The failure of 21st century Hollywood

In a nutshell, film directors have forgotten how to tell a story.

Because of dependence upon CGI and gore that would disturb a coroner and sex that would shock a hooker, not to filming with a leftist slant that makes LBJ look conservative, movie makers provide us little reason to want to shell out big coin and take our families to the multiplex.

Christian Toto, in a piece for Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood (here, with a great video about Robert Shaw), made these very points as he reviewed the Blu-Ray release of Jaws.

If "Jaws" came out today, and it's a miracle some thick-headed studio exec hasn't already greenlit a remake, the shark would look so realistic audiences wouldn't be able to tell the movie shark from the real McCoy. And, most likely, the film's storytelling would suffer as a result.

Why bother writing a great script or indelible characters when all movie goers will be talking about are the special effects long after the lights turn back on in the theater?

Heck, Spielberg himself admits as much during the release's copious "making of" features. The director couldn't rely on "Bruce" the shark for extended closeups or elaborate poses. So he showed less of it, and the result was far more frightening than any CGI shark.

Great CGI + lame story + lame characters + lame dialogue = 2012 Hollywood.

The door's wide open for any who care to craft a good story. Don't tell me. Show me. Toto highlights a great line of dialogue that captures that essence. As Richard Dreyfus' character gets ready to be a diver-in-a-can lunch snack for Bruce the Shark, rather than state the obvious, "I'm scared to death and pre-wet my wetsuit" he states simply, "I got no spit" as he tries to defog his swim mask. Scared. To. Death.

Interesting, too, that 1970's Steven Spielberg removed the graphic adultery of Peter Benchley's novel in crafting the screenplay for the movie. Minus the shadowed girl running naked into the waves at the start of the movie, there is little to object to in Jaws. A terrifying story told with exquisite mastery.

Are you ready to go back into the water?