Three and a half hours - really?
Monday, November 13, 2023 at 11:25AM
I was looking forward to Martin Scocsese’s movie Killers of the Flower Moon. Based on a book I liked, starring DeNiro and DiCaprio, and tackling events in history that need to see the light of day, what could be better?
That was until I learned the runtime was three and a half hours. That’s at least three cartons of overpriced popcorn, two Diet Coke refills, and four trips to the bathroom. And a struggle to stay awake regardless of how intriguing the story or time of day.
I am not sure what our obsession with overly long movies is. For me, it started with Peter Jackson’s filming of the Fellowship of the Rings. Each movie and the Hobbit movies that followed ran over three hours. (Although Gone with the Wind from 1939 was over three hours long as well - but as I remember, it had a built in intermission.) Google “long movies” and you will find quite an extensive list of films over three hours long.
Is the length of today’s films due to artistic due diligence to the plot and characters - or the need to compete with serialized titles streaming on Netflix and Amazon? Quite honestly, I am not a huge fan of streaming titles that run 8-12 episodes over multiple seasons. I even thought Game of Thrones would have been a better production had it been a season or two shorter.
Bad movies are nothing new. I was reminded of this when I started exploring streaming movie channels that are ad-based like Tubi, Crackle and FreeVee. I am amazed by just how many bad (cheap) movies have been made - especially in the 50s and 60s. I suppose when one’s only source of entertainment was the local movie theater, one went to whatever was showing. As a kid, I did.
It may be that I am valuing what remaining days I have left in this life and not wanting to waste my time watching junk. Or reading junk.
Or perhaps writing junk. I will quit whining now.
Reader Comments (3)
It was a struggle for me too!
I read an interesting article a while back that in the 1970s through the mid 1990s, movie run times were shorter to fit into broadcast TV time blocks with ads.
Now that at home movie watching is mostly streaming, there’s no need to follow those constraints.
Another reason to wait until movies can be watched at home. Pause...