So this is a very simple question. There's a free talk thread for everyone to talk about the TV shows they have watched in the preceding week. Every once in a while we use that thread to talk about movies (I did that just now. My justification is that I watched the movies on my television), but the thread asks specifically for TV shows so it feels kinda weird. So maybe we should have a recurring thread for movies? If not, I'd suggest changing the TV thread to make it explicitly welcoming to discussions about movies (in that case, maybe it would be ideal to make the thread appear both in ~tv and in ~movies? I don't think that is technically possible right now, but I leave the suggestion).

I've been looking lately for something new to read/watch/listen to/play and I've been chasing a particular feeling that some of my favorite works have given me in the past.

It's something that's hard to describe succinctly, so it's not exactly easy to just google search for something, and usually just telling people I like x thing gets me y recommendation which is maybe a similar style or genre but doesn't really elicit the particular feeling that I'm after.

I figure other folks might have a similar problem, so I thought it might be fun to have a thread for requests for works that make you feel a certain way, regardless of genre or medium.

I'll start mine in the comments and other folks feel free to ask for requests as top-level comments as well!

I can understand why the journey to make this into a film is so convoluted. I'm not sure I've ever read anything so dense and epic. I was always sort of keen to the series, and always thought the worm god was just cool imagery. So I did have kind of an internal motivation to get this far, but now that I'm about to dive into God Emperor, I just feel bad for anyone that called it quits after the first book. Frank Herbert had a lot to say, and faithfully adapting this to any kind of screen, I think, is impossible.

start rant

First, my personal definition of the term: melodrama is a narrative that appeals to our stronger emotions in a lengthy, recurrent, unjustified and exaggerated fashion. Unlike drama, which plays to your sentiments in a more contained and psychologically realistic manner, melodrama overwhelms us with every trick in the book to elicit a powerful emotional reaction by any means necessary.

You can tell from my phrasing that I'm not a fan of the genre, but that's beside the point. Melodrama has its place: operas and soap-operas wouldn't exist without it, and, in moderation, it's a practical way to inject emotion in plots that would be otherwise hermetic and dry.

But even sweetness in excess will make you vomit, and many interesting productions exaggerate it to the point of nausea. Arrival is awesome, but did Amy Adams character (which was basically one the smartest persons on Earth) really need to spend so much time as a freaking wife? We had the coolest movie aliens in the last 20 years, did she really need to marry a boring physicist? And what about the whole parenting conundrum in Interstellar? You're in fucking space, I couldn't care less about your failings as a father! No one could save 1998s Armageddon, but the struggle to explode the giant asteroid heading towards the Earth was way more interesting than Liv Tyler saying goodbye to Bruce Willis over some corny Aerosmith song. The TV show The Killing was particularly annoying... what would prefer, awesome investigation scenes with constant new developments or 30 versions of "look how the same family is grieving in a slightly different way"?

But credit where credit is due: some moviemakers know a thing or two about concision. So my props to Fernando Meirelles (City of God), José Padilha (Elite Squad), Alfred Hitchcock, David Fincher, Sidney Lumet, Martin Scorsese, Chad Stahelski (from John Wick!!!!) and many others. Thank you for not wasting my time!

EDIT1: And just make things perfectly clear: my issue is not with the presence of drama or melodrama, but with its amount...
EDIT2: to be even more clear: this does not mean that I wish for all movies to be sterile, dry or devoid of emotional content...
EDIT3: a lot of answers seem to ignore the differences between drama and melodrama, the previous edits and the nuance of the post. Ahh... what can I do? :P

end rant

It seems that movies are getting longer and longer nowadays, and some people (like me) are incapable of holding their bladder for more than 1.5-2 hours, especially when movie-theater-sized drinks are involved. So this got me thinking: is it time to bring back the movie intermission?

I'm curious:

1. Are you for or against the idea of longer movies having an intermission? Why or why not?
2. How do you think adding an intermission to the movies would affect the experience? And how might it affect the film industry and the films themselves?