I'm off to see the Hobbit tonight, and am facing up to the fact that it's nearly three hours long. Add in at least half an hour of ads and trailers, that's a lot of sitting down. There's an article here on different film lengths which is quite interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/dec/12/is-the-hobbit-too-long

While it does sound needlessly long, there is a part of me that sits there thinking 'well at least this is value for money'. Like I see a 90 minute film nowadays and come out of the cinema and its like, oh, now what. But when it takes an age, it feels like I've had a night out doing something. This probably explains why Wagner's Ring cycle is so popular. Probably.