To me it could be identified in the difference between two Best Picture winners of a similar genre, Ben Hur and Gladiator. I personally hated Gladiator, one of the reasons being the insufferable Russel Crowe and another certainly being the overwrought use of CGI. I guess the point of that clip was that not only is CGI getting more and more ubiquitous (and I guess Avatar is a good case in point), it's also getting harder and harder to detect. I agree that it's not the essence of film making, but I can't help feeling that we've lost something along the way to its refinement and overuse, perhaps in the way of good storytelling, i.e., plot.

Those who want to watch a treatise of sorts on the 'art' of moviemaking would no doubt enjoy American Movie. Watched it again this morning and enjoyed it as much as I did the first time: