The Plus-Sized Big Screen Experience

Monday is movies. Sometimes TV. Today it's a look at epic big movies, giant long big-screen experiences...

As a binge-watcher, I’m usually far more interested in shorter movies for one very obvious reason: I can get through more of them.

An 86-minute movie is perfect, thank you very much. I’ll have two of them.

A 120-minute movie is something I need to plan, and I absolutely need to stretch and work my way up to anything 140 minutes in length, or, gulp, longer…

A 90-minute comedy relies on a formula. And I’m here for that formula. Even if in the end, I put myself through it so I can mock it; even if I’m commenting throughout on the obviousness, the tropes, the plot-holes. I’m still invested in it. And anything over two hours can lose me very quickly, just because of that time-length warning.

My favourite horror films to rewatch are the A Nightmare On Elm Street series, they are so trim. They get in, get out, get it all done. Most of them barely graze the 90-minute mark. The first Elm Street remains close to perfect for so many reasons, not least of all its lean run-time.

But, cognitive dissonance is not a myth! I’ve seen it!

Some of my all-time favourite movie experiences are when you strap in and bask in the beauty of someone’s profound or absurd vision (or both); a huge work of cruelty or beauty (or both). Something that fills the afternoon or evening (or, um, gulp, both…)

Recently I rewatched Heat – my first time seeing it in many years, I think my third time in total. I saw the Michael Mann masterpiece (its run time is 170 minutes) on Wellington’s giant Embassy screen back when the film was a new release in 1995. I owned it for a time on DVD and definitely rewatched it – and then just a few weeks ago I re-purchased the DVD, and as part of a catch up on Michael Mann films (seeing a couple of the early ones I’d missed) I decided it was time to watch Heat again; to see if it still held any of its heat, its worth.

A brilliant film – still. And, yes, at nearly three hours, there are some moments of drag and absolutely of indulgence (it is a remake of a shorter, taut TV movie by the same writer/director – and that’s actually worth a watch too!)

Don’t tell anyone, and I know you won’t, but I actually think I prefer Casino (178 minutes) to Goodfellas (148m) – but, by my standards, both are very long films and both are very good, and I’m ready to rewatch both of them.

Magnolia (188 minutes) is probably my favourite P.T. Anderson film – his absolute masterpiece, I think – and I now want to see it again having repurchased the film’s wonderful soundtrack this weekend.

And there are several other examples.

I thought about this, not just because of my $1 find of Aimee Mann’s great songs assembled for Magnolia, but because I drove out to Upper Hutt’s Monterey cinema to soak up the Director’s Cut – ominous words for a 90-minute movie hound – of Ari Aster’s Midsommar.

The original film, which I had only seen right through once, but have watched a few favourite scenes on repeat, is already 148 minutes – and was a stretch for me at the time. But the 2019 folk horror crawl is a beautiful film to drink in, its Bobby Krilic score is mesmerising, and its visuals often startling. I was just looking forward to seeing it on a big screen. The threat of more footage  swelling the run-time to 170 minutes was no deterrent, I wasn’t even too pumped about noticing what had been added, and/or wondering whether than even enhanced the film. I just knew I had to see it right through again and this was the format, this was the way.

Aster’s director’s cut is only available – I’m told – on the Blu-ray version of the movie; wasn’t given an official theatrical release.

This screening hopes to be the start of what I was told across the counter is going to be a regular feature at Monterey: Horror in The Hutt.

I look forward to signing up. Big time.

This first instalment did not disappoint.

I’ve written, previously about the experience of attending the cinema – seeing things on the big screen. Yes, yes, you still have your surround sound system and your blackout curtains in your home cinema, lucky you. But you also still have your phone in your hand, you’re texting your mate to boast about your alleged experience, you’re seeing what else Ari Aster has made and wondering if you saw Hereditary yet (yes, you should) – and you’re Googling to see how to pronounce Florence’s surname.

But when you’re in the cinema you are 100% there. You turn your phone off and just go! All in.

It’s one of the great luxuries of this privileged life, or one of the great privileges of a luxurious life. And maximising that experience by taking nearly 170 minutes of screen time is exactly what I felt like I needed this weekend.

It was nearly a five-hour outing – factoring drive time, collecting a friend on the way, getting there early enough to get a coffee to see me through (someone behind me in the cinema should have thought to do the same) and then having enough time to take a quick pee before the movie started. Obligatory shot of the ticket stub for Instagram and then phone off.

Midsommar is a trip. A bum trip, I suppose. Grief and psychedelics and disorientation and – eventually – a cult. There’s this simmering tension. The loud Americans busting in on another culture. That other culture going about its business with just a few little glimpses of sinister undertones. Until it all bubbles over spectacularly and you are shifted from the insular experience of the lead character.

Now, whether you think Midsommar worked or not, and I love that it’s a polarising experience – it would not have worked at 120 minutes. It might not have needed 170 but it soaks up all of its original 148. And I didn’t notice the length in the cinema – its nearly three hours slow-burn hurtled quicker than the two and a half hours of watching it at home back in that different world when going to the movies was on the out slightly, because we just took everything for granted, and weren’t yet sick of being forever in our homes.

I drove home thinking about how Ari Aster’s upcoming third film – well, we’ll be waiting until next year – has a currently scheduled run time of 210 minutes. I say bring it! I’ll call off watching the first Elm Street, the first Halloween and two episodes of Ash vs. Evil Dead in honour of the experience of soaking up all of Disappointment Blvd.

Because a long film – when it’s something that deserves the length – is as much about the film experience as the film; is more about the film director than the film perhaps, certainly it suggests the director was thinking more about their film/themselves than any intended audience.

And that’s never a great way to plan a catch-up movie night with the popcorn and the TV remote. But it’s the thing to do if you want to go and be hopefully wowed by some art. You don’t speed-date your way through an art gallery. You don’t put a classical concerto on shuffle. You don’t run the preview version, you don’t skim-read the classics. You front up and bask in the experience. You do the work. Because it’s good. And even if the end-result isn’t actually that good you remember the experience.

I love a big, long movie at the right time. And Saturday night was right for Midsommar. And its director cut was exquisite. A strange, often brilliant, indulgent, baffling, brutal, always beautiful film.

So roll on Horror in the Hutt, and I’m going to roll out some more big, big movies…

What’s your favourite two hour-plus big screen experience?