 Here's a true story. I mean, I don't know why I would make this up. It's not even exciting. Last week, a couple movies came out I wanted to see. The Black Phone and Elvis. I'm lying already. I didn't actually want to see The Black Phone. My buddy did, and I wanted to see Elvis because I know almost nothing about the character. He's a person. He's a real person. I knew almost nothing about this real person, so I was interested. We decided we were gonna do a back-to-back. A double feature, baby. I haven't done one of them in a very long time, so I was kind of stoked for this. I figured I would get out, I would work for the day, and then, boom, we hit like a 7 o'clock movie, and kabam, we hit a 9 o'clock. We have it all planned out verbally. We'll meet at the theaters. We'll see a double feature. Give a gentleman's nod in agreement, and we're ready to go. The Big Day arrives Thursday afternoon. I checked the time once again for The Black Phone. It's at like 7.45. I'm like, oof, 7.45 to 9.4. We'd have to hit like a 10 o'clock movie for Elvis. I mean, that's doable. I can watch a 2-hour movie. It was 2 hours and 45 minutes. I looked this up on my app at like 3 o'clock and instantly called my friend and said, dude, I can't do a 2-hour and 45-minute film about freakin' Elvis. I'm sure hardcore Elvis fans were excited about that prospect, but freakin' A, man. I don't want to watch a 2-hour 45-minute Queen movie, and I love Queen. Movies are getting way too long. And yes, it can be said that some of the greatest films and some of my favorites, Lord of the Rings, are like 3 hours and 45. They're like the longest things ever. You spend a full day watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, especially the director's cut, and I gladly do. That doesn't mean or justify the existence of a 2-hour 45-minute Elvis movie, let alone many of the movies that come out these days. The new Jurassic World was like 2 1⁄2 hours. Unacceptable. There was a point in time in the Glorious 80s and 90s where an hour and a half movie was pretty much the norm. That was the spot to hit, especially if you were a comedy. You go over an hour and a half. You're overstaying your welcome. The same goes for stand-up comedians. There's a reason why they usually just do an hour to an hour and a half set because it's really hard to hold people's interest for any longer than that. And to keep them laughing at a pace like that is almost impossible. This is why Judd Apatow films to me are a little bit of a chore to get through. And I think some of his movies are funny as shit, but you're hitting 2 hours, dude. You gotta scale back. The other thing this alleviates is a bloated script, which we've seen so much of lately. Again, Jurassic World 3. What the hell is that movie about? I could tell you the plot of Jurassic Park in one sentence, no problem, off the top of my head. The old man that played Santa Claus opens a dinosaur theme park and the creatures get out, start killing everyone, so they have to get away. No, it's not a great sentence. Not a great sentence, but it does summarize the entire film. How in the hell do you summarize Jurassic World domination or whatever that thing's even called? A giant Apple-style company developed locusts that got too big for their britches, started destroying all the farm crops, and if they don't stop them in time, there will be no food left on Earth. So they have to retrieve a young clone girl and a dinosaur. They're the key to creating a new DNA strand or something to make a super locust that will kill off all the other locusts. Meanwhile, Owen's doing this all the time because dinosaurs are stomping around all of planet Earth because they were set free by clone girl in the second movie and there's also dinosaurs that have just left the other islands because of volcano blew it up and now they have to just stay alive. While trying to keep this girl out of harm's way. Oh my God, like seriously, that's like not even 10% of the plot of this film. And this isn't a one-off instance. So many recent storylines and films jam way too much garbage into the picture, and it's usually because it's like the 15th installment, like Fast and the Furious 9. So they think, well, they've already seen Street Racing. So now they need to see Street Racing on the moon. And also Vin Diesel has a brother because this is a franchise about family and we forgot to mention he has a brother eight times prior in a movie franchise about family. Another pro argument for the hour and a half runtime or hour 45 wherever things land is movies go down a lot better. If a film is overstaying its welcome or boring or cheesy, you at least have the exciting knowledge in the back of your mind that it's all going to be over soon. You don't have to sit here and take it for two hours and 20 minutes or something. No, in fact, I've been going back and watching a lot of 90s classics I haven't seen in a long time. And even though they have aged and some of the action might be a little hammy, man, they get in and out. They move quick through these scenes. They let you get some connection to the characters. They have some fun one-liners and then they're done. Films don't have one-liners anymore. They're barely quotable. We don't have time to watch them over and over. There's so much trash coming out and it's so long to sit through. We don't want to go through it again. Meanwhile, Ferris Bueller, I'll throw that shit on while I'm doing some work in the background. It's awesome. It's immensely quotable. Give me a good old-fashioned Bruce Willis sliced alone Arnold Schwarzenegger film any day of the week. Even the recent blockbuster Top Gun Maverick which is killing it at the box office and has almost nobody hating on it, which they shouldn't. It's a fantastic film. Is it had too long? It's two hours and 11 minutes. And I can think of multiple moments where they could have shaved multiple minutes off this film. You could have got this down to a tight hour 52 hours and this thing would have been even better for it. I mean, there's some love story BS that doesn't even need to be in this thing with Jennifer Connolly, who's a treasure, of course, but and the bar stuff where we're introduced to the new characters nobody cares about outside of a outside of baby goose. We just don't need it. It could have been cut and then you have a better film for it. So this is my point. This is my point. Trim the fat. Get good editors or know ahead of time what the goal is you're shooting for. I feel like there's just no rules anymore. It's Lucy Lawless. They just say make a movie, come up with a script. Who cares? Throw caution to the wind. Make this thing two and a half, three hours long if you want. No, give them an exact goal to hit and the movie will be better for it. It's the same with sitcoms. Having to hit that 24 minute mark. I think it's like 21 now with all the commercials they do. But still by restraining the writers, oftentimes you help them have goals in mind so they can knock the jokes out of the park. They can get that story tight as it can possibly be. If you say like Netflix, yeah, make your show an hour and a half long like some of these episodes of Stranger Things. There's so much bloat in there. So much nonsense going on. Too many plots. Get the focus back where it needs to be. Tighten up that runtime. And then you've got a hot looking picture on your hands. Well, I certainly talked for a while. I hope I actually said something worth of a dan. I probably should have given myself a marker to stand by. Adam, make this like nine minutes and then I won't have to edit the living shit out of it to make it interesting. But hey, they're not paying me anything. So I guess I have an excuse. If you had a good time here, maybe think about liking the video and subscribing. I do tons of rants, movie reviews, TV show related content each and every week. I'd love to have you stick around. Let me know in the comments your thoughts if you agree with me or not. Do you like that movies are getting longer? You feel like you're getting more for your money or are you thinking, hey, yeah, I am actually getting more by getting less. It's a more compelling product. It's a nicer product at the end of the day. Let me know. I'd love to hear from you and hopefully stick around. I can see you next time. Take care. Wow, you're still here. So either you were compelled to get all the way to the end of this or you left your phone on and you walked away because you were bored beyond all comprehension. In either case, you're listening now. So maybe think about joining me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam does movies or right here via the YouTube join button. It's just a way where you can say, Adam, here's a dollar a month. Keep doing your thing. Love your content. Here's five bucks a month. And you even get extra bonus stuff. Videos that are exclusive to patrons and YouTube join members, badges, personalized messages, things of that nature. And again, it's just a nice way to say, hey, Adam, keep it up. Appreciate you. I appreciate you.