Commentary Track

WTF: Long Ass Movies

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 20, 2007

Ask any moviegoer what the ideal running time for a feature film, and they will most likely say, “About two hours.”

You hear that Hollywood? “About two hours.” They won’t say, “Just shy of three hours” or “As long as the artist needs to make his masterpiece.”

Yet every year, the film industry is compelled to release films that – even after full studio involvement in the editing process – are way too long for their own good.

What the fuck? Just because there is no “long film” category to off-set the “short film” category on some ballots does not excuse running times north of 130 minutes.

It’s not even art-house films like There Will Be Blood (158 minutes), Into the Wild (147 minutes), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (160 minutes) and Lust, Caution (158 minutes). It’s mainstream stuff too, like American Gangster (160 minutes). You can’t tell me that every scene, shot and subplot of these films is really necessary.

Is there an editor’s strike going on that we don’t know about?

Why is it when it comes down to awards season, filmmakers think these 2 1/2 hour monstrosities are necessary? I have yet to meet a film – especially an award film – that actually deserves to be much longer than two hours.

In fact, one of the best things about Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (which, surprisingly isn’t getting any awards push from the studio) is that he had the balls to actually make a film that was short and sweet, clocking in at only 91 minutes.

Other award films that I applaud this season that come in with short running times include Charlie Wilson’s War (97 minutes), Juno (91 minutes) and the remarkably nominated Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (96 minutes).

But the rest of the field can be summed up in the immortal words of Jack Nicholson’s Joker from 1989’s Batman: “This town needs an enema!”