Most movies aren't very good.

While rock concerts do draw lots of fans, movies are the dominant entertainment venue these days. Either you see them on the big screen or you rent them and watch them at home. It's a date night or just a night at home, curled up in bed. However we experience them, we ask that they transfix us, transform us, take us into lives and worlds we don't know and used to enjoy only in novels, back when we were young and read novels. But most current movies fall short.

I'm betting that you can't name five movies you saw in the past year that you think should be up for Best Picture.

Start counting now. You have one minute. Five Oscar-worthy movies.

Okay, time's up. Maybe you came up with five, but did they include digitally-enhanced and/or animated movies? If so, you have one more minute to come with five really good movies you saw last year that just told a story really well, with no artificial enhancements.

The clock is ticking. For the record, I'm thinking, too, and not coming up with much. "Shelter Island"? That was pretty good, right? Complicated plot -- that I had trouble keeping up with -- and starring one of those good-looking young actors. Was that movie even done this year? Or was it last year?

My point is that the best movies, the ones you remember all your life, are the ones with the best stories. Anyone who saw (or read the novel) "Gone With The Wind" doesn't remember any special effects but an epic story, well told, memorably acted. On the other hand, who remembers James Dean's break-out movie, in which he played a disaffected 50s youth who just wanted to be accepted? You may or may not have come up with the title, but if you even hesitated, it's because that movie was all about James Dean. The story -- was there one? -- is secondary. He may have been one our best actors, but that wasn't one of our greatest movies.

In an era when the media are blurring -- your cell phone can do what only your computer used to do -- it's always nice to bring ourselves back to the basics. Movies amaze us these days, but, if you think about it, they amazed us back when, too. Those larger-than-life people up there on that screen, going through adventures and traumas we could only dream about. Sometimes we actually bonded with them. I think I'm still kind of that little boy in "Shane" who's running after his wounded hero at the end of the movie, calling out his name. No special effects required. And don't tell me that any number of girls -- and women -- haven't taken Scarlet to their bosom.

So why aren't there more really good, even great, movies?

Well, because it's easy to come up with a good idea for a movie (or a novel), but it's really hard to see it through to the end and concoct a climax that satisfies. Writing is hard, and good writing is damned hard. The problem is complicated, when it comes to movies, by the fact that once a script is bought by a studio, those in charge feel the need to call in other writers to rewrite it, to "juice" it, to introduce special effects or even other characters. What might have been a really good movie, based on the author's script, becomes just another mish-mash of different writers' takes, and, in the end, another Hollywood movie, meant to please all and probably not pleasing much of anyone.

Do you know that a good many famous novelists went to Hollywood lo that time ago to write screenplays? Even Faulkner, who no one but English majors could read. What movie do you think we helped write? No idea, right? That's because the studio brought in writers to "juice" Faulkner's stuff. (Yes, you can find out which famous writer wrote what, but it's not common knowlege, is it? For good reason.)

It's the rare movie any more that is conceived, written -- and maybe directed -- by a single person and that rises above and connects with audiences. Sylvester Stallone is regularly dismissed these days as the action figure in his own fantasies, but when he thought up "Rocky" and brought it the screen, it won an Oscar for Best Picture. Woody Allen used to do that, before he got way too self-absorbed. His "Annie Hall" won Best Picture, one of the few comedies to do so. Remember "Sling Blade"? A truly moving picture imagined by Billy Bob Thornton, who also starred in it. It won Best Screenplay but, in my opinion, should also have won Best Picture.

And one reason those movies -- along with "Citizen Kane" and others -- are superior is that just one writer -- maybe two if it was a legitimate co-author -- did all the writing. Each was a story well told, in a writer's voice. And while we remember the actors, we also remember the stories.

In real estate sales, the cliche is "location, location, location" -- in movies, I think the cliche should be "story, story, story." If you tell a good story, cinematically, you're golden. And that's where most movies, of any era, fall short.

Think of the movies you've seen in the past ten years, more or less. Which do you think your kids, however smart and media-savvy, will know twenty years from now? "Avatar"? Likely they'll remember those elongated blue characters and all the crashing and killing. The story? Hmmm. Maybe "Star Wars" because it transcended its special effects and -- wait for it -- told a story. Arguably a simplistic story, but a story nonetheless. (Just ask all the fanatics who turn out for "Star Wars" conventions: it's not the weird make-up they don that lures them but the ongoing plot line that guarantees sequels. Hey, in America money can propel art.)

Lots of us of a certain age are aware of movies that were made well before our time: the Marx Brothers' comedies, the monster movies that started with "King Kong" in 1933 and continued through the 1950s, clever comedies from decades ago starring Katherine Hepburn (who?) and Jimmy Stewart (who?) or some other guy, etc. Some we remember just for the effects -- giant tarantulas, etc. -- and others for the gag lines, but the ones we best remember -- "King Kong," for instance -- are for the story. For me, the Marx Brothers comedies all blend into a series of funny lines, but I can't forget when I was six years old and kind of "got" that the huge gorilla up there on the screen wasn't such a bad guy and didn't want to hurt that girl. That's the kind of lesson movies can teach us very young and that stay with us.

I worry that today's younger movie crowd don't have the perspective to judge what they're seeing. If you've watched Brando in "Streetcar Named Desire," you're not going to be bowled over by a newer, more polished version like Brad Pitt. Good actor, but watch the young Brando and draw your own comparisons. But do you know what I remember most about that movie, besides Brando's startling performance?

You guessed it. The story. Based on Tennessee Williams' most famous play. His Blanche Dubois is a wonderful female character, and the play/movie is half hers.

Encourage your kids and nephews and nieces to see older movies. They might even be able to download them to their cell phones. I can't imagine watching "Shane," the greatest Western of all time, on a screen the size of my sticky pad, but I guess it's better than nothing.

So anyway, if you thought movies these days aren't as good as they used to be, you're right.
The most important ingredient, the story, has become just another of the considerations instead of the main one. Most movies these days just don't tell a compelling story that sticks in our minds and makes us remember them long after we can't name any of the actors. The director? Oh please. The producer? Who's that? What does he do? Story is all. Or mostly all.

The Oscars will be awarded in just a few months. Got your picks yet?

The clock is ticking . . .