Thirith on 15/5/2013 at 11:47
Quote Posted by Vivian
Thing about these summer bullshit movies. I just watched Shame - interesting film. It's all about sexual obsession, as in a functional obsession with sex and how emotionally alienating that can be. Complex characters, good script, great cinematography, about a pretty complicated topic that we can all relate to in some way or another. It's an hour and a half long. Why does it take these idiots up to a full hour longer than that to tell a stupid story about some dickhead in a funny suit punching people and making things explode? I can't be even remotely bothered to watch any more marvel or DC movies. fuck em. All of the new Batmans were so long I left the cinema thinking about something else. Unless Iron Man 3 is an intriguing character study that really wrings every ounce of pathos and significance it can out of it's two hour+ slot, rather than being a bunch of crap happening to non-characters from a childrens story while RDJ jizzes all over everything and some guy named after an orange shits fireballs, I can't be fucked with it.
Regardless of the 'grown-up movies vs. superhero crap' thing, I definitely agree with you on
Shame. Have you seen the director's
Hunger? McQueen has an amazing eye for composition and it shows in both films. Also, Fassbender is one of the most fascinating actors currently working in English-language cinema.
Chimpy Chompy on 15/5/2013 at 11:55
Quote Posted by Vivian
Why did it take Christopher Nolan nearly three hours to tell the story of a rich vigilante finding the necessary inner strength to punch an angry bald guy?
Okay I sorta glossed over the length issue. Although from your scathing dismissals it sounds like you'd still hate superhero films even if they were 90 minutes long!
I dunno, if I'm enjoying a film I'd rather have another hour of it? :erg: There's a limit somewhere but up to 2.5 hours isn't crossing it, for me.
SubJeff on 15/5/2013 at 12:08
I rather suppose its because there really is an awful lot to pack in. There is the plot and the character development and relationships blah blah blah and then the action sequences which, due to the nature of the source material, need to be suitably long, dramatic and spectacular.
Vivian on 15/5/2013 at 12:15
Like I said, other films pack in much more complex characters, plots and themes in much less time.
nicked on 15/5/2013 at 12:49
A side effect of being "genre" material perhaps? If you make a film about superheroes, or aliens, or anything else not of the real world, there's a certain amount of time required for getting the audience up to speed with how and why this isn't the real world, while at the same time needing to pace it right so that you don't question the fact that it's not real.
SubJeff on 15/5/2013 at 12:51
Quote Posted by Vivian
Like I said, other films pack in much more complex characters, plots and themes in much less time.
I agree. I'm just postulating a reason - long action sequences. And the obligatory comedy scenes? I dunno. I agree that many of the superhero films are bloated though.
Now I've got an urge to watch The Seventh Seal dammnit where to rent it?
Edit: Full film on YouTube. Evenings viewing sorted.
Sulphur on 15/5/2013 at 12:57
Quote Posted by Vivian
Like I said, other films pack in much more complex characters, plots and themes in much less time.
A couple of reasons?
1) Bang for your buck: in general, everyone wants an appropriate level of quality/quantity in exchange for the money they hand in at the counter. Now, with summer entertainment, this means an equal level of adrenaline-fuelled set piece ridiculousness to complement the character arcs and other dialogue-driven bits over a respectable run-time.
The shorter a movie is, the easier it is to assume that you're probably getting shortchanged in either area. It's not very accurate, of course, but that's how the psychology works.
2) Economical and effective prose is as rare a thing to find as books with bloated, inefficient writing abound all over the place. The same rule goes for movie writing, to an extent, as well.
heywood on 16/5/2013 at 08:30
In general, I find most films are too short, not too long. I can even watch Tarkovsky.
Shame was a well executed film, but it was basically just a character sketch. The scope was narrow and mainly focused on developing one dimension of one character. It's not hard to fit that into 100 minutes. If anything, it feels stretched to fill the time with it's 5-minute long head shot of Sissy singing and some gratuitously long sex takes.
None of Nolan's films seem stretched to me. Inception could not have been made any shorter while still conveying the time scaling that was central to the story. The Dark Knight Rises was only 20 minutes longer than The Avengers but there was a hell of a lot more to it. I am pretty bored and burned out with comic book movies and summer blockbusters in general, but if more of them were like the Nolan Batman films and less like overblown CGI demos I might not be.
Morte on 16/5/2013 at 08:59
Well, there was more "stuff" happening in TDKR than in The Avengers, but I'd argue there's much less going on under the hood. TDKR is a silly, albeit fairly entertaining, piece of nonsense dressed in surface seriousness. The Avengers wears its silliness on its sleeves while delivering some satisfying and coherent character work.
More summer blockbusters ought to look to The Avengers for how to do things in my book.
faetal on 16/5/2013 at 09:03
I thought TDKR felt quite packed. Sure it was long, but it also felt brutally edited to contain the content it did.
