What was the last film you watched?

[Andrew]

Are you sure we're talking of the same film? Because

they went to some lengths to establish a steampunk / science fiction setting

doesn't sound like the film I watched!

At a push, I'd say there was a 'Brazil'/Heath Robinson like depiction of some 'tech' elements (e.g. the transporter machine) at times but it seemed to me to be firmly set in Victorian London! And, tbh, I considered that incidental. For me, it was more a film about rivalry and obsession - the lengths some will go to to be the best.

[Andrew]

I like the Prestige but it's a bit of a pale shadow of things like Inception, Batman Begins et al. for me. 

I get your drift. I liked it more than BB. Inception, I'm struggling to recall (not a good sign!)* but I'd rate Prestige on a par with Insomnia but trailing Momento.

*edit - not seen it. A search reveals it comes in at near 2.5 hours - that tends to put me off, even for directors I like! But I don't think it was a film that made my radar, for whatever reason.

[caerau]

Ooh you should watch Inception - very cool.


People liken it to the Matrix but aside from a similar-ish feel it isn't really.  I suppose there is a dream-world element to it but not in the same way at all - I've seen it several times - though I do own in on video.   


What's wrong with 2.5 hrs?  That's pretty normal these days is it not?

[Aidan]

Alice through the Looking glass, similar in feel to the Tim Burton Alice film , not the most intricate of plots but some real eye candy and an enjoyable film to sit through. We saw it in 2D and thought afterwards that it might have been worth seeing the 3D version. 

[fuzzy]

Sicario- a good story but I think the reason Emily Blunt was recruited took too long to be established- I spent a while thinking 'Why the fuck has she been dragged into this by TPTB?'

A kick ass Emily Blunt is a good thing though, Benicio Del Toro is a very believable foil and Josh Brolin does the laid back spook to perfection.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's half term so we went to watch Captain America Civil War. Unusually for a film with a 12A rating the audience included several adults without children (and at midday!). The plot in which a violent rift in a group of superheroes dedicated to fighting crime and saving the world is exploited by an arch villain, allows the exploration of themes around liberty and the rule of law, unity, loyalty and treachery, jealousy, the poisonous effects of anger, forgiveness and revenge, not to mention the cold war and the superiority of Disney over Sony. You also get two 1990s British Telecom vans causing mayhem in a Lagos market, and a lot of laughs in the main superhero vs superhero fight scene, especially from Spider Man.

Jnr gave it 9.8 out of 10. 

[Andrew]

I lack an attention span. A film has to be pretty darned good to hold me for over 100 - 110 minutes.

Seriously, one of the things I do look at when deciding on a film is its length.

[caerau]

The extended versions of LoTR are just up your street then 

[Andrew]

The extended versions of LoTR are just up your street then 

I watched the first three (unextended) out of obligation (long story) in succession over a couple of days, with several pots of tea, packets of biscuits and pee stops. I found the films tedious. One of them, it felt like they spent the best part of an hour saying farewells. The extended versions must be hell.

[citoyen]

What's wrong with 2.5 hrs?  That's pretty normal these days is it not?

Normal is not the same as good. Most films are far longer than they need or deserve to be these days.

I'm quite keen to see Money Monster simply because Jodie Foster has a policy of making films that don't outstay their welcome (Money Monster is 98 minutes).

Who'd have thought Jodie Foster would be the spiritual heir to Roger Corman!

[Cudzoziemiec]

I agree. Even a superheroes film gets spun out to two or more hours, and it's really just a series of animatronics and explosions punctuated by product placements! I reckon it's the cinema chains rather than directors, studios or writers pushing this; sells more popcorn! 

[L CC]

X-Men Apocolypse: 144 minutes. Just say no, directors.

[Kim]

The point was that

(click to show/hide)

as Tesla created the cloning machine, it was science not magic, there was no magic in the first place, just a pair of twins

(click to show/hide)

Science as I understand it says such a machine impossible.  Even if you handwave awkward points like the uncertainty principle, or where all the energy comes from, the bandwidth requirements alone would be so many orders of magnitude above Tesla-level engineering that the prospect is laughable.  Therefore, the only contextually reasonable explanation is that it's magic.

Or bad writing.

If they'd shown the audience that it was taking place in a world where magic (possibly in the Arthur C Clarke sense, like they have in Star Trek) was possible, it would be fine.  It's not like there weren't plenty of opportunities to draw the distinction, but until that point all 'magic' was understood to be illusion.

[Mr Larrington]

The extended versions of LoTR are just up your street then 

I watched the first three (unextended) out of obligation (long story) in succession over a couple of days, with several pots of tea, packets of biscuits and pee stops. I found the films tedious. One of them, it felt like they spent the best part of an hour saying farewells. The extended versions must be hell.

I binge-watched all three extended versions back-to-back to welcome in the New Year.  And because I am a glutton for punishment I then watched the first Hobbit film.  That was enough hobbity nonse for one 24 hour period.

[caerau]

The point was that

(click to show/hide)

as Tesla created the cloning machine, it was science not magic, there was no magic in the first place, just a pair of twins

(click to show/hide)

Science as I understand it says such a machine impossible.  Even if you handwave awkward points like the uncertainty principle, or where all the energy comes from, the bandwidth requirements alone would be so many orders of magnitude above Tesla-level engineering that the prospect is laughable.  Therefore, the only contextually reasonable explanation is that it's magic.

Or bad writing.

If they'd shown the audience that it was taking place in a world where magic (possibly in the Arthur C Clarke sense, like they have in Star Trek) was possible, it would be fine.  It's not like there weren't plenty of opportunities to draw the distinction, but until that point all 'magic' was understood to be illusion.

If you're holding out for sensible science from Hollywood, I wish you luck.  I frequently have to hold my nose.  Even Breaking Bad was not really very realistic (and that's held out as a paragon of virtue on that front.  Of course I have no problem with dramatic license to a point so Breaking Bad does get forgiven.  Almost everything else, not so much.

[caerau]

The extended versions of LoTR are just up your street then 

I watched the first three (unextended) out of obligation (long story) in succession over a couple of days, with several pots of tea, packets of biscuits and pee stops. I found the films tedious. One of them, it felt like they spent the best part of an hour saying farewells. The extended versions must be hell.

Ooh no, more Elveses 

[mattc]

What's wrong with 2.5 hrs?  That's pretty normal these days is it not?

Normal is not the same as good. Most films are far longer than they need or deserve to be these days.

I'm quite keen to see Money Monster simply because Jodie Foster has a policy of making films that don't outstay their welcome (Money Monster is 98 minutes).

Hear-hear!

(I like to THINK I have a decent attention span - I have enjoyed a few 3hr films - the problem is that most films only have 90mins worth watching.)

RE: Prestige
1) As I recall the book suffered exactly the same odd science/magic/WTF?? issues. I struggled to the finish, but never understood what on earth it was really about :/
WIll not watch the movie.

2) googling "prestige steampunk" suggests that lots of people put the film in that category.

[spesh]

The extended versions of LoTR are just up your street then 

I watched the first three (unextended) out of obligation (long story) in succession over a couple of days, with several pots of tea, packets of biscuits and pee stops. I found the films tedious. One of them, it felt like they spent the best part of an hour saying farewells. The extended versions must be hell.

I binge-watched all three extended versions back-to-back to welcome in the New Year.  And because I am a glutton for punishment I then watched the first Hobbit film.  That was enough hobbity nonse for one 24 hour period.

I could understand that rendering LOTR unto the silver screen and thence the anbaric distascope would result in flicks of arse-numbing length, but given how compact The Hobbit is in comparison, once it was apparent that Peter Jackson was going to mine the barrels that Christopher Tolkien had made out of his father's background notes*, I decided that I couldn't be arsed.

* ISTR that round the time I first read LOTR, there was Unfinished Tales and the Book of Lost Tales, bits of which filled in the gaps as to what Gandalf was up to while the Hobbitses were on the first part of their epic journey, but last I checked, the extras seemed to be up to a dozen volumes on top of LOTR, The Hobbit and The Really Grimdark One AKA The Silmarillion.

EDITED: for spelling

[Jaded]

I agree. Even a superheroes film gets spun out to two or more hours, and it's really just a series of animatronics and explosions punctuated by product placements! I reckon it's the cinema chains rather than directors, studios or writers pushing this; sells more popcorn! 

Uses the screens less often though.

[Jaded]

The extended versions of LoTR are just up your street then 

I watched the first three (unextended) out of obligation (long story) in succession over a couple of days, with several pots of tea, packets of biscuits and pee stops. I found the films tedious. One of them, it felt like they spent the best part of an hour saying farewells. The extended versions must be hell.

I binge-watched all three extended versions back-to-back to welcome in the New Year.  And because I am a glutton for punishment I then watched the first Hobbit film.  That was enough hobbity nonse for one 24 hour period.

I could understand that rendering LOTR unto the silver screen and thence the anbaric distascope would result in flicks of arse-numbing length, but given how compact The Hobbit is in comparison, once it was apparent that Peter Jackson was going to mine the barrels that Christopher Tolkien had made out of his father's background notes*, I decided that I couldn't be arsed.

* ISTR that round the time I first read LOTR, there was Unfinished Tales and the Book of Lost Tales, bits of which filled in the gaps as to what Gandalf was up to while the Hobbitses were on the first part of their epic journey, but last I checked, the extras seemed to be up to a dozen volumes on top of LOTR, The Hobbit and The Really Grimdark One AKA The Silmarrilion.

Yeah. Plus 1
I've not watched The Hobbitses and hopefully never will.

[caerau]

Nothing wrong with a 2.5 hr film if it's warranted, I suspect a lot of the time that's down to personal taste.  Personally I just try and enjoy films - sometimes they're overlong, sometimes 90 minutes I want more (that's better admittedly) sometimes I find 2.5 hrs perfectly fine - I don't see that there's any general rule you can put on it personally.


I think it's a very difficult thing for the film makers themselves to predict tbh.  A couple of Costner films spring to mind.  Dances with Wolves and Wyatt Earp - both are about 3 hrs, both essentially are atmosphere pieces - one is brilliant, one is so dull that I had to switch it off or chew my own leg off with the pure boredom of it (you can probably decide which is which for yourselves).  I doubt he did that intentionally -sometimes you have to let the audience decide.


I can watch superheroes smashing the world to bits quite happily  ----->  moi <----- Philistine *shrug*




The Hobbit extensions have nothing whatsoever to do with Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales etc. Tolkien himself sold the film rights to the Hobbit and LoTR in his lifetime to pay a debt.  Christopher Tolkien would not sell the film rights to the rest if his entire remaining family was on fire and despises Peter Jackson in particular I think.  The filler in the Hobbit films is pure made up stuff by Jackson with a *little* bit of stuff from the LoTR appendices.


I can't image - amusing as it was in the final Hobbit film for a moment - that any Tolkien family member envisaged Dain Ironfoot as portrayed by Billy Connolly  [size=78%] [/size]

[citoyen]

Nothing wrong with a 2.5 hr film if it's warranted

The problem is that films of that length are becoming the norm rather than the exception, and it's definitely not because they all warrant being that long - or are you telling me that X-Men:Apocalypse really is up there with Lawrence of Arabia as a masterpiece of epic storytelling?

I don't see that there's any general rule you can put on it personally.

It's not a general rule but a quantitative assessment that too many films these days suffer from bloat and general flabbiness.

As someone who writes for a living, I know how hard it is to come in under a set word count - perversely, it's much easier to write longer. But good self-editing is an art, and failing that, having a good external editor who can cut your work for you is extremely valuable - your work is nearly always much snappier and more effective when it's tightly edited and brought in as short as possible. It forces you to make sure that every word counts, and that you're not including anything that doesn't absolutely need to be included.

Film-making isn't my area of expertise but my experience as a viewer is that exactly the same rule applies.

[caerau]

I'm not sure comparing X-men Apocalypse with Laurance of Arabia is a fair comparison.  X-Men Apocalypse isn't even that good an X-Men film really. They're not *really* aimed at the same audience methinks.


I'm generally happy with 2.5 hr films - maybe I have a long attention span


Certainly snappy is a good thing - that's true of science writing too which is my thing.


I've always thought 90 mins was a bit too short for a fillum mind so maybe I'm just weird.  Where is the rule that a film *must* be 90 mins?  It was just a thing that was the norm for a long time so we get accustomed to it.  I used to be very frustrated with films based on books I'd read leaving soooo much out to be of that length.  Not really something to get worked up about for me.  I can't think of many films that have offended me by their length (Wyatt Earp was just offensively bad - 10 minutes was too long there) - I rarely actually pay attention to how long they are or how long I've been in the cinema (or front room).

[ian]

The people who create things are always the worst editors. That includes film directors. Even if it's good and worthwhile, sometimes it deserves to be cut and benefits from the knife.

I can't bring myself to sit through Tolkein in any format.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

..
I can't bring myself to sit through Tolkein in any format.

Aha!  Now ve haz vays of making you talk..