funny people - ~150 minutes
^ I understand this, apatow's an auteur now
― (e_3) (Edward III), Monday, 14 June 2010 21:00 (thirteen years ago) link
i dunno if this is a particularly new thing but yeah i can't stand movies > 1.5 hours long
― hoes on my dick cos my groceries bagged (tpp), Monday, 14 June 2010 21:10 (thirteen years ago) link
I am with you on this one, slocki. I watched "Extract" the other day & it was not the best movie but I think I had a better opinion of it because at least it knew how long to be.
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Monday, 14 June 2010 21:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I always appreciate that Woody Allen keeps his movies trim. Match Point is the only one he's ever made that has been over two hours. Fifteen of his 39 movies have even been under 90 minutes (although the last one was Shadows and Fog in 1991.)
― jaymc, Monday, 14 June 2010 22:02 (thirteen years ago) link
I am just going to post this here, in case I ever need to refer to it:
Whatever Works (2009): 92Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008): 96Cassandra's Dream (2007): 108Scoop (2006): 96Match Point (2005): 124Melinda and Melinda (2004): 99Anything Else (2003): 108Hollywood Ending (2002): 112Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001): 103Small Time Crooks (2000): 94Sweet and Lowdown (1999): 95Celebrity (1998): 113Deconstructing Harry (1997): 96Everybody Says I Love You (1996): 101Mighty Aphrodite (1995): 95Bullets Over Broadway (1994): 98Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993): 104Husbands and Wives (1992): 108Shadows and Fog (1991): 85Alice (1990): 102Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989(: 104Another Woman (1988): 81September (1987): 82Radio Days (1987): 88Hannah and Her Sisters (1986): 103Purple Rose of Cairo (1985): 82Broadway Danny Rose (1984): 84Zelig (1983): 79Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982): 88Stardust Memories (1980): 89Manhattan (1979): 96Interiors (1978): 93Annie Hall (1977): 93Love and Death (1975): 85Sleeper (1973): 89Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (1972): 88Bananas (1971): 82Take the Money and Run (1969): 85What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966): 80
― jaymc, Monday, 14 June 2010 22:07 (thirteen years ago) link
This might be the most I've ever agreed with a thread!
(Heh, my gf, a huge fan of endless action and sci-fi movies, complained that Annie Hall was "too long"!)
― Sundar, Monday, 14 June 2010 22:17 (thirteen years ago) link
I might be alone on this but I actually thought Splice could have really used another 15-20 minutes to help smooth out some rather, er, ungraceful plot movement.
― Simon H., Monday, 14 June 2010 22:17 (thirteen years ago) link
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Monday, June 14, 2010 5:58 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark
ya i think i felt the same way!
― delanie griffith (s1ocki), Monday, 14 June 2010 22:20 (thirteen years ago) link
And, yes, I wouldn't mind this phenomenon so much if there were some sort of formal innovation going on to justify the length but when relatively standard comedies or action movies are just dragged out for that much longer, it does feel pretty ridiculous. (Funny People especially, particularly since I generally really enjoyed Apatow.)
xposts
― Sundar, Monday, 14 June 2010 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't necessarily know if I agree that movies are "too long" but I agree that 99% of them waste a lot of time on dumb shit; ie it's not so much I believe movies should meet an arbitrary length of like 95 minutes but I do think they need to make better use of whatever time they take up
― congratulations (n/a), Monday, 14 June 2010 22:54 (thirteen years ago) link
I can see if every minute you cut from a movie means you have to admit you wasted $10million on that scene, I'd feel stingy with the cuts. How long are movies nowadays with budgets under $5 million?
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 14 June 2010 23:35 (thirteen years ago) link
i think Edward III is most on the money here in saying that its an auteur thing. i think it has to do with prestige not just for the studio/distributor but for the director or editors. i also dont think its a coincidence that we're now seeing tons of new 'directors cut,' 'extended edition,' etc DVDs that supposedly emphasize the true version of a film, implying that longer runtimes=more authenticity or whatever.
or even just how many times have you heard the story of how the studio tried to chop xxx scenes out of whatever classic movie or ruined magnificent ambersons? so if judd apatow is going to get 150 minutes for funny people hes not going to sabotage his own movie
― killahpriest (/\/K/\/\), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 00:23 (thirteen years ago) link
not that that explains why the studio would be down with that
― killahpriest (/\/K/\/\), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 00:24 (thirteen years ago) link
and tbh i enjoyed funny people for the most part
― killahpriest (/\/K/\/\), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 00:25 (thirteen years ago) link
In apatow's defense, there isn't much he could cut that doesn't disrupt the main story, and the parts that he could cut are funnier/better than the main story.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
In apatow's defense, he is fucking clueless
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 03:48 (thirteen years ago) link
― Philip Nunez, Monday, June 14, 2010 8:33 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark
not much of a defense imho
― delanie griffith (s1ocki), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 03:52 (thirteen years ago) link
people need a break from the minute long youtubes they watch all the time
― an indie-rock microgenre (dyao), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:00 (thirteen years ago) link
ITT people making me happy that I don't watch new movies
― Cunga, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Karate Kid really should have just been 85 minutes of 12-year-olds beating the living shit out of each other, hard-'R' style. Major improvement.
― Simon H., Monday, June 14, 2010 8:57 PM (Yesterday)
Under appreciated post.
― Cunga, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:03 (thirteen years ago) link
personally i think comedies need a REALLY compelling reason to break 90 minutes. and any movie needs to seriously justify breaking the two-hour mark. every minute you go over that, you should owe the audience money or something
I agree 100%. I have a pretty firm 2 hr limit and anything over that I start to get so antsy it's ridiculous. 90 mins is the perfect length for most movies imo.
Spiderman 3 was so long it was a serious test of my will, and I lost.
I saw a midnight showing of that piece of crap on a weeknight and got about 3 hours of sleep as a result. I was so pissed.
― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:07 (thirteen years ago) link
Maybe swollen mediocre films are the natural counterpart to hugely fat mediocre novels:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/files/imagecache/review/files/small.HAMILTON_Judas%20Unchained.jpg
― Aimless, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:11 (thirteen years ago) link
i can sit through a three hour movie in a theater no problem, but give me a DVD longer than 90 min and I literally fall asleep!
― baout it baout it (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:39 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah me too. it's harder to pay attention at home for some reason.
― Save Ferris' It Means Everything knocked my socks off (latebloomer), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:48 (thirteen years ago) link
Never mind watching something on your laptop.
Pretty sure Ingmar Bergman's oeuvre wasn't meant to be minimized so you can check your Facebook and e-mail (or was it??)
― Cunga, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:51 (thirteen years ago) link
everything is too long these days if you ask me.
― Save Ferris' It Means Everything knocked my socks off (latebloomer), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:52 (thirteen years ago) link
even worse than movie length are movie titles!
hardly anything is ever something simple like say, "Armadillo Man". it's gotta be "Armadillo Man: The Curse of the Last Beginning"
― Save Ferris' It Means Everything knocked my socks off (latebloomer), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Armadillo Man 2: hardly anything is ever something simple
― Save Ferris' It Means Everything knocked my socks off (latebloomer), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:55 (thirteen years ago) link
hahahahaha
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:56 (thirteen years ago) link
ya
i cant stand watching movies on my laptop btw
i can barely watch an episode of 30 rock
so distracting
― delanie griffith (s1ocki), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 04:56 (thirteen years ago) link
The worst is when you compromise while on your laptop, minimizing and only hearing certain scenes because they're not important enough to warrant your full attention.
― Cunga, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 05:01 (thirteen years ago) link
This is not just a modern problem. Much love to The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Bunch, but they could be trimmed to two hours without losing anything.
― a cross between lily allen and fetal alcohol syndrome (milo z), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 05:12 (thirteen years ago) link
no way wild bunch is perfect
― delanie griffith (s1ocki), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 05:20 (thirteen years ago) link
and anyway those are big epics about DOZENS & BUNCHES of characters doing all sorts of crazy things. when romcoms break the two-hour mark that's when we're in trouble.
― delanie griffith (s1ocki), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 05:22 (thirteen years ago) link
― Cunga, Tuesday, June 15, 2010 12:51 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark
a problem the ipad was meant to solve
(i'm serious, btw)
― an indie-rock microgenre (dyao), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 05:35 (thirteen years ago) link
It's not length but lack of dramatic shape, pacing, choices, story, etc. to make the length work. It was obvious that Avatar was on the timetable of the guy who would have ruined Aliens with his director's cut. These movies are long because they're bad, not the other way around.
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:09 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0
― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:15 (thirteen years ago) link
LOL, forgot how great Lynch's voice is.
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:24 (thirteen years ago) link
TBH I had no problem with the length of Avatar, or at least there wasn't anything in it that should've obviously been cut. I think sci-fi/fantasy movies set in different worlds, or historical epics set in not-so-well-known eras can justify 20-40 extra minutes to establish their setting. Moat sci-fi/fantasy flicks that last 90 minutes or so take place in our world, so they didn't need those extra minutes.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:48 (thirteen years ago) link
Speaking of Lynch, I thought Inland Empire was a really obvious case of an auteur given too much freedom, resulting in an overtly long mess. A good producer would've made him cut it at least 30 minutes shorter.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:54 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost
To turn that round a little bit I'd say yeah, fans of yr SF/Fantasy epics are probably happy to go see movies of that length the same way they only really trust huge fat septilogies of novels. You know what you're (not) going into.
For comedies tho there does seem to be a natural length after which you're not really gonna find anything hilarious cos you're laughed out/bored of the premise and I'd say that natural length is definitely no more than an hour and a half.
― That was Verbeek, that was (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Being self-indulgent is obviously the point of a certain kind of auteur but I guess somebody could've got on Lynch's case and said "HEY Buñuel bought L'Age d'Or in at under an hour y'know?"
― That was Verbeek, that was (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I think it depends on the nature of the comedy. Episodic/sketch comedy movies like The Meaning of Life or History of the World, Part 1 can justify a longer length because there's no one premise.
(x-post)
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I think Lord of the Rings bears some culpability here.
― sarahel, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:59 (thirteen years ago) link
Those movies don't even justify the running time they do have.
― Assou-Ekotto light boy? (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 07:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Armadillo Man 2: Electric Armoroo
― sarahel, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 07:02 (thirteen years ago) link
or at least there wasn't anything in it that should've obviously been cut.
I would take it as a 15-minute short about riding dragons.
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 07:10 (thirteen years ago) link
I can see if every minute you cut from a movie means you have to admit you wasted $10million on that scene, I'd feel stingy with the cuts.How long are movies nowadays with budgets under $5 million?
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, June 15, 2010 12:35 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark
it's more about cutting within a scene. the script tells you how long the film will be, and the studio budgets on the basis of the script. obviously it doesn't always work out like that, but that's the idea -- so the problem might be related to bad/rushed script development.
i thought 'funny people' didn't work, but if it *had*, i.e. if the stuff with his wife hadn't sucked, 150min would have been legit. his two earlier films were pretty long and they worked. on the whole, though, 85-100min is the thing to shoot for.
it's not an entirely new thing. 'psycho' does not need to be 109min, 'rio bravo' sure as hell does not need to be 140min, 'some like it hot' doesn't need to be two hours.
― sites.younglife.org:8080 (history mayne), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 08:27 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah maybe we are just hypersensitive to movie length in the age of youtube
I think directors should be made to drink a standard movie theater sized 44 oz tub of coke before viewing each rough cut of their movie
― an indie-rock microgenre (dyao), Tuesday, 15 June 2010 08:32 (thirteen years ago) link
or at least not so great.
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 18:49 (five years ago) link
feel like theres a decent thread in here about overly long movies that were good but contained a long and ultimately unnecessary sideplot that could've been excised completely
Interstellar & the Matt Damon thing is a pretty good example
― frogbs, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 18:54 (five years ago) link
I bet that 90% of the films that check in at 150 minutes+ aspire to one or more of those things; how many actually achieve it, obviously many fewer.― clemenza, Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:18 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― clemenza, Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:18 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
That's just an application of Sturgeon's Law (85-90% of everything is crap). Presumably 100% of the filmmakers who attempt to make epic films are attempting to do so well, but maybe only 10% of the resulting films are good enough to be worth their running time.
I expect to see the forthcoming Avengers movie, but I wish filmmakers besides Tarantino would bring back intermissions. You'd think theater operators would welcome the second chance to sell overpriced concessions to moviegoers.
― Anne Hedonia (j.lu), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 19:45 (five years ago) link
I am surprised the Patton Oswalt bit about filmmaking didn't appear here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcjlKcjVxTc
― Yerac, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 20:00 (five years ago) link
I just had to look up how long Roma is because I just feel it's way too long despite not having seen it yet. 135 minutes
― Yerac, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
I started watching Roma last November, still haven't finished it
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 20:04 (five years ago) link
Maybe we can make it a group project and everyone takes 15 minutes of it.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 20:05 (five years ago) link
https://www.thecut.com/2019/12/movies-should-be-97-minutes-long.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw
Do you know how long Noah Baumbach’s torturous divorce drama Marriage Story is? Two hours and 17 minutes. It could have easily lost half an hour. Do you know how long the wacky whodunnit Knives Out is? Two hours and ten minutes. I really liked it, mostly, but it could be 20 minutes shorter, and it would be better for it. I liked It okay, but It Chapter Two is two hours and 50 minutes long. That is outrageous. I could watch four episodes of the Real Housewives in that time.
― piscesx, Thursday, 19 December 2019 20:35 (four years ago) link
Marriage Story is a pretty complex narrative, didn't seem overlong.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 December 2019 20:48 (four years ago) link
I went to bed with half an hour left to go, figure I'll put it on and let them finish the complex narrative of shouting at each other while I'm cooking sometime
― insecurity bear (sic), Thursday, 19 December 2019 22:22 (four years ago) link
The Batman is going to be 2hrs 47min or some shit.
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 20 January 2022 22:52 (two years ago) link
Looking on Netflix for a movie to watch (we don't tend to do this) we settled on "The Irishman" the Scorcese movie.
Man! I mean, a great movie, but three and a half hours!
Justified, but.
― Mark G, Friday, 21 January 2022 00:29 (two years ago) link
Isn’t it much longer than that?
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 21 January 2022 00:36 (two years ago) link
Or did it just feel like it
Well, I looked it up, and I think officially it's a minute shorter, and the longest movie released to cinemas for thirty years or some such.
― Mark G, Friday, 21 January 2022 00:44 (two years ago) link
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror is apparently free on Kanopy now, but I have to set some time aside as it's 3hr 14 min
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 21 January 2022 01:20 (two years ago) link
Everybody thinks the Andrei Tarkovsky remaking Ben Hur
― Johnny Mathis der Maler (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 21 January 2022 01:50 (two years ago) link
Their
Hearing that John Wick 4 will weigh in at just under 3 hours.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 03:16 (one year ago) link
Relevant: Last (x) Movies you are going to Avoid
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 03:29 (one year ago) link
movies I've seen 3+ hours or more in the last few years:
The BatmanAvatar 2Avengers: Endgame
none of these are fuckin Cleopatra, I want a refund.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 04:50 (one year ago) link
The Menu in part succeeds because it's succinct, it's less than two hours long.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 04:57 (one year ago) link
don't wanna get dragged into that people-showing-up-at-random-during-the-middle-of-films-at-the-cinema-in-the-olden-days argument again but check this out
My mother insists that her mother brought her into a show of Witness for the Prosecution about thirty minutes from the end, and then they did exactly as Cleese describes. As soon as my grandmother had everything pieced together, she decreed that they had seen the film now and could leave.
― trishyb, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 15:12 (one year ago) link
did you hate Tár
― more crankable (sic), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 16:49 (one year ago) link
bad movies are too fucking long ihibidtae
― satori enabler (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 17:13 (one year ago) link
Solution: take out all icky sex scenes
#onethread
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 18:15 (one year ago) link