What is RunPee for, anyway?
The RunPee tagline says it all: Because movie theaters don’t have pause buttons. The RunPee app will give you several Peetimes of 3-5 minutes in each movie when you can run and pee.
We also let you know if there is anything during or after the end credits that you should stick around for. No more waiting 8-10 minutes for nothing! Better yet, now you can sit confidently while everyone else leaves, knowing there is something extra after the end credits.
In addition, the RunPee app gives you a synopsis of the first 3 minutes of most movies, just in case you’re running late.
When are Peetimes for a newly released movie posted?
Fortunately, we have a movie critic working for us now, who has access to movie screenings before a movie is released to the public. She will help out with the big blockbuster movies.
The RunPee family handles the bulk of the movies. We always go and see the very first showing we possibly can and upload the Peetimes ASAP. In most cases, we can see the opening showing at 7:00 PM Eastern on Thursday evenings.
Who writes the Peetimes?
It’s the RunPee Family (Ginger, Christene, Jilly, Dan, and Vera ) who sees most of the movies. We also get help from Dana Simone, Shani Ogilvie, and Shanee Edwards (our L.A. movie critic)for the big blockbuster movies, so that we’ll have Peetimes before the movie is released in the USA.
Our Thursdays/Fridays pretty much revolve around getting to the theaters to see the earliest showings we can, and then coming home to read through our notes and create Peetimes.
How come some of your Peetimes suggest leaving at important plot points? I thought the Peetimes were for the boring parts!
Actually, it’s super hard to find Peetimes in good, well-edited movies. But we don’t want to leave you with nothing. So sometimes the Peetimes are simply spots in the movie that can be easily summed up, so you won’t be lost when you get back.
For example, in Harry Potter 6, we have a Peetime where you miss Harry getting his Advanced Potions book. It’s important to the plot, but honestly easy to miss: he gets the book and realizes someone smart – but unknown – owned it previously. Easy to sum up and now you know what is going on.
There has to be a scene of at least three to five minutes where you can skip out…and not worry you wasted your hard-earned movie ticket money. We want you to be able to slip back into the movie and be able to pick up the gist of things. So we look for scenes that can be described in a few words.
We know that no one wants to miss the funniest lines, or best action, or most dramatic plot points, so we are careful to avoid those scenes. But sometimes we might make a Peetime during an action scene, as long as it’s not the best action of the movie. That’s the sort of thing we look for. We also try to find Peetimes over a variety of different types of scenes, and then let you know in the notes section — below the Cue — which ones have what. That way if you don’t care about long chase scenes, we’ll have a Peetime for you.
How do you get the Peetimes for each movie?
It’s probably much more difficult than you would imagine. We wait until about 30 minutes or so into the movie, and then start looking for cues — scenes or lines that stand out. When we see one, we write it down and mark the time. Then we start taking notes. If we can go for 3 to 4 minutes without anything really funny happening, or any great action, or important plot twists, or character development (you get the point) we label it as a Peetime…as long as nothing that someone would hate to miss occurs.
Let me emphasize we assume you are watching a movie you really enjoy. It drives us nuts when someone says, “The RunPee app says you can run and pee anytime during [insert movie title here].” For every movie you may think is a waste of time, there’s another person who counts that same movie as their favorite ever. We’re trying to do Peetimes for the person who loves the movie — even if we don’t enjoy it ourselves. Love the film? — we try to have your back!
Where are the Limited Release Movies? And the Independent Films?
We just don’t have time to add all the limited release movies. However, if there is very popular limited release movie, like Black Swan or The Kings Speech, then we’ll make every effort to go see it ASAP.
Is the number of Peetimes for a movie a good indicator as to how bad the movie is?
Not at all. Really, the number of Peetimes is proportional to the length of the movie. (Longer movies = more Peetimes.) We start looking for Peetimes in a movie about 30 minutes after it starts, and we stop looking with about 20-30 minutes remaining. In between, we try and find a Peetime about every 30 minutes or so.
Obviously that is harder to do for some movies than others. Inception was a very hard movie to find Peetimes for, for example: it’s a case study of in-depth plotting and confusing set pieces, requiring multiple viewings to really understand. Most movies aren’t this hard — we’ve gotten really good at finding Peetimes over the years.