Not only are all the contenders for this year’s Best Picture Oscar too long, they’re almost all, weirdly, the same exact length. Please witness:
Roma – 135 minutes
A Star Is Born – 135 minutes
BlacKkKlansman – 135 minutes
Bohemian Rhapsody – 134 minutes
Black Panther – 134 minutes
Vice – 132 minutes
Green Book – 130 minutes
The Favourite – 120 minutes
Perhaps it’s coincidence. But maybe something more sinister is at work. Seven out of eight of these movies run between two hours and 10 minutes and a butt-numbing two hours and 15 minutes. TWO HOURS AND 15 MINUTES. This is entirely too long for a movie, or for anything.
(This is of course overlooking the likelihood that the 134-minute runtime for Bohemian Rhapsody is inaccurate, because, Jesus, did you see that thing? It was at least six solid hours of torture before the movie did a 10,000-minute karaoke version of Queen’s Live Aid concert.)
The eighth contender, Yorgos Lanthimos’ otherwise delightful The Favourite, clocks in at a modest-seeming 120 minutes. However, this is just barely breaking the two-hour mark, and no movie should ever be longer than two hours. Cutting it awfully close there, The Favourite.
Look. A few of these movies are very good. And I’d be hard-pressed to tell you exactly which parts of, say, Roma should’ve been cut out. (Actually, that’s not true: the floor-cleaning scenes. Those scenes made up approximately 42 percent of this otherwise achingly wonderful movie.)
But I’m convinced that every single one of these would be better if they were a half-hour shorter. Look, movies: We understand that you have stories to tell and moods to set and arcs to diagram and emotions to earn. But we’ve got busy lives here. There’s a reason people say “cut to the chase.” (Also? Not enough chase scenes in this year’s nominees.)
The Academy Awards will be televised on Sunday, February 24, in a ceremony that will probably run 17 and a half hours.