This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

start rant

First, my personal definition of the term: melodrama is a narrative that appeals to our stronger emotions in a lengthy, recurrent, unjustified and exaggerated fashion. Unlike drama, which plays to your sentiments in a more contained and psychologically realistic manner, melodrama overwhelms us with every trick in the book to elicit a powerful emotional reaction by any means necessary.

You can tell from my phrasing that I'm not a fan of the genre, but that's beside the point. Melodrama has its place: operas and soap-operas wouldn't exist without it, and, in moderation, it's a practical way to inject emotion in plots that would be otherwise hermetic and dry.

But even sweetness in excess will make you vomit, and many interesting productions exaggerate it to the point of nausea. Arrival is awesome, but did Amy Adams character (which was basically one the smartest persons on Earth) really need to spend so much time as a freaking wife? We had the coolest movie aliens in the last 20 years, did she really need to marry a boring physicist? And what about the whole parenting conundrum in Interstellar? You're in fucking space, I couldn't care less about your failings as a father! No one could save 1998s Armageddon, but the struggle to explode the giant asteroid heading towards the Earth was way more interesting than Liv Tyler saying goodbye to Bruce Willis over some corny Aerosmith song. The TV show The Killing was particularly annoying... what would prefer, awesome investigation scenes with constant new developments or 30 versions of "look how the same family is grieving in a slightly different way"?

But credit where credit is due: some moviemakers know a thing or two about concision. So my props to Fernando Meirelles (City of God), José Padilha (Elite Squad), Alfred Hitchcock, David Fincher, Sidney Lumet, Martin Scorsese, Chad Stahelski (from John Wick!!!!) and many others. Thank you for not wasting my time!

EDIT1: And just make things perfectly clear: my issue is not with the presence of drama or melodrama, but with its amount...
EDIT2: to be even more clear: this does not mean that I wish for all movies to be sterile, dry or devoid of emotional content...
EDIT3: a lot of answers seem to ignore the differences between drama and melodrama, the previous edits and the nuance of the post. Ahh... what can I do? :P

end rant

I post a fair amount of poetry to Tildes, with the hope of getting feedback or starting discussion.

Yet, as you can see from looking at the poem tag, there generally isn't any kind of discussion on poetry posts. Even Bishop's departure post only received six comments.

So, why is this? What stops you commenting on poems? I would like to have discussions about what I write with the people here. I don't know if there's something I can do to make it easier to engage with me regarding my work, or if there's something else preventing the discussion.

So far I know of Economics explained for economics and CaspianReport for geopolitics but neither has really convinced me of their credibility and these 2 subjects seem to be the dark sheep of educational content, due to being primarily speculative and subjective in nature and being quite niche for being such general topics.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

I just discovered this new tourist advertisement for Australia. It's sung (mostly) by Kylie Minogue, and aimed directly at a British (English?) audience.

As an Aussie, I found a few moments in this ad to smile at.