went as expected to Julia Roberts, a three-time nominee, for her role as a real-life crusading law clerk in `Erin Brockovich'. Roberts played a tough- talking, cleavage-baring single mother who discovers that a powerful utility is poisoning the drinking water of a local community.

`Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' took the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture, overcoming competition from `Amores Perros' (Mexico), `Divided We Fall' (Czech Republic) `Everybody Famous' (Belgium) and France's `The Taste of Others'.

`Crouching Tiger' - which Taiwanese director Ang Lee has described as ``Bruce Lee meets Jane Austen'' - also picked up Oscars for Best Art Direction, Best Original Musical Score and Best Cinematography.

Soderbergh earned the Best Director award for `Traffic', an unflinching look at the world of drugs on both sides of the U.S.- Mexican border.

Benicio del Toro won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as a Mexican cop in `Traffic' while Marcia Gay Harden won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her turn as the wife of a tortured U.S. painter Jackson Pollock in Ed Harris' `Pollock'.

Aging folk-rock icon Bob Dylan won his first Oscar for Best Original Song with `Things Have Changed', from the movie `Wonder Boys'. Rock star Sting and Randy Newman were also up for the award.

- AFP

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