Bring Back Old-Timey Intermissions

Gang, it’s been a week, and I’ve been Barbenheimer-ed. Dare I say, I’ve Barbenheimer-ed with the best of them, and in the correct order!

Great flicks, both of them, by the way. I can’t remember the last time two movies this enjoyable debuted at the same time.

But we’ve got a problem. And that problem is: movies are now absurdly long. Barbie is nearly two hours long. Oppenheimer is three. That’s basically an SAT, and even that comes with some breaks.

Not to pull a “back in my day,” but when The Hateful Eight was doing 70mm showings a few years back, it came with an intermission. People got up and stretched their legs. They went to the restroom. They got more snacks, which is where the theaters are making their money anyway; you’d think they’d be clamoring for intermissions.

Theaters are a great place to let the rest of the world fall away as you get swept up in a story… but that magic trick loses some of its punch when your leg is asleep and you’ve been trying to ignore a full bladder because you need to see whether or not the atomic bomb destroys the world or how horses fit into the patriarchy (don’t worry; no spoilers here).

As I’ve oft remarked, I’m old now. I’ve come to enjoy not moving. Sometimes I don’t move for an entire night, and it’s pretty sweet. But being locked in a chair for two, three, or, when the next Avengers movie inevitably comes out, eleventy-six hours, reminds me too much of all that not moving I’ll be doing in my grave. Death comes for us all, without even the courtesy to use Dolby Surround Sound.

Anyway, movies are long, death is disquieting, intermissions are good. Let’s make it happen.