Oscars nominations in
and I realized I haven't seen any of the five nominees for Best Picture. Cindi Adams (yes, she's still around) has a point,

MY close circle of avid movie-going friends on the Oscar noms: The actors all wonderful, wonderful, marvelous perfect. The films? Two women and two gentlemen pals left "Sideways." Didn't know why there was such a movie and thought Giamatti not enough to look at for another half hour. "The Aviator"? Too long. No real character delineation in the Howard Hughes role. One couple walked out on it. Ditto a lady publisher. "Ray," Jamie Foxx, excellent. But the film lasted longer than Ray's whole life. My friends got twitchy. They wanted 20 minutes hacked out. Flawed "Neverland," all agreed, was good, not great. "Million Dollar Baby" had superior Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank performances. But in today's clime they needed something that was less of a downer. Translation: Not the best bunch of movies they've ever seen.

According to the Internet Movie Database, The Aviator clocks in at 170 minutes; Sideways, 123 mins; Ray, 178 mins; Million Dollar Baby, 137 mins.
(Eternal Sunshine's only 108 mins but I've had it with Jim Carrey.)

Of that list, the only two films that interested me were The Aviator and Ray, and those are 3-hr movies. Unfortunately, recently I haven't had the time to dedicate an entire afternoon to either Howard Hughes or Ray Charles, so I'll have to wait until they're out on DVD. (Now that I've heard more about Sideways, I'll have to "go see".)

Maybe Hollywood if would realize that people outside the 18-25 demographic have demands on their time and released shorter films geared for grownups, theater sales would improve. It can be done.