Formulaic Quotes

I don`t think I`m really the go-to girl for that sort of cheery popcorn movie. I`ve done that little bit of lightness in King Kong, and I Heart Huckabees was definitely goofy, but I just don`t connect that well to romantic comedies because they`re usually so formulaic and not really based in truth.

Most women`s pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men`s pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down.

On "women`s pictures": "Most women`s pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men`s pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down. I cry too, maybe three times a week, but it`s not in closeup. It`s a wide shot. It`s in the context of a very large and very mean world."

American movies to me - and, I mean, I`ve said this before a million times - are becoming more and more homogeneous because the marketing objective - and marketing now plays such a major role in movies that it almost obliterates everything else - the marketing objective is the lowest common denominator. "You can`t put that in; let`s put the car chase, let`s put the sex scene, let`s put the fight in, let`s get them back together, they end up happily, they walk off into the sun..." So that there`s a formulaic predictability to American movies. That, allied with the cynicism of the way movies are put together - product placement and spin-offs and toys and all kinds of crap that, you know, have nothing to do with the telling of stories - they`ve turned American movies into McMovies. So that when the movie-goer gets his movie, it`s like a hamburger: he doesn`t want a piece of aubergine in there; he wants his onion, his tomato, his hamburger and his bun. And he doesn`t want the bun hard, he wants it soft. And he wants it in two minutes.

It`s the formulaic studio movies the make money, and when they do, the actors in them are automatically movie stars.

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don`t want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there`s some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.

It`s more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren`t formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who`ve told American stories that were personal and universal as well.

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one`s own creativity - that`s a much tougher matter.

Cool has become formulaic. You can walk into stores today, and it`s all there: Anyone can buy what`s perceived as cool.