Nashville has a formula, and it works a lot of the time, but it wasn't right for me. They're afraid to step outside the box - even though, with me, my success came because I was outside of the box to begin with. ↗
Well, I mean, Congress did originally set the formula for the state grants, and they guaranteed every state a minimum formula. So that was a congressional decision. ↗
Usually action films have a formula: good guy gets in trouble, his wife dies, friends have problems, so he goes to the mountain, learns martial arts, comes back, and kills the bad guy. ↗
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've come up with another formulation about style: that it's essentially a manifestation of a certain habitual set of limitations. It's what a composer does NOT do that defines a style. ↗