Funny People - I liked this movie. The ending was a little weird, as the show seemed to lose itself a bit, but overall, I thought it was pretty well done. Adam Sandler was great (pretty much just playing himself) and Seth Rogan was good. I liked the cameos from various comedians and from Eminem. I'd recommend it.

Zombieland - Very simple movie, but pretty enjoyable. I think the previews made it seem like there would be more outrageous ways to kill zombies than there actually were, but still, it was funny. There's a scene with a certain unnamed celeb towards the end of the movie that I thought was brilliant. It helped that I had no idea the unnamed celeb was in the movie. I don't want to spoil it so I'll just suggest watching it to see what I am talking about.

Yeah, Zombieland was pretty awesome.

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I just got back from seeing Avatar. I think it was 2:45 minutes well spent, even if my bladder wanted to burst half way through.

2:45... I've heard enough.

Assuming you are saying it's too long, then you and I are opposites. Generally hearing that a movie is long makes me more interested in seeing it. I like long, epic movies.

I generally don't. Most long movies are needlessly so. While I'm sure some stuff could have been cropped out of Avatar, I don't think it was necessary. It was a good movie. I was impressed with the CG, there were very few spots which it looked obviously fake (and that's usually the times when you could contrast humans and na'vi on the screen at the same time)

The Dark Knight was 2:32
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was 2:58
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was 3:21
Braveheart was 2:57
The Matrix was 2:16
Star Wars was 2:01
The Empire Strikes Back was 2:04
The Godfather was 2:55
Terminator 2 was 2:17

Have you really heard enough?

I'm more interested in seeing good movies.

Sounds like you'd rather judge a movie solely based on the length. Pretty silly, don't you think?

You're basically making my point for me, thanks....

The Dark Knight was awesome... but drug on about 15-20 minutes longer than it needed. The whole Two Face bit was over the top. The movie climaxed with the capture of the joker, and then treaded water for 15-20 minutes more. Even if you liked the Two Face bit, you have to admit the movie started to get a bit long - at 2:45, Avatar will run on for 15 more minutes.

Fellowship of the Ring was really good, but could have benefited from editing. I don't need to see them walking... walking... walking. The movie could have been trimmed.

Return of the King was also really good... save for the 15-20 minutes of "faux endings" and the 15 minutes of slow motion, sad face shots. Again, the movie could have been knocked down to about 2:20-2:30 and been amazing rather than really good.

Terminator 2, Star Wars, Empire, and Matrix were long, awesome movies, but wrapped up in a reasonable amount of time. There is no comparison between 130 minutes and 165. If you added 30 minutes of prattle to any of those movies, they go from being amazing to really good movies that needed an editor.

Godfather and Braveheart are big exceptions... and 2 very rare movies. And really Godfather has 2 separate narratives - life and death of the Don and rise of Michael. They could have done a Kill Bill and split that into 2. Braveheart is a different animal.

In general - shorter is better. Just because something is interesting doesn't mean it contributes to the movie's narrative.

A movie should be long enough to tell the story. Not longer. Not Shorter. When a sci-fi shoot 'em up starts approaching 3 hours, I am skeptical. Seriously - do you think The Empire Strikes Back woudl have been nearly as good if it was 45 minutes longer?

I didn't think Dark Knight was too long at all; I enjoyed it all, including the Two Face bit.

Fellowship of the Ring's walking was too much? I disagree... all that walking emphasized the size and beauty of Middle Earth. I *liked* seeing "all that walking." This made the movie better.

Return of the King I agree seemed a little long, but for me, as a huge fan of the series, I liked all the extra endings. The 4 hour extended version was fine with me, really.

Braveheart had long scenes of them walking too, but you don't seem to have a problem with those scenes.

Shorter is not necessarily better. Sometimes it's ok to linger on scenery for scenery's sake. You don't always have to have a story move along at a blistering pace.

As for Avatar, I thought it was quite good, even if a little cliched. I can't tell you how many times, though, I was thinking, "ok this is Dances with Wolves in space." The parallels were big. As for it's length? Well I didn't notice it being long at all. There were no long scenes of anyone walking, so maybe you'll like it. It was definitely a beautiful movie, so if it lingered a little too long on the scenery for your tastes I can't say much about it.

Orme is the new Cicely. Great.

Apparently

And you're a fat fuck who gets pissed off when people don't share your affinity for jerking off to hobbits. See, I can call names too.

CAT FIGHT!

Maybe you can make a flash movie and show us just how funny you can be.

The walking in the Fellowship was important also due to the fact they walked so much in the books. If there were no shots of where and what they walked over and through people would have justifiably complained.

Orme's points about movie length are dumb.

Maybe we can ask Riders of the Apocalypse to have a reunion so you can grief them for self-worth rather than trolling a movie discussion thread.

Seriously, I an baffled that movies and He-Man cartoons mean so fucking much to you.

Avatar



Lol that is spot on, my friend calls The Last Samurai, "Dances with Japs" and this is very much "Dances with Blue Giant Aliens"

Still brilliant to watch though.

I much prefer my movies fleshed out, nothing worse than a good film that's too short. If it's shit and too long I can just turn it off.

I know a lot of people who loves those movies, and some who hate them. I'm more on the "really really like" side. I loved the King Kong remake, but felt it could have been trimmed some. Peter Jackson gets slo-mo fever and it wears me out.

As for movie lengths, I am not saying no movie can be long, I am just saying that you don't usually need 2.5+ hours to make a good flick. To Neesha's point - yeah there are good, longer movies. There aren't a lot of really good 2:45 movies. For all the good ones listed, I can ramble off several bad ones - like Gods & Generals, ug.

Think of some of the best movies ever made:
The Wizard of Oz, ET, Back to the Future, Jaws, Rocky, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Citizen Kane, Psycho, Vertigo, Raging Bull, Terminator 2, Shawnshank Redemption, Goodfellas. I think all those are under 2.5 hours and closer to 2.

Anyhooo - didn't realize this was such a hot topic.

I wouldn't really say it's a hot topic, I just found it funny that you'd totally dismiss a movie that was getting pretty good reviews all the way around simply because you saw the time of the movie. With the price of movies today, I have no problem sitting through a movie that is 2-3 hours long, even if there are a few scenes that I could do without. I agree that some movies could be trimmed, but who am I to be the one to decide that? Cameron had a vision, he edited out tons of footage, and this is his finished product. Just because I think one scene could have been shortened does not mean I am right in thinking that. It's a movie, not a Thesis. If the filmmaker wants to indulge himself a bit (what action flick maker doesn't?) I can live with it as long as I get to see a good movie in return.

Why you gotta be like that?

I'm pretty sure you're neither the best paid, most financially secure, best looking, drive the nicest car or thinnest person here. I'd be willing to bet you're not at the top of any of those categories, so why toss bricks from your glass house?

Joxur - it rolled off the tongue. Givin is a fuckwad who takes pleasure in being a fuckwad. Forgive me for not being able to rise above him.

Neesha - fair enough.

Just to piss you off, I got a screen replacement warranty on my new Macbook.

Your move, faggot.

I have heard Avatar called "Dances with Smurfs"

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Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Pretty much everyone I know has agreed that it is a story we've all seen/heard before, but is well worth going and getting lost in the world created despite that fact.

I'm hoping to see it this weekend.

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I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what length has to do with a movie's quality. I read all of Orme's posts and I'm still baffled. You could have, for example, a 10 minutes of good film with 30 minutes of "prattle"(as Orme calls it). That's a pretty short movie. You could also have a movie with 3 hours of goodness and 10 minutes of prattle. He pointed out the couple of rare exceptions.

What's the rule of thumb here? Is the suggestion that you cannot have prattle once you reach a specific time limit? Why does almost anything beyond 2 hours breach that time limit? If so, what does that say about good TV series(or miniseries, made-for-TV multi-part movies, etc) that reach 30+ hours in length?

I'm just not seeing the correlation between time and quality. They're two entirely separate beasts.

As my comfort level decreases while I sit in one place for hours, my requirements of quality of movie to be entertained and stay in said place go up. The longer I sit, the better the movie has to be. I could walk out of a theatre happy after 120 minutes of a decent movie and say it was pretty good. You tell the same story in 3 hours and I'll probably comment that it dragged. Brevity is the essence of wit and all that.

That would be personal perspective that is affected by discomfort which is unrelated to the movie itself. Some people cannot sit for an hour without getting uncomfortable, others can go for 16+ hours. If I had bad eyesight and as a result got eye strain after an hour, I probably wouldn't want to be the one to claim that a rich 3D effects masterpiece seemed to lose its graphical touch halfway through the film.

The point about brevity is understandable, but some stories with consistent quality take longer to tell. I wouldn't be able to condense the Lord of the Rings down to a few short sentences and have it contain any more wit or meaning than a common catchphrase.

Don't have a cow, man.

Angels and Demons Meh. Its the sequel problem (although apparently the book is a prequel). Implausibilities abound and the main actress' accent is all over the place.

It just seemed like they were sucking the church's cock.

Irony?

Is this because I typed more than a couple sentences, or what? =p

lol, fair enough

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I finally saw 500 days of summer last night. It was surprisingly good! I was quite moved by it.

Law Abiding Citizen

It was decent. For a small portion of the movie early on I was under the impression that the main character was actually going to turn out to be a good guy, until he just became the bad guy with "family revenge morals". I did like the small surprise when the two detectives went to the final house and made their "discovery"... did not see that coming.

I think it is a Netflix rental, but that is about it. Would not spend cash at the movies on it...

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agreed, but now i have the strange urge to wear ties and sweater vests

Angels and Demons was simply the first book. The Da Vinci Code is actually the sequel. I haven't seen A&D the movie, so I am assuming they treat it as happening after hte Da Vinci Code, but that's not how the books were released.

I liked Angels and Demons; I thought it was very entertaining

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Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Wow, this is a great way for me to wrap up my point about movie lengths. When movies run long, they tend to dwell on ideas that have already been developed.

Let's use this post from VEnen as an example. It is much like the 4th or 5th slo-mo shot of Sam on the volcano in LOTR3. He has made absolutely no new points. Instead, he simply rehashed everything that has already been discussed. His post and this thread woudl have been better off with him either not posting or simply saying: Yeah, Orme's a fucking tard - he can eat my shit.

Instead, I have to drown in his psuedo-intellectual recap of the "length doesn't matter" discussion.

Why does every scene have to make a new point?

It was a bit of a rehash on my part, but it was a point I didn't see much of an answer on. You say here that they tend to dwell on the same ideas - but my point was that a movie being long has nothing to do with that. A tendency for directors and script writers doing that may exist, but there's no direct correlation there. At best, it seems like judging a book by its cover.

It's just that you commented that you heard Avatar was a fairly long movie, and immediately suggested that's all you needed to know. Perhaps some facetiousness on your part, but it speaks to the idea at least.

I'd also tend to agree with Fribur that sometimes dwelling on ideas can be quite interesting, especially if they're pretty involved. It's the same as above, and not a rule of thumb that makes a movie concept bad in and of itself.

Personally I thought the Sam shots conveyed a decent amount of emotion. Call me a sap for drama =p

No hostility intended on my part, just genuinely curious why some people feel this way about long movies. It's one thing to say things like "My neck gets sore after a while" or "I have an overactive bladder and use the bathroom a lot" or "I have trouble sitting still for long periods at a time" given as reasons for not enjoying them personally. If those reasons extend to a judgement that a movie is bad because of time, that's something else entirely and lacks objectivity.

avatar is not at all too long. i was ready for more when it ended.

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Put me in the boat of 'Long movies equal good value.'

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Daybreakers: Oh, I had such hopes. I've never seen a movie stage so much "You're supposed to give a shit about these characters and feel something" melodrama that didn't actually have any impact because I didn't give a shit about any of them. Such a waste of a fairly interesting concept. World design was actually kind of cool in this one.

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A Perfect Getaway- A decent enough thriller. I completely didn't see the twist but then there wasn't much in the way of clues. Attractive scenery and attractive people really helped it. They sure were concerned about murders on another much more populous island though.

Milk - Excellent. Well executed and acted. Though I still say Mickey Rourke should've gotten best actor. Didn't really know anything about this guy/story. Yeah its uh kinda gay.

The Book of Eli - yeah..no. Some great fight/action scenes and Denzel was excellent as always, but it just falls kind of flat. It's tough to watch this after "The Road", in comparison these post-apocalypsians have it easy. All I learned from these two films is grocery carts and reaching the ocean will be important after civilization falls.

Sherlock Holmes: It was ok. It was much better once I said to myself "I'm watching a steampunk Batman story". Hell, they even had catwoman (irene). The boyfriend felt the same way and said it reminded him of something he referred to as "Gotham by Gas light".

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People like things they expect. That is why franchises do so well in general, people know what to expect when they go in. Get a Whopper in Montana or Florida, it's going to be the same.

What does that have to do with long movies? People expect a movie to be about 2 hours or less. Even if they read it is longer beforehand, you can sense them getting a little fidgity after 2 hours. We have been programmed to expect that and you can't beat programming.

That doesn't mean long movies can't be great, there are a slew of them. It just means there is an extra hurdle to overcome that a shorter movie doesn't have to deal with. When you have a good enough film though, it can make it stand out even more from the crowd because it is such a different viewing experience to stay that focused for so long. We become invested in the movie and it has all the more pronounced effect on us.

Avatar wasn't an original story concept, but it was still enjoyable and the effects were so impressive I enjoyed the whole thing. I'll go in the camp that it wasn't too long, but a sequel won't have the same "new" special effect feel and will either need to be shorter or a better story.

Sherlock Holmes was good even tho you could have called the movie by any other title and named him anything other than Sherlock Holmes and had the same story. Still a decent effort to modernize the character from the classic fiction, which shouldn't have been too hard since it was all trash. I wonder how many people picked up some of the literature after seeing the movie and were bored to shit with that garbage.

I saw Crazy Heart tonight. To me it felt like The Wrestler with country music, but it was still enjoyable overall. There were a few scenes where I could see Jeff Bridges thinking "here comes my Oscar nom in 3,2,1..."

It's Complicated
After 3 months of nagging, I allowed myself to be dragged to this at the dollar theater. It wasn't as awful and cutesy as I expected, but it was completely boring, pointless, and long. For some reason, Alec Baldwin seemed stiff - almost like all his clothes were too tight across the chest.

There is one moderately funny seen where Baldwin gets naked for Steve Martin.

And Steve Martin - ug. What in the hell did he do to his face?

Meryl Streep seemed so out of place among all this crap.

New York, I Love You: I enjoyed this movie. Lots of unrelated vignettes of different people dealing with love. Unconventional and interesting. Worth a rental for something different.

Whiteout Gosh that wasn't very good at all now was it.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - has a really long title. Oh its not good by any stretch but I really enjoyed it. It's possible I'm starved for entertainment after the snow. I've read the book and it's different but close enough. The kids are a bit older then I pictured them, they better hurry on the sequels.