Michael Bay Disease

While I’m not perverse enough to actually pay to watch the thing or anything, like Paul’s friend I’m happy to see the release of Sex and the City II — I am, after all, a connoisseur of the well-turned and well-earned hatchet job. One reason I can’t imagine watching it even for the camp value, however, is a problem that afflicts an increasing amount of Hollywood product:

Adding more weight to that side of things is the fact that the damn movie’s almost two-and-a-half hours long, which means a nearly four-hour hell multiplex experience is required for me to see the damn thing.

Although it’s not strictly relevant to me — I found the SATC unwatchable even at 30 minutes — if it’s your thing a tight running time in a genre picture can overcome a lot of aesthetic problems. But if a movie is going to go on for 150 minutes you need…content, multi-dimensional characters, writing, direction, something like that there.