In the year 2000: Scott's Gladiator is better than I remember, and Howard's Grinch is worse

Trust me, I get the irony here.

Before this project started, I would have been hard-pressed to think of a movie that I was least-looking forward to watching. Now that it's here, though, Ron Howard's version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas should have been an obvious pick.

I disliked this winking, cash-grabbing, reductive, stand-up routine by Jim Carrey when I first watched it on video not long after its release, and time has not been kind to it. At heart is the same problem that should have handcuffed the animated Horton Hears a Who, which is taking a rather perfect short story and stretching it out into a feature film by adding less-than-perfect filler, but I never felt the same drag with Horton. The fact that Carrey is taking the lead in both films means that it wasn't just him that brought The Grinch down. 

Anyway, I don't need to spend too long bemoaning this number-one movie of the year in 2000, except to say that surely there was a better option for people to see. But, this one drew in the families over and over again, I'm sure. Actually, now that I think about it, it's an incredible feat for a movie released in November to grab that top spot.

Like I said up top, I get that I'm being Grinchy about this movie, but it's just not for me.

Gladiator, on its way to winning the Oscar for Best Picture, was a little more up my alley when I first watched it, but I nonetheless found it to be remarkably okay back then. I was much more impressed by it this time.

I remember feeling that the ending was a bit of a letdown in terms of what was promised. I mean, here's Derek Jacobi saying that no army has entered Rome in 100 years, so that sounds pretty cool - and then that plan is immediately squashed. It was a letdown, historical accuracy or not.

I knew even then, of course, that this was one man's story and not really about a siege of Rome, and this time it clicked for me that all of the scheming surrounding Maximus and the efforts to use his skills and name meant little to him; he had his personal mission and was steadfast in chasing it.

Maybe now that I've seen Gladiator II, and relished its over-the-top action scenes, that itch was scratched and I'm now seeing this first one as a comparatively subdued and personal affair.