And the Oscar for numbest bum goes to....

With the Oscars just around the corner, there are a lot of very good films hitting the cinemas.  Most of my free time has been spent watching these films, and I've found it difficult to find time to blog my thoughts on them.  There's little surprise why, here's the last four films that I've watched and their running times:

Lincoln - 2hrs 30mins (150 mins)

Django Unchained - 2hrs 45mins (165 mins)

Flight - 2hrs 18mins (138 mins)

Zero Dark Thirty - 2hrs 37mins (157 mins)












The average running time of the four films above is 152.5 minutes, so even if we generously don't round that up to 153, that's a 2 hour 32 minute average running time.  I can't imagine that cinemas vary greatly in the amount of advertisement they show before the start of the film.  At my local franchise, we are made to endure at least 30 minutes.  The only exception to this being when we went to see Total Recall in IMAX, when for some unbeknown reason the film started immediately with no advertisement before hand meaning we missed the first five minutes whilst enjoying a burger.  This means that my last 4 visits to the cinema have seen me spend on average over 3 hours in front of the screen.  As I'm sure any Father will be able to testify, that's a lot of time!

So, sat as I am, filtering through the swirling thoughts, emotions, and questions posed by the films above I thought 'does a films length, determine it's Oscar worthiness?'.

Rule 2 of the Oscars states that a film must me more than 40 minutes in length to qualify as a feature film, thereby qualify for the Oscar for Best Picture.

It would be amazing and hugely interesting if a 41 minute film had won Best Picture, however, the film with the shortest running time ever to have won is Marty (1955) at 94 minutes.  In a write up for the film during the time, it was said,
"Don't expect that record to be broken anytime soon, either.  Oscar winners are gettin' longer, not shorter."
After doing a little digging, I came across a great piece of work on collider.com (http://collider.com/oscar-best-picture-statistics/) which gives a breakdown of running times for the Best Picture winner.  The graph plotting the initial data makes it look as though the running time varies a lot, showing that a long running time doesn't always mean Best Picture winner.  Further study from this site shows that for the individual concerned, the average running time of films they have watched (which is a lot) is between 90 and 120 minutes.  It also shows that 80% of Best Picture winners after 1960 are longer than 2 hours.

So if you're planning on a trip to the cinema at the moment, beware of a numb bum.  There are a lot of potential Oscar winners out there at the moment, and as I've found, that means you'll be in for the long haul.

Getting older and Joseph Gordon-Levitt...

As a Father, you see time pass quickly.  You have a child growing and learning rapidly before your eyes.  It gives you a great ability to enjoy the smaller, seemingly less significant things in life.  Ask an 18 year old to sit and watch a child playing at playground for an hour, and you will probably be met with a roll of the eyes and a sharp tongued quip about it being an amazingly boring way to spend an hour.  Yet I in fact spent such an hour (several in fact), just last week when I took my children to an adventure park.
Another ability, imparted by age, is the use of the phrase, "when I was a lad/lass" (delete as appropriate, and spoken with a broad yorkshire accent).  And I'm finding with the rapidly changing world we live in today, courtesy of the technological advances of our time, the use of this phrase comes to us all the sooner.

Now, you're probably thinking what the hell this has to do with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (JGL).  It all started when I was looking for information on upcoming releases for this year, finding that 3 bigs one star none other than JGL (Looper, Lincoln, and of course TDKR).  JGL is, quite rightly, on the up and up with regards to his big screen career.  A rise that started when he played the role of Arthur in Inception (a role that was originally meant for James Franco before he pulled out).  Here's how he looked when he hit out screens in 2010.

Inception was a 12A, meaning that people old enough to see the film, may not have been old enough to know JGL from his earlier career success in television.  Between 1996 and 2001, JGL starred in TV sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun.  Here's how he looked back then:

This is how I remembered JGL.  Needless to say, when he hit the big screen in 2010 for Inception I was amazed at the transformation.  Made all the more profound by the fact that we are very similar in age.  Looking at his filmography, it's clear to see that JGL has had a slow burning, and successful career.  One that leads him to his position now, one of the most talented actors of his generation, with a very busy 2012 on the cards.

I'm really looking forward to JGL's contribution to the coming year.  I'm off to watch some 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Why not go watch some yourself?