If the movie is interesting, why wouldn’t we want it to be long?
I guess if we had short attention spans, the shorter the movie the better, huh?
Tragedy in a play or movie brings about a catharsis – an emotional cleansing. Our tears make us feel better, not worse.
I like lots of different kinds of movies – even ones that are all men like Lawrence of Arabia. That one I saw front and center on a 70 mm screen. Overwhelming!
I’m not interested by mindless movies even if they are about women.
I just finished watching Gosford Park for the third time in as many days. I saw it in a theater when it first came out. Then I got it from Netflix to see what I had missed. I watched the entire movie again Sunday, this time with subtitles so that I didn’t miss anything that was said. Then I watched the film with commentary by the playwright and I could see how multi-layered it was. Today I watched the version with commentary by Robert Altman and a couple of other folks. I was still discovering things I had not noticed before! For me it was psychologically and historically fascinating. I learned a lot of new things. My husband was so fascinated that he watched it two more times than I did. (This man liked mostly action movies when I married him seventeen years ago. He didn’t want to see anything where people just talked.)
This particular movie did not fit the pattern described in the OP.
However, my favorite movie does. Doctor Zhivago is three hours long and tragic. I’ve seen it fifteen times.
These movies have a different purpose from South Park or the James Bond flicks which I also like.
When I was young, my tastes were very different from what they are now.
Women love to care. The love to empathize and sympathize with the unhappy character. (Of course this is a generalization, I know many of you hate the genre or prefer guy flicks). Something I have noticed is that when women flick through the channels on tv, it is impossible for them to pass a channel where someone is crying. They HAVE to stop and find out why. My wife isn’t the sappy romantic type, but she does it too. I tease her about it, and she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
So guys, next time you let your SO have her 5 minutes with the remote, instead of jonesing over getting it back, watch and you will see that what I said is true.
Speaking as a woman, I can unequivocally state that I despise tear jerkers, chick flicks and their ilk. I also hate romanti-comedies. And looking at previous posts, I can see I’m not the only female who feels this way.
To assume that women like “long, drawn-out, depressing movies” is a rash generalization based on nothing more substantive than the stereotype of the over-emotional female (otherwise known as the “weaker sex”). It is also a prejudicial statement, and assumes that one large portion of the population shares the same entertainment interests, simply because of their gender demographic.
I like romantic comedies, but not tear jerkers. I also like actions flicks and epics (like LOTR) and probably watch many more of them than I do romantic comedies. I can’t stand slapstick comedies like Kangaroo Jack (number 1 at the box office? WTF is up with that?)
I haven’t seen it either, but looking at the cast list, Ralph Fiennes’ name kind of sprung out as the reason why a woman would go see it.
Oh, and I’ll add that typically, I’d bet that most films wouldn’t advertise the fact that “oh, by the way, some main character that you get really attached to dies in the third-to-last scene”. So I’d bet that many films (not even just “chick flicks”) surprise people in that respect.
