Are summer blockbusters too long? July 4, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Film, arts and culture.1 comment so far
Matthew Yglesias asks an interesting question:
I went to see Public Enemies last night…the movie just seems way too long.
This is, it seems to me, a surprisingly common problem with would-be summer blockbusters. And it’s a problem I have a lot of trouble understanding. After all, movie studios would seem to have a strong incentive to make movies shorter. With a shorter movie, you should be able to pack more showings into a given day and sell more tickets and popcorn and such. And yet I feel like it’s way more common to walk out of a theater feeling that a movie was too long than to walk out feeling like I wished there’d been 15 more minutes. I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling. So what’s going on?
I don’t think the problem is actually the length of movies is the problem, but rather the choices of what to include. I didn’t walk out of the 150-minute Dark Knight wishing it had been over sooner, but Year One, felt agonizingly long at 100 minutes.* Public Enemies did drag, despite excellent performances, because too much of the film seems unnecessary: there are several scenes in the film that just aren’t that compelling.
It’s easy to name an excellent long film and contrast it to a terrible short film to make this point, but I think there’s something larger at work: part of what makes a movie excellent is that you don’t feel like there is lots of unnecessary filler. If you’re consistently entertained, then the film will seem well timed at 90 minutes or 160. If you’re bored (which happens either because the film is terrible or because at least some sections of it aren’t compelling) then the film will feel too long.
So my interpretation is that a film only becomes “too long” when it no longer holds its audience’s attention. Comedies which fall in the third act, “thrillers” which drag in the middle, and action films whose plot dawdles are all examples of “too long” films, while length matters almost not at all to a film that’s working. Watching the flop Grindhouse in the theater I had one of the best movie-going experiences of my life despite (or perhaps because of) its double-feature length, and the few others in the 11:45 PM showing seemed to agree. Most others didn’t, and the film bombed.
Personal experience isn’t the only datum to suggest this interpretation. A glance at the top-grossing films of all time suggests that audiences will happily sit through long movies when they’re entertained, and that making a film that clocks in at the now-standard 115 minutes isn’t necessarily a better choice.
The last two films I’ve seen, Public Enemies and the odious Transformers 2: Racism and Robot Balls, both stretch a little story into a long film. In Public Enemies, we tolerate some of that due to some quality film making, but eventually the movie drags. In Transformers, the entire first act is a complete waste, and so even the (pretty cool) robot fights in the last half-hour seem like agony, because I was too bored and offended by that point to really appreciate them. If Bay was a smarter film-maker, he would have brought us to the action much more quickly. If the film was 90 minutes, it would have at least been tolerable.
If Hollywood wants to avoid lengthy films that unnecessarily drain the box-office, they should encourage their directors to be better editors of their own films.
As a side note, this theory also explains, I think, why the best films’ deleted scenes aren’t generally compelling. Watch the deleted scenes in Reservoir Dogs, if you haven’t done so, and it’s clear why they were cut. The film feels perfect at its length, and the deleted scenes don’t add anything important. Some deleted scenes are interesting on their own merits, and some directors over-cut their films, leaving key information out of the narrative and making the film incoherent. But the more deleted scenes seem to add to a film, or the more that scenes in the film should have been deleted, the more likely it is the film is going to feel the wrong length, and that it won’t work.
*I saw Year One for free, and still felt I’d overpaid.
Pat Buchanan takes on evolution with his usual level of scholarship July 1, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Origins, Religion, Science, wingnuts.2 comments
…which is to say, revisionist nonsense.
Pat Buchanan, last seen suggesting that WWII was the fault of Churchill, and already infamous as a holocaust denier, has decided to turn his Goldberg-esque eye on Evolution. As an exercise in demonstrating just how odious Buchanan is, and as yet another reminder that MSNBC continues to give the bigot a voice, this post will point out just a few of Buchanan’s lies and distortions. Readers are encouraged to fill any gaps with their own observations: there is literally too much here for me to track down every error.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. (I am wingnut–I contain multitudes.) June 27, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in reproductive rights, sex, wingnuts.1 comment so far
So let’s see what Sally Kern’s up to. It seems she’s blathering on about how the only cure for our horrible country is to pray and read the Bible. In the midst of this, we get:
…WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery…
So, to recap, being a good wingnut means being against both abortion and single parenthood. And while we’re at it, Kern babbles, let’s make those dirty urges harder to deal with on one’s own.
It seems Sally forgot to include the evils of enjoyable sex in her list. But, hell, it’s asking a lot for wingnuts to keep track of what they hate and the reasons they claim they hate those things. You can almost hear her brain grinding as she tries to remember what is the official reason she hates sex.
And, yes, my apologies to Walk Whitman.
So would Milbank suggest this is essentially the same as Bush’s Jeff Gannon moment? June 24, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics.add a comment
Obama asking a reporter who was covering Iran for a question from an Iranian is, according to Milbank, “theater.” He further blathered
During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner — from the Huffington Post.
While Milbank is wrong on the substance, one also wonders if he can honestly believe that alerting a reporter that he might be called on is in any way equivalent to the administration that brought us “Jeff Gannon.”
That’s serious journalism for ya, folks.
Mike S. Adams doesn’t get the difference between teachers and students June 24, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Religion, bigotry, wingnuts.1 comment so far
[Update: Awesome. Adams' website currently has the same essay as Townhall, but all references to feminists have been changed to his personal derogatory term for LGBT students. h/t. He's a real deep thinker, that Adams.]
Mike S. Adams, who you may remember, is currently running around screaming about being oppressed. Exactly how a fundie professor who gets to make stupid assertions in public is being oppressed is, as always, unclear. But two things are clear:
1) Adams is yet another wingnut who falsely believes he knows how to use satire;
2) Adams doesn’t understand that a professor has different classroom obligations from his/her students.
Adams begins with a long whine about how feminists didn’t appreciate his satire about silencing feminists students in his classroom, then moves on:
Welcome to oldsville, population: Evil Bender June 22, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, News and politics.add a comment
I just watched a commercial for the new Punch Out game, where a father plays with his kid after talking about how much he loved the original game growing up.
Intellectually, I knew that those of us who grew up with the NES are now old enough to have kids rediscovering our childhood classics. Practically, though, it makes me feel very, very old.
Now if only we could get a new Killer Instinct game!
Deep Thought June 22, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Iran, News and politics, wingnuts.1 comment so far
Amazing how people whose fondest wish has been war with Iran suddenly decide to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people, as demonstrated by their hatred for ice cream.
—-
All kidding aside, we’re all rooting for democratic reforms for the Iranian people. God knows they’ve been too long in coming. But anyone who seriously thinks we’d be doing the protesters any favors if President Obama got McCain/Bush style belligerent needs lots of remedial education in international relations.
The best thing the US Government can do right now is to make measured, cautious appeals that the will of the Iranian people be honored. Any more agressive strategy will do more harm than good.
Possibly the most inane forced-birther post ever June 18, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, reproductive rights, wingnuts.3 comments
When I started this blog, I had high hopes for seriously engaging the arguments of others. Years of dealing with wingnuts has largely disabused me of that, and now I save serious argument for people who haven’t proved themselves intellectually dishonest, lazy, irredeemably ridiculous, or a combination of the three. Arguing in good faith with those who will not themselves argue in good faith only serves to legitimize dishonest discourse. Such people can only be dealt with via mockery.
Naturally, high on the mockery-only list is Renew America, which ranks right up there with WingNutDaily in terms of horribleness.* So when I found, via S,N!, this amazing display of fallacies and moral corruption: Feminism the greatest evil: the repudiation of life, I knew what had to be done. Strap in for some pure, undistilled wingnut:
Loftus wrong in calling for wingnut extremist professor to be fired June 17, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, reproductive rights, wingnuts.6 comments
I frequently agree with John W. Loftus’ arguments, and respect his defense of atheism. And I’m certainly angry as hell about forced-birthers whose violent rhetoric provides political cover for murderers. Furthermore, I’ve read few things as offensive as Edward Feser’s odious declaration that Dr. Tiller, a man who performed legal, medically necessary care to women undergoing on of the hardest experiences imaginable, is worse that Jeffry Dahmer.
That said, I can’t agree with Loftus’ views on Feser:
Feser teaches for Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California which is a community college. I call upon that college to fire him for this highly inflamed rhetoric which will probably bring on more murders of abortion doctors.
I’d be the first to call for Feser to be charged if what he’s said rises to the level of incitement, and I certainly believe he should be held accountable for the horrific implications of his argument. But he should be challenged on the poor quality of ideas, not forced out of his job for what he’s said as a private citizen. Feser is most definitely not calling for violence against abortion providers, and while his rhetoric certainly may encourage dangerous people to do horrible things, he is not calling for violence, nor does he appear to be crying crocodile tears: he seems sincere in his view that violence against doctors isn’t okay. Assuming he is sincere in that, and not simply trying to use an anti-choice dog whistle,* I think it’s incredibly dangerous to call for his firing.
Since his words were on his personal blog and not related to his job, this probably isn’t an academic freedom issue, but it is a personal freedom. Public institutions should not be in the habit of firing someone for something they say as a private citizen, and encouraging them to do otherwise is dangerous, especially in a time when academic freedom is already under assault.
When a public employee, particularly a professor, can be fired for expressing themselves in public, there is a dangerous and potentially silencing precedent, and while I hope that people of good will continue to speak out against Feser’s disgusting words, I don’t want him to be fired. Once we accept that legal speech unrelated to one’s work is sufficient cause to cost one a job, we’ve essentially given our employers veto powers over our ideas. I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Furthermore, I would argue that no one who values freedom of speech should encourage this sort of firing. History shows clearly that censoring of unpopular idea (and this would, it seems to me, be dangerously close to de facto censorship) is not a good way to defeat such ideas. The correct response to odious ideas are better ideas, not pressure to fire those whose views we find offensive. This is particularly true when a government-funded employer is doing the censoring. Private employers have greater latitude in deciding who should represent them, but the government should not be in the position of deciding which ideas are acceptable for its employees to hold.**
*And how could we be certain of the latter? It seems, given his clear statements on the matter, that we should take him at his word.
**There are obviously things one could say privately that should result in disciplinary action by one’s employer, but that circumstances should be highly limited, probably to things that affect one’s ability to do one’s job, or statements that are illegal or in violation of the institution’s mission.
As I said before, Good News, Everyone! June 10, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Comedy, News and politics.3 comments
Recalling the first round of Good News, there’s more! Futurama’s back, baby!
NEW YORK, June 10, 2009 — 20th Century Fox Television, the animation powerhouse that brought “Family Guy” back from the dead five years ago, has done it again: Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s brilliantly subversive animated sci-fi comedy “Futurama” will return to production on 26 new half-hour episodes more than six years after the series aired its last original episode. …
The new episodes will be available in mid 2010 to be shown on COMEDY CENTRAL.
Welcome (back) to the World of Tomorrow!
