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The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

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231 points frogulis | 2 comments | 15 Jul 25 03:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.815s | source
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dfxm12 ◴[15 Jul 25 13:51 UTC] No.44571175[source]▶
I think some films, especially movies that aspire to win academy awards, are meant to be played to the world wide lowest common denominator. Movies are made for USA and Chinese audiences first, but they are also made to be easily sold in Europe.

This isn't to say that Hollywood thinks everyone is dumb, but they recognize that all these different people who grew up in different places aren't going to understand the same idioms, or may miss subtle, cultural clues. The director has to spell things out. This explains a lot of what the author coins New Literalism.

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1. parodysbird ◴[15 Jul 25 16:52 UTC] No.44573230[source]▶
> movies that aspire to win academy awards, are meant to be played to the world wide lowest common denominator

That's not the kind of films that tend to win the major Oscar awards. Those tend to be either a bit artsy (e.g. Anora this year) or "serious" biopics/history movies (e.g. Oppenheimer last year).

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2. boogieknite ◴[15 Jul 25 17:02 UTC] No.44573354[source]▶
we made darn near the same comment. interesting Serpell called out Anora specifically