Not sure I have ever finished a movie longer than 150 minutes without saying "I wish they'd cut it down a bit". Any examples of loooong movies that can hold the interest? Not sure this one fits the bill...maybe JFK?
shareLawrence of Arabia - 216 minutes.
shareThe Godfather, 175 minutes
Godfather II, 200 minutes. GF II of course was designed with parallel storylines so it was kind of "two movies in one" from the very start.
Back to "The Right Stuff," although I enjoyed it a lot and it's among my 15-20 favorite movies ever, it might really have been better if it had been made into two separate movies: the story of the X-plane pilots and then the story of the Mercury astronauts.
The two plotlines in TRS really didn't have all that much to do with each other.
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The film was following the same approach as Tom Wolfe did in the book - periodically cutting away from the main story to a "Meanwhile, back at Andrews Air Force Base" look at the concurrent Yeager/flight test developments, which were kinda tangential. Call it a B-story, maybe.
shareExcept that it wasn't Andrews AFB, located outside Washington, D.C., but Muroc Army Airfield. Muroc AAF is Edwards AFB by the time Gordo and Gus show up.
Tom Wolfe intended the book and the movie to be about the Mercury 7 astronauts. But everybody he interviewed said he needed to start with test pilots and THE TEST PILOT to start with was Chuck Yeager.
125 test pilots (including Captain Glen Edwards who had his name put on the base) died at Muroc AAF between 1946 and 1951, an average of a funeral every two weeks.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
dannieboy20906
» Sun Jun 19 2016 19:15:04
Thank you for the kind words. I did get to the periphery of the space program and the fringes of some test programs. I never got to know any of the crews. But I did have a heck of a lot of fun in my career.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
dannieboy20906
"The two plotlines in TRS really don't have all that much to do with each other".
Wow, you missed the major point of the film: what constitutes the Right Stuff.
Broadcast NTSC actually runs at 30fps...don't know for sure about PAL, but either way the film to video transfer should be timed to match the 24fps film standard.
PAL takes a simple but for purists incorrect method of running a 24 fps movie at 25 fps thus speeding things up slightly. so the 185 minutes runtime is correct for a 193 minute film.
It avoids the stutter frame that NTSC uses but neither method is brilliant, however now that digital and blu-ray are commonplace it will soon be relegated to a quirk of history.
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"When I saw this originally in theaters, there was an intermission. I think theaters should consider bringing back that tradition for longer films."
I agree, you would think the theaters would love to bring this back. Given that the movie studios take 90% of the revenue in the first couple of weeks of a films release, it would allow the theaters to make more money from people re-stocking their overpriced popcorn and drinks.
Plus an intermission can make an epic movie feel like more of an event, rather than just a long movie.
Until recently, several countries still had intermissions, and theaters happened to be very happy with this because - surprise, surprise - they sold more drinks and food, which is where they made a lot of margin.
The intermission habit existed in Switzerland until around 2004, I think. Everybody was complaining about it: the "entr'acte" sign would pop up at the worst possible time, although in a film like Return of the King, it was usually welcome (and guess what, happened on the jump between DVDs for the extended version, the wolf-shaped battering ram). And so it was removed.
And now people complain that it's gone.
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The 1954 film Seven Samurai (aka Shichinin no samurai) is 207 minutes long and possibly my favourite film of all time, so I'd say that one holds up at well over 150 minutes in length.
The 1972 Soviet film Solaris (aka Solyaris) is 167 minutes long, but the 2002 American remake starring George Clooney felt far longer to me despite being only 99 minutes long, so it's all down to the quality of the film.
This movie has always felt like it was a 2-hour movie to me--the 3 hrs + just seem to fly right by. And a few times, when it was over, I was ready to watch it again.
Blood never lies.
It had story to tell and took its leisurely time but it was an important story and not done boringly.
Its that man again!!
Agreed about Seven Samurai. Great film. It was my first exposure to Kurosawa, and now I'm a big fa. The Criterion Blu-ray is part of my collection.
Schindler's List is 3 hours and 15 minutes, but doesn't feel that long. Fellini's classic La Dolce Vita is 174 minutes. Fanny and Alexander, really Ingmar Bergman's final masterpiece, is 3 hours and 8 minutes.
The quality of a film determines how "long" it feels. A great three hour film can fly by, and leave the viewer watching more, while a poorly-made two hour film can leave the viewer looking at their watch. Unfortunately, many people today have no patience. They have a short attention span.
Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions-Dag Hammarskjold
A movie can be great at almost any length, if it captures the imagination of its intended audience, and keeps them both informed and entertained.
Just finished re-wacthing this film, it actually felt shorter than most 2 hour movies made over the past decade. Some of my favorite films of all time are well over 150 minutes, and 193 minutes for this film was just about the "right stuff"