This summer my roommate and I were thinking of movies to watch on one of the many rainy evenings in July. I suggested the Pixar masterpiece ""WALL-E,"" even though I had already seen it about six times. My roommate Jared said he'd never seen it before, an admission akin to treason in my book, so I forced him to sit and watch with us.
Unfortunately, Jared displayed every characteristic of a terrible moviegoer. He went and made some food during the first five or ten minutes, ate noisily for the next ten, texted incessantly throughout and eventually fell asleep for the last half of the film. When the movie ended, he reported being a bit dissatisfied with ""WALL-E,"" saying it didn't really capture his attention. Granted, Jared's favorite film is ""Reno 911!: Miami,"" so it could have been a matter of taste. But the greater issue at hand was the fact that Jared found a 98-minute movie to be too taxing for him.
Some may argue that ""WALL-E's"" slow pacing or 40-minute, dialogue-free introduction may have been the issue. On the whole, it was a relatively short film, as the average length of a movie in the past decade was just a bit over two hours, which has been the norm since the 1960s.
The greater issue, however, was the lack of sensory stimulus. In modern movies, there needs to be as many fights, jokes and shots of scantily clad women in a movie as possible. Although movies have remained the same length, the average shot length (ASL) of films has gone down every year to the point where we have films like ""Crank"" and ""Domino"" that have an ASL of under two seconds, meaning a selection of ""Crank"" might have already had six different shots in the time it took you to read this sentence.
A movie like ""Reno 911!: Miami"" is perfect for the modern movie viewer. It's a mere 84 minutes long, it features plenty of jokes and action, and more importantly, the movie is based on a TV show, one that is shot in three-minute vignettes, no less. There's no way even the most unfocused and uninspired movie viewer could become bored, because the movie won't let you. It used to be that a movie like ""Taxi Driver,"" which moves at a slow pace but immerses you in character development, could entertain a viewer. Now people in the audience would probably pull out their Blackberrys and Tweet ""OMG sooo bored, when is @TravisBickle gonna kill som1 already?!? Martin Scorsese=FAIL #TaxiDriver.""
Actually, having Twitter versions of classic movies might be pretty entertaining, but the fact remains that moviegoers' attention spans are at an all-time low. I'm not exactly sure what the solution is, but I'm almost certain it doesn't involve people making YouTube videos like ""FUNNIEST PARTS OF ANCHORMAN LOL"" or ""Godfather II fight parts only!!!1!"" Let's try to lay off the energy drinks, put down the cell phones and laptops when watching a movie and try to not fall asleep 15 minutes into the film.
Think Kevin's column was way too long and boring? Use the #SlaneFAIL hashtag on Twitter to let him know, or e-mail him at kevslane@gmail.com.
