Movies are too fucking long these days imho

ya i'm just throwing that out there

long wwii epics = fine
long rob reiner-esque romcoms = so not fine

is how i break it down to an extent

otm

i watched valentines day on the plane this weekend, probably the most embarrassing movie ive ever seen, but its not a good topic for discussion as no amount of cutting could have turned that into a well-made movie

long middle earth epics = ???
long remakes of classics = ???

think your position is a bit confused here tbh

no i definitely think the LOTR movies "deserve" to be long (though not as long as they were), but i still blame them for making movies that long OK

get it?

i don't think it's fair to blame them at all. epics and adaptations have always been epic length, we're talking about movies that aren't traditionally long getting longer.

Titanic is probably a better scapegoat, just on a "well, we spent all this money, might as well put everything we can onscreen" tip.

slocks is right

roadshow-type pix have always been long, ever since, like, 'birth of a nation'

the problem is more to do with regular films pushing past 120 minutes

still don't really get it since the objection doesn't seem to be that these long popcorn movies drag but that they...take up too much of your life or something?

they fuckin drag believe me

still don't really get it since the objection doesn't seem to be that these long popcorn movies drag but that they...take up too much of your life or something?

― dat nigga del griffith (zvookster), Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:16 PM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark

it is kind of a professional concern for reviewers. tummies begin to rumble c. 110 minutes yo.

haha well i get it if they drag, idk it just seemed more philosophical than that

philosophical angle - "why are so many shitty movies dragging these days"

"No good movie is too long, and no bad movie is short enough." – Roger Ebert

marley and me: 115min
the bounty hunter: 110min

movies - 5-6 £/h
books - £2/h?
videogames - £1/h?
albums - 50p/h?

movies never gonna cut it at that rate

I can see the others, but how do you get albums at 50p per hour? Most albums aren't even an hour long, and depending on format they can cost well over £15. Unless you're offsetting free download/spotify albums against bought albums, but that's a whole different thing. Or replay value, but then you can rewatch films if you buy instead of go to the cinema...

Also, it doesn't seem like anyone has linked to this other relevant thread: Your ideal length of a film

TV shows get to have it both ways - they're an hour at most, yet the "experience" lasts months and even years. And you can charge out the wazoo for the DVDs.

Why dont movies just have a 10-min intermission?

Gandhi did. The movie theater even had some old reel they put on, with candy-stripes and big white capital letters that said "INTERMISSION".

historias extraordinarias had TWO intermissions!

Or replay value, but then you can rewatch films if you buy instead of go to the cinema...

was thinking of replay value, and that is true but that would count for videos, as a separate category from movies.

pretty stupid metric anyway tbh.

Lots of movies have an intermission, but it always seems to be taken out of the DVD?

i'm sure i remember intermissions in movies all the time when i was a kid.

i think heat had one when i saw it (not a kid by then).

people like to think theyre getting their moneys worth. its like 78 minute cds.

I am usually waiting for film to end when I do go to the cinema. Weird example of one time I kinda wanted it to carry on: Cloverfield.

Fantastic Mr Fox was a wonderful movie for many reasons, not least of which is thanks to its 87 minute running time.

I've seen 80-minute movies that dragged. Length seems secondary: It's about storytelling. Think about how even your longest favorite movies begin immediately (the great opening in The Godfather), or how length suits either the sweep of years of the pressure of close quarters in Reds, Prince of the City, Das Boot, etc.

Movies take forever to get started these days. One thing I love about the original Bad News Bears is how it introduces credits, setting, plot, and all but one of its main characters under the 8-minute mark, all at a leisurely pace, and gets right onto the field:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgk_8Ydy0_M

or the pressure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadshow_theatrical_release

(^movies with intermissions)

I've seen 80-minute movies that dragged. Length seems secondary: It's about storytelling.

This is the truth. A great rule of thumb I heard long ago is that it doesn't matter how long it actually is so much as how long it seemed to be (this was either Pauline Kael or Dr. Ruth that said that)

There are two hour movies that fly by and there are 90 minute movies that make you check your watch every three minutes.

One thing I love about the original Bad News Bears is how it introduces credits, setting, plot, and all but one of its main characters under the 8-minute mark, all at a leisurely pace, and gets right onto the field:

die hard is the best example of this i've ever seen... EVERYTHING is set up so fast

and YA GUYS of course bad movies seem longer and good movies fly by but that's not really what i'm talking about here. i'm talking about sex and the city being 2.5 hours long. regardless of the good/bad rule, some movies should not be that long. objectively.

is there anything that we can do about this?

http://tkcollier.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/mob_pitchforks_small.jpg

http://werkinggerl.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/revolution.jpg

i mean, can we start some kind of facebook viral campaign that gets a hit on the NYT arts blog and prompts a quote from someone at a studio who says "hmm maybe we'll think about delivering more focused product"

or something?

cos otherwise it seems like the institutional forces are moving towards bloat. i hadn't even thought of the "competing with a ballgame" angle

let's all vow to walk out of movies at the 90 minute mark

we can do a hashtag too

the only thing hollywood understands is money, so let's...raise a bunch of money and pay them to make shorter movies.

i'll set up a paypal

#peacingat90

mail white powder to everyone in the editor's guild

xp lol

If people were really clamoring for shorter movies, they would have made fan edits with brevity as a primary goal, and more people would watch those than the original.
I'll admit the five minute "fan" edit of Fast & Furious sounds worth paying for.

http://vimeo.com/11890554

funny people is one thing but what really blows my mind is that someone thought a movie with a jonah hill anal rape gag in it needed to be 110 minutes

how long was Furry Vengeance?

Movies take forever to get started these days.

feeling this. hate how really slow music-driven opening credits sequences and long misleading or ambiguous first scenes have become the standard for like every genre practically.

ya... the iron man 2 "welding & newspaper clips montage" bothered me in partics