What's the average length of a Best Picture?

by Nathaniel R

This is Lawrence of Arabia... not Dune

It's 136 days until the Oscars and 136 is a golden number. It's the average length, in minutes, of a Best Picture Oscar winner. When we first calculated this number over a decade ago 138 was the average but in the past 10 years or so, running times of actual winners have been shaved a bit. Here are the running times of all winnners from longest to shortest. You'll see that the majority of winners are over 2 hours long which has caused no end of padding in "serious" movies but alas, not enough padding for tender buttocks watching interminable movies.

Here are the running times of all winnners from longest to shortest as well as this year's contenders from longest to shortest...

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Middleburg: Crowd-pleasing with "King Richard" and "Belfast"

by Nathaniel R

The family watching "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in BELFAST

The 9th annual Middleburg Film Festival wrapped up Sunday night but they programmed well so the joy lingers. The two events that always have after parties, Opening Night and Saturday Centerpiece, were King Richard and Belfast respectively. In both cases you could feel the love in the room even before the booze began to flow. Since the Middleburg audience is a reasonably good proxy for the bulk of Oscar voters (mature, well to do, cultured, and with movie tastes that fall somewhere between critics and the general public) it's easy to imagine both films greeted just as warmly on Oscar nomination morning...

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Highlights from Middleburg's "Coffee & Contenders"

by Nathaniel R

Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay and I created this annual panel at Middleburg together (I named it!) and now we're a regular event early in the morning at the beginning of each fest.  The new venue, outside in a tent, is a big improvement over our initially cozy but cramped space while the crowd is the (wonderful) same. Here are highlights from the public discussion this morning as well as the private discussions before and after the event (it all blurs together at film festivals which are so social)...

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A Room With a View, Pt 3: A lot of lying on the way to Truth, Beauty, and Love

Previously in our deep dive retrospective, Nathaniel visited Lucy Honeychurch at her idyllic pastoral home in England and her new engagement to Cecil Vyse, whose sneering fastidiousness is only matched by his complete inability to relate normally to other people. Things got delightfully complicated when the Emersons turned up unexpectedly as neighbors.  They’re about to get a lot more complicated in part 3, with Charlotte Bartlett, of all people, emerging as the unsung savior of truth, beauty, and love.

A ROOM WITH A VIEW
(a three part miniseries)
part 3 by Lynn Lee

I’ll be honest: although A Room With a View is one of my all-time favorites, for a long time the third act was my least favorite.  Too much lying and denial by Lucy, too much drawing out of the inevitable, not enough humor to make it go faster.  But as I grew older, I came to see it differently.  If the first act is the most romantic and the second the most comedic, the third is – pardon my French – when shit gets real.  We see the emotional consequences of our heroine trying to bury what’s in her heart, and in so doing we get to see her finally grow up. 

1:18:26  First-time viewers may not know it yet, but the library book Lucy’s mother admonishes her to pick up is a narrative grenade...

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A Room With a View Pt 2: Sacred puddles and stuffy engagements

Previously in our deep dive retrospective into A Room With a View (1986), Cláudio considered Lucy Honeychurch's Florentine summer and the sharp storytelling instincts of one James Ivory in the director's chair.  Sensual Italy was viewed with both wonder and suspicion as proper English decorum played constant defence against passion. And, as Mr Emerson might add, played offense with its other sworn enemy "common sense". We also met the classic film's remarkable cast of characters (though there are three key introductions left).

A ROOM WITH A VIEW
(a three part miniseries)
part 2 by Nathaniel R

39:13 After Lucy and George's very decorum-breaking makeout sesh in the countryside, the parties involved have all high-tailed it back to their pensione to retire for the night. Their heads are still spinning from the events of the day. Particularly (poor) Charlotte's. "What is to be done? How do you propose to silence him?" is her four alarm question to Lucy. Lucy, for a delicious beat too long in the shot above, doesn't appear to be listening; we know exactly where her head is at.

Please note that this shot of Lucy comes brilliantly on the heels of a pan up from George running, elated, in the rain into stormy clouds. Cut to this beautiful frame of Helena Bonham Carter, her head still in that passionate storm, her glorious mane as wild as nature itself. Charlotte is brushing it so violently it's like she's trying to tame it...

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