Hollywood does not know how to tell stories anymore.
I watched “The Wolfman” last night, I could see the money and the souped up special effects, but I had no idea what the movie was about or who the characters were, or why the script ever made it on the screen, nobody seemed interested in seeing the movie making process from the vantage point of the audience and the finished product. It was as though every individual division , writers, special effects people, stunt people, the individual actors, make-up, were all on steroids and strutting their little area of expertise, but to no common goal other than to make everything bigger and more expensive than the 1941 version.
All I could think of was how superior the old Wolfman movie was, and how much torment and anguish that Lon Chaney Jr could reveal with a simple shot of his face.
Special effects and technology, or even an updated script doesn’t replace a well told story that draws the audience into their own imaginations.
YOU are SO right!
I figured it out when I saw “The Ring”. “Ringu”, the original Japanese movies is one of my faves and actually scared the crap out of me. With no gore, with no huge crescendos of soundtrack, just looks on the faces. Americans screwed the pooch on that movie.
Fundamentally its all about story. The make-up, the music, the special effects, the costumes, stunts and so on...they all have their place. They can enhance things. They can make a good film a great one, and a great one a classic, but not one of them, not even special effects, can make a bad flick into a good movie.