Too Much of a Good Thing

Are the movies today getting longer or is it the movie going experience that makes it feel that way?

Are the movies today getting longer or is it the movie going experience that makes it feel that way? The whole process of going to the movies can be such a major expedition as it is, what with traveling to the theater, waiting in line (thank goodness for the credit card ticket machines in most modern theaters!) for tickets, waiting in line at the concession stand (always behind the large group of idiots who act as if they've never ordered popcorn before and have to see the size of each and every bag before deciding not to buy any after all), and then finding your seat so that you can be barraged by the pre-show "entertainment" and then, depending upon the theater, more ads, until finally you get to the five to ten movie previews (many of which are so detailed that there's no need to even go to see the movie). After all of that, anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes after you've arrived at the theater, the movie will finally start.

Of course, because of this huge delay in the movie's start time, many people have taken to arriving at the movies late. So just when the lights have dimmed and the movie is about start, in will troop huge groups of people who will stumble about trying to find seats and you can just about guarentee that the loudest and largest group will either pick the row just behind you where they will kick your seat and/or drop popcorn on your head as they sit down.

I find that two hours is about the most I'm willing to allocate for a movie these days and really it's a very rare movie that deserves to be longer than that. The Godfather, yeah okay, that movie was worth every minute. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy? Definitely worth every minute. For your average movie though, 90 to 105 minutes should be plenty. Take The Prestige for instance. I enjoyed it a lot, but did it need to be over 2 hours long? I don't think so. Was it because I'd already been in the theater for a half-hour before the movie started? Probably. If I'd watched it on DVD, who knows, I might have thought it was worth every minute.

There are two solutions to this problem. One, filmmakers could edit their work more ruthlessly, something I know that many are loathe to do because of how much work they put in to each shot. But in this day of DVDs they can always add the scenes back later in a "Director's Cut". Or Two, which definitely isn't going to happen, movie theaters could start the previews and all the other stuff, fifteen minutes before the posted start time, so that the movie actually starts on the time they say it will! What a concept!