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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

The article touches on this, but in the past three decades movie making has been "optimized" to the point that there has been a great deal of "convergence" of the movie formula down to just a couple major themes. Either you have general audience, big budget, Marvel-type movies, or you have designated Oscar-type fare, which as of late means something extremely depressing that says how bad humans are. "Horny sex" just doesn't fit in either of those two categories.

Not too sad, though, because I feel like the exact opposite has happened with TV, where the rise of streaming services has ushered in a "Cambrian Explosion" of sorts with all types of varied topics and interesting content.

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>> Not too sad, though, because I feel like the exact opposite has happened with TV, where the rise of streaming services has ushered in a "Cambrian Explosion" of sorts with all types of varied topics and interesting content.

I am worried that soon they will also optimize the hell out of them - platforms like Netflix have all the data: what scene makes you pause and re-watch, what makes you stop watching, God only knows what else they are measuring.

It leaves me wondering to what extent those metrics overlap with the artistic side (whatever that is, but in this context I mean trying to express something genuine, not to please the audience).

> […] or you have designated Oscar-type fare, which as of late means something extremely depressing that says how bad humans are.

In the 2020/2021 season, the nominations included The Father about a man suffering dementia (from his perspective) and Sound of Metal about a drummer going deaf.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/93rd_Academy_Awards

For 2019, we had the best picture nominations include Ford v Ferrari, Little Women, and 1917:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/92nd_Academy_Awards

Previous to that, Bohemian Rhapsody:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/91st_Academy_Awards

Going back one more year, Dunkirk and Lady Bird:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90th_Academy_Awards

Lastly for this discussion, Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hidden Figures, and La La Land:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/89th_Academy_Awards

I think these are good counter-examples to your claim that only two types of movies being made.

>Not too sad, though, because I feel like the exact opposite has happened with TV, where the rise of streaming services has ushered in a "Cambrian Explosion" of sorts with all types of varied topics and interesting content.

Can we even call it TV anymore? It's all streamed to our laptops our tablets

Well, it’s still “tele” and “vision”… (Most laptop ads now focus on using computers as essentially TV sets.)

If we can rewind a Blu-ray, carbon copy someone on an email, and roll up a power window, I imagine we can stream our TV to our tablets just fine.

Sure, now TV stands for TV-style Video.

and most tv's are computers now as well.

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