Before I get into specifics, I should confess that I have very little tolerance for long movies. Back in the 30s and 40s, movies typically ran between 75 and 100 minutes. Because theaters offered double features, newsreels, cartoons and shorts, they rarely ran much longer, unless they had “Gone With the Wind” on their hands. But once TV came along in the 50s, the studios felt that in order to compete, they had to increase the size of the screen and try to turn every movie into a special event. Unfortunately, most of the movies, such as “Cleopatra,” “The Longest Day,” “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” “Ben-Hur” and “Tora! Tora! Tora!,” were only epic in length, not in content.
In time, as the stars and directors usurped the power previously held by the likes of Darryl Zanuck, Harry Cohn, Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer, movies started to run longer and longer because of the various inflated egos involved. Aside from Woody Allen, they all began to think that running time reflected their own importance. If they took the better part of a year making the damn thing, they weren’t going to let you leave the theater until they were good and ready.
The shortest of the nine movies is “The Wrestler.” I was actually anxious to see it because I had read the raves it had garnered at various film festivals, and I was curious to see Mickey Rourke’s performance. I had been a fan of his when he started out in “Body Heat” and “Diner,” and hoped he was returning to his early form. Frankly, I’m not even sure how I feel about him in the title role because I thought the entire movie was so amateurish. If I had been told that the movie had been written and directed by a couple of 20-year-old theatre arts students at UCLA, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Sometimes, I’m afraid, even a movie that runs just 109 minutes can seem like it takes a day and a half. If Einstein hadn’t beaten me to it, I’m sure that somewhere along the line I would have mentioned that time is relative.
“Revolutionary Road,” which comes in at a minute under two hours, is one of those typically depressing depictions of a modern marriage. A lot of the scenes between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio play like auditions for the Actors Studio. It’s not that they’re performed badly, just that they seem staged. Of course that may seem like a naïve statement when we all know that movies are staged, but the good ones don’t appear to be.
“The Reader” also stars Ms. Winslet. Of the nine movies, I found this one the most effective. It was certainly the saddest. I could imagine Winslet possibly competing against herself for the Oscar, although I noticed that the Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey, who are rather clever when it comes to accumulating Oscars, are claiming in their promotion material that she and Ralph Fiennes are both supporting actors, as are Lena Olin and David Kross. So, the Weinsteins would have us believe there are only supporting players in this movie and that I lied when I claimed that Winslet is the star. Believe me, if they manage to pull off this ploy, it’s Bob and Harvey who should win the Oscar.
I thought “Slumdog Millionaire” had the most interesting premise of the year -- and should certainly kill off India’s tourist industry -- but I, for one, found it dragged a good deal of the time. Still, if I were a betting man, I’d probably pick this one to cop top prize at the Academy Awards.
Frankly, I don’t understand why so many of my friends were impressed with “Frost/Nixon,” especially as most of us are old enough to have witnessed the actual event. Nothing about this recreation struck me as being particularly interesting or illuminating. What’s more, I was put off by the height differential between Nixon (Frank Langella) and Frost (Michael Sheen). In real life, the men were virtually the same height, but there’s a six-inch difference between the two actors, and seeing Nixon loom over Frost just looked weird to me. Also, Sheen, whom I had enjoyed as Tony Blair in “The Queen,” never convinced me he was the insipid womanizer he was portraying.
“Defiance,” about a group of Russian Jews trying to elude the Nazis during World War II, runs 137 minutes, although “runs” is about as inappropriate a verb as one could use in connection with this snoozearama. Daniel Craig, however, proves that he can be as stoic and one-note as Bielski, Tuvia Bielski, as he’s been as Bond, James Bond.
“Milk” provided me with one big surprise. I thought that Sean Penn, who generally strikes me as hammier than pigs feet, was absolutely believable as Harvey Milk, the homosexual activist who was the first openly gay American elected to public office. But the movie, itself, plays like a, well, fairy tale. Every gay character is decent, witty, warm, wise, charming and courageous. In a year or two, I fully expect that “Milk! The Musical!” will open on Broadway, with Nathan Lane in the lead.
“Changeling,” directed by Clint Eastwood, stars Angelina Jolie in one of those dowdy roles that glamour girls take on in the hope of snatching up an Oscar. Eastwood seems to feel that if he leaves “The” off his titles, as in “Unforgiven” and the 141-minute “Changeling,” he’s made enough of a concession to the Philistines. Speaking on behalf of Philistines everywhere, I say it would be better if he edited his movies instead of his titles.
That brings us to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” If you think the title is a mouthful, you ain’t seen nothing. The movie is 159 minutes long. That’s just 41 minutes less than “Casablanca” and “The Maltese Falcon” put together! “Button” certainly has its nice moments, but at that length, how could it not? Briefly, it is the life story of a man who, for no discernible reason, is born old and becomes younger as the years go by. On the other hand, if you happen to be young when you sit down to watch it, you’ll be eligible for Social Security by the time it’s over.
Didn’t I see anything this past month, you’re asking yourselves, that I could recommend without reservation? It so happens I did. For about the sixth or seventh time, I watched “Bachelor Mother,” a 1939 comedy with Ginger Rogers, David Niven and Charles Coburn. It’s perfectly delightful, has a terrific script, and, not coincidentally, it’s just 81 minutes long.