Long, weighty, dramatic - that's a Hollywoodschinken. You may have guessed that the German compound - and doesn't the German language love compounds! - combining Hollywood with Schinken (ham) has nothing to do with culinary delights. It's simply one of those endless Hollywood sagas, fulfilling but just as heavy as a hock of ham.

With the Golden Globes behind us and the Oscars coming up in just a few weeks, Hollywood is, well, licking its chops this month with epics like "Boyhood" by director Richard Linklater, "Still Alice" starring Julianne Moore, and "The Theory of Everything" about scientist Stephen Hawking.