Quite honestly I can’t remember the last time I paid money to see a movie (in a theater) that wasn’t animated. My two-year-old daughter is the official movie selector in our home and frankly, I have no complaints about her choices. I have always had a hard time sitting through long movies. I get antsy. Seriously, I fidget so much it becomes annoying to the person seated next to me. Which is why kid-friendly animated films–that last about 80 minutes–are perfect for me.
Recently, I learned that I might not be the only one who struggles to sit through long movies. Yesterday, I was listening to a radio talk show that spent a great deal of time entertaining calls from people who recently sat through the serial-killer saga, “Zodiac.” At two hours and 40 minutes most filmgoers complained that the movie was too long.
The radio talk show host explained that the filmmaker acknowledged that the piece was long, but felt he needed that much time to tell the story he wanted. I’m sure its every filmmaker’s goal to make a quality movie at a length that doesn’t cause audiences to squirm in their seats. But, in this particular movie the filmmaker was faced with the challenge of taking an investigation that lasted 35 years and compressing it into a two and a half hour piece.
The bottom line: I doubt a moviegoer is going to complain about the length of a film if it captures their attention. How many people do you know that griped after sitting through three-hour masterpieces such as “Schindler’s List” or “The Godfather?” “The Best Years of Our Lives” was nearly 3-hours long and it was hailed as one of the most brilliant films ever made. Go back in time even further and you’ll find other historic epics that ran even longer, including D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” and “Birth of a Nation.”
Movie critic Richard Roeper of TV’s “Ebert and Roeper and the Movies” recently commented that the “Zodiac” and other films “could benefit from 10 to 15 minutes in cuts.” He pointed to the success of shorter length films including “The Queen,” (for which Helen Mirren won the best-actress Academy Award) that clocked in at a mere 103 minutes. Roeper also pointed out that most of Woody Allen’s films come in well under two hours.
Interestingly, in the last two years, five of the 10 best-picture Oscar nominees have run around two and a half to three hours, including this year’s champ “The Departed.” However, I should point out that most of Hollywood’s highly decorated films are epics such as “Gone With the Wind,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gandhi” and “Titanic.”
Did you sit through “Casino Royale,””Apocalypto,””Miami Vice,””Superman Returns,””The Da Vinci Code” or “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest?” All of those movies far exceeded two hours. I didn’t see any of the aforementioned films in a movie theater. Rather, I watched them at home where I could press pause when need be and stretched at will every 20 minutes.
What about you? Do you have a hard time sitting through long movies?