Oh, what a shame. What a talented person he was.
Crichton died Tuesday in Los Angeles at age 66 after privately battling cancer.

"Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand," his family said in a statement.
...

He was an experimenter and popularizer known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of "The Andromeda Strain" or the dinosaurs running madly in "Jurassic Park." Many of his books became major Hollywood movies, including "Jurassic Park," "Rising Sun" and "Disclosure." Crichton himself directed and wrote "The Great Train Robbery" and he co-wrote the script for the blockbuster "Twister."

In 1994, he created the award-winning TV hospital series "ER." He's even had a dinosaur named for him, Crichton's ankylosaur.

This news saddened me almost equally to that of Isaac Asimov's demise. "The Andromeda Strain" is among my favorites of all Science Fiction literature and the movie version was an early influence on me.

After having read "The Great Train Robbery", I was delighted that seeing it was so much like reading it. Very few movies have that success in my eyes, "To Kill A Mockingbird" being one that also stands out.

Of course, having Sean Connery, an extremely versatile and easy-to-watch, be in it didn't hurt, either.

When I was in high school, I was pleased to find out that he had lived up the street from me then. Never did go to get an autograph on "The Andromeda Strain". Shucky-darn.

Most plot-driven novels won't fit into a two-hour movie. The rule of thumb is 1500 words per half hour, IIRC.

That explains why a certain trilogy had to be edited to fit into 12 hours of movie.

Trilogy, shmilogy! They squoze I, Claudius into 13 hours of non-commercial TV only by leaving out half of the first book and 90% of the second book

The 1925 version of Les Miserables went for 7 hours

In that case I'd say the miserable ones were in the audience.

Are you kidding? Wow! I thought I'd seen "the longest movie" when I went to see Reds.... but it was worth it. :0)

Gettysburg (1994) is probably the longest movie I've seen - over four hours. But I think from memory it was cut down from nearly twice that.

And yet there are 2 hour movies out there that can't find enough plot to last even halfway to the credits.

Heck, the same goes for most half hour sitcoms...

I pretty much gave up on sitcoms when they turned into vehicles for a bunch of unconnected one-liners. Plot?! We don' need no steenkeen plot!

The Russian War and Peace I saw about 1970 was 9 hours: 5 hours 1st night, 4 hours the next. auugh!

Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz ran 15.5 hours. I saw about half of it in a movie theater about two decades ago.

what's the longest movie ever made?

-ron o.

(without looking at the link)
It depends on your definition of movie.
There are art movies that go for days, you know, those nihilistic arty farty meaningless pieces of concept 'art' that involve no more skill that turning the camera on and off.

But if you only include 'real' movies, that is ones that show in a cinema or on TV, they are a lot shorter.

Then, do you include ones that were shown as serials? There was a Chinese movie called The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple that went for 27 hours (must have been a slow fire!) but was serialised over four years from 1928-1931.

from the link: Of all the films with actual storylines, the 1928 Chinese movie "The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple" is the longest, clocking in at 27 hours.

Tangentially the talking books people once sent my mother "Anna Karenina." - on seventeen cassettes.
She said she would have written notes to keep track of who is who except of course that she couldn't see the notes.

That was a TV serial some decades ago. Of great quality. I wonder why they never did a re-run as they repeat so many inferior series over and over again.

Because a) inferior series are cheaper; b) there's no accounting for public taste; c) 'great quality' is a term involving value judgements which are no longer allowed or at best are relegated to the esoteric realm of public broadcasting, along with gaelic football and nihilistic Scandinavian movies.

Not so depressed The Pook . Let's at least keep the term alive.

Perhaps you're confusing depressed with cynical?

You sit out on the front porch? Oh, wait. That's stoics.

You work out at the White Dog Gym?

You are using words that do not compute. Like work out. Me work out? ha!

No,I tried to convert you from cynical to depressed.

That's the job of my children.

It seems my children are determined to consume my time(infancy), then my patience(adolescence), then my money(adulthood).

Nice quote, Parkin. It's good to see you back here.

Watched any of the TV shows this season? Talk about long.
Even if you tape them and cut out advertisements for a
40 minute show, they could reduce it to the 1950's half
hour shows and still keep the advs.