Sometimes a long movie coupled with large soft drinks makes it hard to sit through the entire show without a restroom break.JOHN W. FLEMING/STAFF

When you gotta go

Long movies make it hard for film lovers to go with the flow

Web posted October 13, 1998

 The longest movies ever made

By Wendy Grossman
Staff Writer

A great big Coke always seems like a good idea when Heather Story walks into a movie. Halfway through she starts regretting it. She crosses her legs, then uncrosses her legs. She tries to focus on the movie, but all she can think about is the need to relieve.

"You sit there and just shake and do whatever you gotta do to hold it," says the 18-year-old senior at Westside High School.

"But you can't hold it for the whole movie," says her 16-year-old sister, Miranda.

So Heather waits for a boring part. She starts to get up, but then the action resumes. So she sits back down. When the scene dies down the bathroom has a line. One time Heather missed 20 minutes of a movie.

When she returns, she can't remember where she's sitting and misses even more of the film running up and down the aisles trying to find her friends.

"I know I missed something good," she says. Sometimes she has to see the movie again to find out just what it was.

With Saving Private Ryan and some other movies running nearly three hours, theatergoers are finding themselves in an uncomfortable situation.

"It just gets aggravating," says Juan Willis, 26, an Augusta electrician. Recently his cousin had to be excused four times during The Negotiator. Mr. Willis always has to explain what he missed.

In New Orleans, you don't miss much because the bathrooms have speakers that let you hear what's going on, says Brent Wallis, 26, a third-year medical student at Medical College of Georgia.

"They should have a bathroom in the theater with a little window," Mr. Wallis says.

"Or stalls with double mirrors where you can look out and they can't look in," says Rob Benjamin, 29, another third-year medical student at MCG.

Most theaters probably aren't going to put in secret spy-glass stalls. So why not pause for intermission? asks Tony Chambers, 43, a crane rigger at the Savannah River Site.

"They need to have little breaks, like they did with Gone With the Wind," he says, referring to the three-hour, 45-minute movie. "If you drink one of those big long Cokes, it's coming."

Saving Private Ryan is in the theater closest to the restrooms at Evans 12. That's intentional, says Matt Crunk, assistant manager of the theater."They should do a survey on the water pressure after the movie -- I bet everything drops when everyone's running to the john,'' says Marlene Erne, 50.

On a busy Saturday, the women's restroom at Evans 12 goes through about six jumbo, 2,000-foot, filler-rolls of toilet paper, says Mr. Crunk. That's 125 regular rolls of toilet tissue.

Belinda Crouch, a full-time babysitter, can usually make it until the end of a film. But then she heads straight to the restroom.

"After the movie it's one of those nonstop things, 'cause you're so full of Coke," she says.

Is it unhealthy to postpone nature for several hours?"Any normal person with a normal urinary tract is not doing any harm to themselves," says Arthur Smith, a urology professor at MCG.

How bad you have to go is related to how much you drink and how much fluid you're body is losing, Dr. Smith says. If you're sitting in a chilly, air-conditioned theater, you're not sweating. So you're not losing fluid. And if you're drinking one of those elephant-sized drinks, your input is greater than your output.

Holding it every once in a while is not a bad thing to do, Dr. Smith says. But you shouldn't make it a habit at the movies or anywhere else.

"Remember, a happy bladder is an empty bladder," Dr. Smith says.

A normal person urinates four to five times a day, Dr. Smith says. That's about every five to six hours. So you should be able to make it through a two- to three-hour film.

Some beverages are more of a problem than others.

"Diet Coke tends to create a lot more urine," Dr. Smith says. "I don't know what's in Diet Coke, but I can tell you it does a hell of a job."

Coke and Diet Coke have the same amount of caffeine, says Carol Martel, director of Corporate Communications for the Coca-Cola Co., and caffeine is a diuretic, which stimulates urination. But Diet Coke doesn't contain sugar, so it has a little more water in Diet Coke, she says.

Iced tea also forces you to make more water, Dr. Smith says. And some heart medications can pull all the water out of the body, which makes you have to go more often. Some men with enlarged prostate glands take water pills, which unbalance the urinary system.

So World War II vets who go to see Saving Private Ryan are likely to be rushing to the restrooms, Dr. Smith says.

"A World War II veteran is probably in the age to have prostate problems, and if they have heart problems and they're taking water pills they could have a hard time sitting through that movie," Dr. Smith says. "If they buy a Diet Coke -- forget it."