US research suggests that 92 minutes is the optimum length for a film. But I have sat through long films that felt short and short films that felt buttock-annihilatingly long I can still remember sitting down to Theo Angelopoulos’s legendary epic film The Travelling Players and noting that it was 222 minutes long and thinking … sure, cool, two hours...

The Max adaptation of John Green’s 2017 novel ably handles the interior struggles of OCD, if not the threads of its plotFor better and for worse, John Green’s young adult worlds tend toward the dramatic and expansive – big swings, big emotions, big mysteries and dreams. And always, the specter of death – of parents, friends (Looking for Alaska, a manic...

Survey of 2,000 Americans conflicts with the box-office records being broken for film running well over two hoursA market research poll claims to have established that 92 minutes is the “ideal” movie length for American audiences.According to Talker Research (formerly OnePoll US), an online survey conducted in April with 2,000 Americans concluded that...

A man spins a story in a doctor’s waiting room, sparking a fairy tale of loss and desperationFilm-makers Claire Coache and Lisle Turner are a couple who survived the horrific experience of losing two babies during pregnancy: one to a medical termination and one to miscarriage. With Cold, they transmute this trauma into a near-wordless performance of...

Busted for cruising in an LA toilet, he proudly turned his police documents into art. Now the Californian is bringing Being Alone – his elegant hymn to anonymous hookups – to Venice and LondonVeer to your left in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale and you’ll come across a painting bearing the words: “Anonymous Homosexual.” Round the corner,...

This kids’ adventure story with a faux medievalist vibe has a cute conceit and some fun sequences but the inexperience of the cast and director showsIf you’ve ever tried to make a home movie with young children, you quickly come to appreciate how hard it is to get the little monsters to remember their lines and hit their marks, let alone give good performances....