At the Movies Cancelled!

What would be worse: At the Movies with Ben Lyons, or no At the Movies at all? I guess we are going to find out in a few months.

Read Ebert's response (and plans) here.

CHICAGO, March 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. syndicated film review program "At the Movies" has been canceled after 24 seasons, said Disney-ABC Domestic Television and ABC Media Productions.

The show started out in the mid-1970s with the Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert and the Chicago Tribune's Gene Siskel sharing their opinions on current releases.

The Tribune said Wednesday the final episode of the series with current reviewers Michael Phillips of the Tribune and A.O. Scott of The New York Times is to air the weekend of Aug. 14.

Phillips and Scott took over the show from Ben Lyons of E! Entertainment Television and Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies, who replaced the ailing Ebert and his co-star of nearly a decade, Richard Roeper of the Sun-Times.

Roeper replaced Siskel when he died in 1999 of brain cancer. Ebert has been suffering from various types of cancer affecting his mouth and throat in recent years. His battle with the disease has left him unable to talk.

"This was a very difficult decision, especially considering the program's rich history and iconic status within the entertainment industry," the Tribune quoted Disney-ABC Domestic Television and ABC Media Productions as saying in a statement. "But from a business perspective it became clear this weekly, half-hour, broadcast syndication series was no longer sustainable."

Criticwatch: Hyping till the end

Just as Ben Lyons is about to go off the air, I find myself on vacation in smoky Santa Cruz, CA, and I have not yet been able to watch this weekend's episode of At the Movies. So I'll hand it over to Erik Childress from Criticwatch to sum things up with his Ben Lyons Quote of the Week:

Lyons: And until next week, as always, we’ll be At The Movies.

Erik then continues:

There is something perfectly poetic if those are the final words we ever hear from Ben Lyons on this show. Hyping something that cannot possibly be, said before all the facts are in. As of the Aug. 15 airing we are now officially in the two-week period before the new season of At The Movies begins with Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott. Traditionally a period where Siskel & Ebert took a couple of weeks off and either ran reruns or taped a special recap show to air, could the same be true of the now defunct coupling of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz? My Tivo, too dumb to recognize reruns of The Daily Show but smart enough to notice an At The Movies repeat when it sees it, is showing just that. The Aug. 22/23 airing is slated to be a rerun of their Aug. 7 show. You know – the one where they had twice promised a G.I. Joe review only to be shunned from the screenings like the rest of us. If this stands that only leaves Aug. 29. Will it be a repeat, a special show, or have we indeed seen the last of Ben Lyons under the title first made famous by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel? If it is, Junior gave us quite a sendoff, delivering his own brand of a greatest hits package reminding us why no one has anything positive to say about his tenure.

Click here to read the entire review

Criticwatch: One season wonder

Erik Childress from Criticwatch gives us the Ben Lyons Quote of the Week:

Lyons: This is a true story so if she is a little whiny that is the character she's embodying.

Erik then continues:

Basically what you're saying then, Ben, in your review of Julie & Julia is that because the film portrays the real-life Julie Powell as she is we should just accept that person, flaws and all, since it remains true to them - no matter how self-centered, dim, or flaccid they come off when trying to relay their thoughts on a subject. Awwww, has someone been hard on Ben lately?

Not precisely sure when the big news came to Ben Lyons, but the public became aware on August 5 that he and co-host Ben Mankiewicz were being replaced on At the Movies. After just under a year on the air, Lyons and Mank officially aligned themselves with the Jean Doumanian season of Saturday Night Live. One and done. Cut short. After the PR tour during Oscar season to counteract all the bad publicity the show had got, the Associated Press article they finally opened to, the spin that the ratings were not on the downswing, attempts to localize them as Chicago celebrities and rumors that it would be cheaper to keep them on for another year to fulfill syndication contracts than to dump them, the Bens will be no more on the show come September. Replacing them will be hometown boy, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, and New York's A.O. Scott who will be flown in every couple of weeks to tape a pair of shows. Funny that the reason Scott was initially taken off the guest host roster is because producers didn't want to have to fly him every week. No, they chose instead to fly in Ben Lyons every week. Well now they can fly him out.

Click here to read the entire article

At the Movies: Ben & Ben

Julie & Julia: A movie about a more experienced and knowledgable--if less attractive--chef and a younger, better looking newcomer who is utterly incompetent. Now that sounds so familiar . . .Just because Ben Lyons has been fired, that doesn't mean we won't have him to kick around for a few more weeks. Phillips and Roeper continued several weeks after their replacements were announced and we can expect the same this time around.

But wouldn't it be terribly ironic if just as his tenure was coming to the end, Ben Lyons delivered an intelligent, subtle, thoughtful commentary about a film, that enlightened us as to how the film works, displayed a deep grasp of film history and theory, and dazzled us with a poetic display of criticism that redeemed all of his past transgressions? Yes, that would be terribly ironic, but it hasn't happened yet. Don't keep your fingers crossed.

This episode was filmed on August 4--the day before the firing was announced--as Lyons mentions on his Twitter page. The shows are filmed two shows at a time, so it will not be for another two weeks before we see Lyons' sad, post-firing face on the show. In the meantime, we get these nuggets of un-knowledge.

On Julie & Julia:

Lyons: First off, I think we are both keen observers of the obvious when we say that Meryl Streep is terrific.

I hate to say it, but that just might be a bit of an overstatement. Forget I Am Legend for a moment. I know it's hard, but just try. Now, let's take Ben's critique of the G.I. Joe movie. First, his positive reaction on Twitter:

Just saw the new G.I. Joe trailer on ABC during the Mavs vs. Nuggets game...WOW! That ish looks crraaaaaaaaaazy...Go Joe! Look forward to it

I don't know who in their right mind would have that reaction to the trailer--much less the ridiculous thought of even having a G.I. Joe. But Ben later backtracks and says that he does not have high hopes for the movie because it does not have the "heart-and-soul of G.I. Joe."(Devin Faraci, the critic sitting next to Lyons in the interview--who later went on to give the movie a positive review--commented that he did not realize G.I. Joe had a heart-and-soul)

Now, those are two contradictory opinions on the same movie which he has not seen, and yet I think both of these are evidence that Ben Lyons is not a "keen observer of the obvious."

But speaking of stupid comments with the word "soul" in them, let's try Lyons' comment on the movie Cold Souls, taking on Mank's defense of the concept of the movie:

Lyons: I agree with you, a terrific premise, but I'm not so sure about the execution of the film. When you have a film that's dealing about people's souls and trading souls, the movie's got to have a soul. It's gotta have some heart and some compassion behind the lens.

Oh dear, you didn't really go there, did you? He even has a bit of a smirk on his face--slightly concealed by the director's generous cutting to a side view of both critics away from a close-up of Lyons--which seems to express how self-satisfied he is with such a clever turn of phrase. This side shot also shows Mank in his standard, steely-eyed stare across the aisle that seems to say "shut up you idiot before I smack the hell out of you!"

Criticwatch: Party pooper

Erik Childress sums up this weeks episode of At the Movies, starting with Ben Lyons' dismissal of Thirst:

This week’s show was a happy affair. 9 out of 10 “see it”’s and certainly some great movies to boot (Funny People, In The Loop, World’s Greatest Dad). Lyons turned out to be the party pooper this week, delivering the one “skip it” on the final film they reviewed, Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst. In fairness, I would have pooped on the perfect show too. According to the show’s review aesthetic, I would have gone with “rent it”, but I am certain that I could back it up better and maybe bring something to the discussion about why I thought it ultimately failed as a film rather than an experience. After all, we know how Lyons feels about horror fare.

Looking over his Quote of the Week you might think he’s still reviewing Orphan from last week. Thirst is an entirely different beast though. Anyone familiar with Park’s previous work, particularly his Vengeance trilogy (Old Boy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance), knows he possesses a rather dark sense of humor amidst the violence. Some critics have even gone so far as to call it a black comedy. Suggesting Thirst is unintentionally funny is so off the mark it boggles the mind, although Lyons tries to cover himself by wondering if some of the jokes were lost in translation. Yeah, that Korean vampire humor always goes right over my head too. It might be hard to label it in the video stores as anything but horror, but any student of even a decade’s worth of film is aware that there are various subsets of the genre and not all of them require giant scares. Never during Thirst was I thinking “hey, I’m not scared at all here.” Park was chasing something more than just making us jump in our seats and if that’s all Lyons was focusing on, maybe that’s why he was so bored.

Click here to read the rest of the story

At the Movies: Forgetting Ben Lyons

We got a fairly uneventful episode of At the Movies this week, but next week's episode promises the review of the highly unanticipated G.I Joe movie. Recent evidence suggests that Ben will play it safe and pan the movie, but it might be fun to see what sort of mental gymnastics he might pull to defend it.

Summing up his review of In the Loop, Lyons says:

Lyons: Stay in the loop on good movies this summer and "See" In the Loop.

Oh, please don't. One Gene Shalit is at least one too many.



At the end of the show, the Bens gives their DVD picks inspired by the newly released Funny People:

Lyons: The Cable Guy is a bizarre and twisted character driven comedy that still remains one of Apatow's best.

Now, I liked The Cable Guy, but it was produced by Apatow, who neither wrote nor directed. It doesn't even feature the standard Apatow ensemble--like Apatow-produced films such as Superbad or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It's really a Ben Stiller/Jim Carrey movie. And it's not as good as any of the "real" Apatow movies, which are just as--or perhaps more--crude but also more grown-up and intelligent.

If he really wanted a blast from the Apatow-ian past, he might have recommended something a bit more obscure like the DVD for Freaks and Geeks or Undeclared. This pick just seems a bit poorly thought through, which leads to the somewhat hyperbolic "one of Apatow's best" comments.

Criticwatch - If I had a hammer . . .

Erik Childress discusses the exchange from this week's At the Movies on the movie Orphan (among other things):

LYONS: “For me I don’t know what’s really fun about seeing a nine year-old girl take a hammer to somebody’s head over and over again. That’s not enjoyable for me at the movies.”

MANKIEWICZ: “IT’S A HORROR MOVIE, BEN!”

Thank you Mank for shouting out what so many of us have wanted to spit back in his face through all his stomach-churning logic and overly biased attitude towards horror films during this last year on the air. Oh boy, so you liked Drag Me To Hell. That PG-13 rating suits you, does it? You gave a positive review to Let the Right One In? Only three people on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 144) gave it a negative. (For the record those three morons are Amy Nicholson from Box Office Magazine, Prairie Miller and Owen Gleiberman who should have his “top critic” moniker erased on the basis of this one review.) You want to knock Orphan – have at it, sir. There’s a lot to pan it for. I recommended it on the basis of pure comedy and not as a horror film. But within my review I knocked how poorly directed it was if it really had aspirations to be a true-red horror flick. All you can say is how uncomfortable you get when little Esther bashes in a skull with a hammer.

Click here to read Erik's other musing about this week's episode

At the Movies: He had me, then he lost me

This week's episode of At the Movies gave us a repeat of two of Ben Lyons' weaknesses--folding under criticism and objecting to horror elements in movies.

First, on The Ugly Truth, Ben comments on the notorious vibrating underwear scene:

Lyons: There is some physical comedy, but it seems like stuff we've seen before. There's a scene at a dinner table that is completely ripped from When Harry Met Sally . . .

Mank: Yeah, I thought that was an ok scene.

Lyons: [agreeing] An ok scene.

Sorry, dude, you had me and then you lost me.

Later, we get a disagreement in the review of Orphan, which Mank liked because it had some funny elements in it, but Lyons (who hates horror movies) did not:

Lyons: For me, I don't know what's really fun about seeing a 9-year-old girl taking a hammer to somebody's head over and over again. To me, that's not really enjoyable.

After which Mank lights up and smiles, saying,

Mank: It's a horror movie, Ben!

At first I thought Lyons had a decent point, but this time around Mank actually won me over: I've laughed my ass of at over-the-top horror movies with scenes like this plenty of times. It's all fun and games until somebody gets bludgeoned to death by a 9-year-old girl. Then it's just fun.

Finally, Mank gives us his 3-to-see: Harry Potter, Orphan, and The Hurt Locker.

He even says "This is my favorite Potter movie and the most adult Potter." If by "most adult" you mean "lots of silly flirting" and by "best" you mean "worst," then I completely agree!

At the Movies: Growing old gracefully

This week on At the Movies, Lyons and Mankiewicz give their lists of the five best films of the year so far (plus the single worst film so far):

Lyons	Mank
1. Sin Nombre	1. Sin Nombre
2. Tyson	2. The Hurt Locker
3. Up	3. Every Little Step
4. (500) Days of Summer	4. Sugar
5. Star Trek	5. I Love You, Man

Ben Lyons' view of a 40-year-oldOn Mank's number 5 pick, Lyons says "When comparing it to the The Hangover, both very funny, both incredibly well written, and also both starring older cast members. They don't play like frat-boy comedies."

Oh boy. "Older cast members?" Meaning in their 30s? Both are about guys who are about to get married--are they supposed to be just out of high school? Now, I'm not one to put Lyons down for his age, but this does not exactly help his credentials as a "mature" film critic. And by the way, The Hangover doesn't play like a frat-boy comedy? Not sure about that.

Lyons also mentions--twice--the "grace" in Star Trek. First saying that the two lead actors "take on iconic roles with an ease and a grace that will surely drive the franchise for years to come." Later, he adds that it is "really difficult to walk that line of the hard-core fans of the franchise and people who are not familiar with the franchise, but [director J. J. Abrams] did so gracefully." Of all the adjectives that I might use to describe the movie, that is probably one of the last.

Their "worst" movies were Bruno (Mank) and I Love You, Beth Cooper (Lyons). After listing these, and wrapping up the show, Lyons and Mank discuss the new rule for the Oscars which will result in ten (instead of five) nominations for Best Picture. Mank adds,

Mank: So I think a movie that just opened a few days ago, the sixth Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, it's dark, it's much more grown up, I think that's also a possibility for a nomination.

First off, Half-Blood Prince is doing crazy business, so it does stand a good chance for a nomination. But does it really deserve it? Everybody I know thinks that it is by far the most mediocre--and boring--in the Harry Potter series.

But they also provide no commentary about the economics behind the decision. Clearly, the Academy hopes that expanding the number of films that get a nomination will improve their success at the box office and improve DVD rentals. But how about improving the movies themselves? The big blockbusters this year have been retreads based on already established brands outside the movies and are sequels--Harry Potter and the Transformers.

How about some motivation for something unique and different? I would hope that expanding the number of nominations actually helps smaller films that have a more difficult time finding an audience--like The Girlfriend Experience, my pick for the best movie so far this year. If the new rule just benefits Harry Potter, it is hardly worth it.

Criticwatch - Who's he crappin'?

Erik Childress cites many of the moments that I cited in this week's episode of At the Movies, so I'll highlight one of Erik's points that I did not mention, regarding a movie I did not see:

Lyons (on I Love You, Beth Cooper): It condones drinking and driving.

Really, Benny? Are you really going to go there? The guy who praised The Hangover to the hilt? The guy who put it second on his list of 3-To-See on the June 20 show? The film where three completely messed up guys in Vegas steal a police car, drive it to Mike Tyson’s house, steal his tiger, put said tiger IN THE CAR and then drive back down the strip to Caesar’s Palace. You mean drinking and driving like that? Beth Cooper has maybe a beer or two by comparison and is shown to be primarily the worst teen driver since Kelly Jo Minter in Summer School. Anyone? Whomever was driving the police car in The Hangover had not only been drinking all night, but jacked up on rufies. But I guess you don’t care if it’s real or if it’s fake. You just wanna find out if it’s funny. Ben Lyons, who in the hell do you think you’re crappin’?

Read the entire Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here.

At the Movies: Ben Mankiewicz and the Half-Wit Prince

On this week's episode of At the Movies, we get an early review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Mank tells us how the movie is much more rooted in the lives of real-life teenagers, and Ben Lyons agrees:

Lyons: Mank, I love how this film establishes that it takes place in the real world. It opens in London, but then of course goes to the world of Hogwarts and wizards.

No shit? It starts in the Muggle world, and then moves into Hogwarts later? Wow, that would make it EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER HARRY POTTER MOVIE. A stunning grasp of the obvious there, Ben. Next you are going to tell me that "the Transformers do something really cool. They are these giant robots that transform into cars! And they make a cool sound when they do it!" Ben Lyons gets early access to not only seeing but reviewing the movie, and he tells us something we already know--even if we have not already read the book.

Then we get to Bruno, which has a surprisingly high 70% rating on the Tomatometer. Although it is worth pointing out that the Top Critics rating is only 53%, a surprisingly vast difference compared to most movies' Tomato ratings.

Anyway, Mank, like me, loved Borat but hates Bruno and rightfully tears it apart, saying that it is offensive and simply drags innocent bystanders into scenes with Bruno's crude actions. Some of these people are homophobic, but all too often they're just disgusted and often rightly so.

Ok, I didn't hate it quite as much as Mank did. I thought about two-thirds of the movie was exactly what he says, and about one-third--mostly in the latter part of the film--has Bruno mocking homophobes and other idiots--people who will do anything to get their babies into modeling and a couple of celebrity charity consultants who are total morons. But the rest is, yes, stupid.

Ben Lyons would disagree with me--as he did with Mank:

Lyons: I think you and I are looking at it differently. While you are maybe sympathizing with some of the people that you say he exploits on camera, I'm holding those people accountable for their actions and what they say and how they conduct themselves. And I'm laughing at Bruno more so than I'm really laughing at their ignorance. I mean Borat, you're really looking at the people around him as much as him.

So which is it? Are you holding those people accountable or are laughing at Bruno? And who are you holding accountable, exactly? There are some who really deserve to be mocked--the people I mentioned above, the Israeli lynch mob, the Fred Phelps "God Hates Fags" neanderthals, even Ron Paul. But what about the hotel workers who are asked to untie Bruno and his friend from each other after a night of S&M? Or the unsuspecting focus group forced to watch Bruno's crude, penis-wagging TV show? Or, worst of all, an African-American audience rightly outraged at Bruno's carrying around an adopted African child as an accessory, a la Madonna?

Sorry Lyons, you are not making much of a case for your opinion here. It seems more like you are just more willing to laugh at crude stereotypes than Mank is.

So good it's bad

I spent all weekend at the Socialism 2009 conference in San Francisco, and though I finally got a chance to watch At the Movies on Monday night, I'll forgo my own lengthy commentary about the episode and hand it over to Erik Childress. His Ben Lyons Quote of the Week is:

Lyons: Depp is so good that in the moment he holds your attention and I’m along for the ride and it’s a good adult summer movie. However, I wanted an awards show contender and its just not that.

Erik continues:

Lyons was brutal this week. On the movies. Without the immediate benefit of a show-by-show breakdown, this may have been the first time during his tenure on At the Movies that Junior failed to recommend a single title; a prospect that even surprised Mankiewicz during their recap. The closest he came was on Michael Mann’s Public Enemies which got the dreaded “rent it” despite Lyons calling it a “good adult summer movie.” Having spent a part of this weekend on the other side of Criticwatch determining the correct use of the word “masterpiece”, here we have another lesson in choosing your words carefully.

I concur--if you ever wanted to watch 22 minutes of a grumpy, furrow-browed Ben Lyons with little positive to say and struggling to maintain his fake smile, this was the week to watch. Not that I would recommend it. As Erik quotes Ben in the Quote of the Week, he even raised his usually low standards, giving a "Rent it" to a movie just because it wasn't Oscar worthy. Well, we'll see how Ben's turn to high standard maintains itself in the future . . .

Read the rest of the Criticwatch Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here.

Criticwatch: Revenge of the sequel

Erik Childress gives us the Ben Lyons Quote of the Week:

Lyons: I found that the filmmakers were really irresponsible in ignoring the younger fanbase of this franchise. You mention the 14 year old boys love the action and Megan Fox but the language and drug references completely unnecessary.

And then continues with his own commentary:

Hearing statements like that from Ben Lyons is enough to make you want to watch a reality show of his exploits at the Hard Rock in Vegas. The movie in question is not Land of the Lost, but Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a film that only accentuates everything that passed as action and humor the first time around. Why didn’t those PG-13 elements violate his delicate sensibilities back in 2007? Maybe because he was just on the E! Network then and not playing to a more adult audience on ABC that has found ways to work his age into the criticism of him?

Click here to read the rest

At the Movies: Becoming numb to the noise

Ben Lyons has not been so egregious lately in gushing over his friends--or rather, "friends"--at least not at every possible moment. Take this week's episode of At the Movies, in which the new Transformers movie is reviewed. Lyons doesn't even let on that he and Shia are buddies--or "buddies," as in Lyons says "See, we are totally best friends, look at this picture we took together," and Shia says "Ben who?" He has even removed the link on his Web page to the "Ben Lyons Poses with Famous People" gallery that he was so ridiculed for. The gallery, however, still exists.

But we do get this exchange on the movie:

Lyons: I was a fan of the first film, and I think part of the reason why it worked is there was so much anticipation to see these robots for the first time. And Michael Bay and the team at ILM, the graphics studio that does the special effects, really delivered in that first movie. Here it's excessive, and overkill, and your eye and your brain becomes rather numb to it rather quickly . . .

Mank: Particularly your brain.

Yes, so much anticipation. Just like he said last week that this is the most anticipated movie of the summer. Lyons continues:

Lyons: Oh my goodness, because it's endless, and it just sort of looses the mystique that the first one had of seeing these things for the first time. You become numb to it. And I found that the filmmakers were really irresponsible in ignoring the younger fan base of this franchise. You mentioned the 14-year-old boys loved the action and Megan Fox but the language and drug references, completely unnecessary. [my emphasis]

Wow, what a noble and controversial statement. Alright Hollywood, listen to this important message from Ben Lyons: We need less drugs and more female eye candy! Hey, anything less would be irresponsible.

Mank, who to his credit has generally been better at pointing at sloppy, stereotypical content in Hollywood films, put it a better:

Lyons: Dude, Megan Fox is so hot!Mank: I know why Megan Fox is in the film, no question. But at some point as you're trying to save the world and you're in the Egyptian desert, maybe jeans and a t-shirt. I mean enough, I get it, she's literally just there to run in slow motion and to be eye candy.

Unfortunately, we get this frat-boy grin (left) from Lyons as Mank is making this comment.

Criticwatch - Blurbing 2009 into a vintage year

Erik Childress from Criticwatch gives us the Ben Lyons quote of the week:

Lyons: This is vintage classic Woody Allen. Like you said, not his best work obviously but a return to form in a lot of ways.

And follows with his own commentary:

Then how about we don’t use the words “vintage” and “classic” to call it then? This is becoming an increasing problem in the Twitter culture that we live in. What is Twitter precisely if not an opportunity to provide your own ready-made 140-character blurb for a movie? Forget writing a whole review or 140 words. You can just walk out of a movie and post your reaction for all your followers to see. Oh, but you must get their attention, right? You can’t just say that Whatever Works is one of Woody’s better efforts over the last decade. You need to get everyone’s attention. So you say it’s classic Woody Allen, more or less suggesting that it ranks with the likes of Annie Hall, Manhattan and The Purple Rose of Cairo. Yes, there’s a bit of assumption on our part. But there’s a difference when you call something classic and tap into our own memories of what constitutes the meaning of “classic” (whether it be for a genre or filmmaker) and my friends and I saying that Megaforce is the greatest movie ever made.

Read Erik's entire commentary here.

At the Movies: Some rules are sacred

Ben Lyons: Less than meets the eyeOn this week's episode of At the Movies, Ben Lyons shows us that he knows some rules and not others.

He slams the new "Norwegian Nazi zombie movie" Dead Snow, saying:

A lot better zombie movies in recent years, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later. I thought those were really effective because they establish the rules of zombies. How do you kill a zombie, if a zombie bites you does that turn you into a zombie. They were not consistent here with these parameters.

Whether being consistent with the rules of zombies--rather than providing interesting characters or just effectively terrifying scenarios--is what makes a good thriller, I'll put aside for the moment. Just to say that I'm not sure that The Blair Witch Project particularly followed the "rules of witches," nor was it any worse for it. More unfortunately, though, is that he does not seem to know the rules of film criticism nearly so well as the rules of zombies.

And I don't just refer to Ebert's Little Rule Book (aka How Not to be Ben Lyons). Let's just take a very simple "rule": don't play into the Hollywood hype machine. This is one of Lyons' worst offenses which he never seems to learn from. And he does it again this week, calling the new Transformers movie, "the most anticipated movie of the summer!"

Really? By whom? I mean, is it more anticipated than Up, The Girlfriend Experience, Moon, Whatever Works, Public Enemies, Bruno, or Inglorious Basterds? Certainly not by me--even though I don't have particularly high hopes for the last two, I still have some hope that they will be pretty good, certainly more than the new Transformers movie. And I am not the only one. But until recently, Ben had G.I. Joe as one of his most anticipated movies of the summer.

Based on the last one, I have little anticipation for the sequel. But even according to Ben Lyons, "It's one of those movies, the more I go back and watch the first one, it's less and less impressive to me. I find myself not enjoying myself as much as I watched it in the theater." So why hype the sequel? Maybe it is because he, like Hansel in Zoolander, is a rogue with an attitude that says "Who cares? It's only film criticism." Or maybe he just lives and breathes the Hollywood hype machine, in spite of his better instincts and contradictory comments.

Finally, Mank gives his DVD pick of the week: Waltz with Bashir, which he says was "a surprise at the Oscars, a surprise because it did not win." I completely agree--I thought it was a front-runner at the Oscars and I thought it was a great film.

But that is why it makes it even more of a mystery that they did not review the film when it was originally released.

At the Movies: An imaginary critic

Dude, don't you think Spaceballs is, like, the best movie ever?Erik Childress is taking the week off, so I will give you the Ben Lyons Quote of the Week from At the Movies. But first some context: the movie being discussed was Imagine That, where Eddie Murphy plays a businessman who gets financial advice from his daughter's imaginary friends. After telling us why it is a lame movie, Lyons adds:

I felt the film really could have benefited from exploring her imagination. I would have liked to have seen those princesses. That would have been an element to the film that would have made it feel a little bit bigger and a little bit different.

Really?! This just seems like an oddball comment from somebody who has no idea what to say. "Umm . . . I think it needed . . . more princesses! And how about a chase scene?"

It is not unlike his comment about Doubt that he wished the boy--who may or may not have been molested by a priest--could have told us his story himself. In a movie called Doubt. Not to mention that he criticized that movie--which was originally a play--for not being cinematic enough. Yes, that would be more cinematic--another talking head telling us something, when we basically already knew how he felt just from looking at him.

But in an otherwise decent episode, we also get Ben's DVD pick of the week: Spaceballs. I'll admit, I wasted endless hours of my life watching this movie on video--when I was eleven years old. I saw it again a few years ago and, well, it is one of those movies that doesn't quite survive the test of time. Not for Lyons, though. He called it "One of the greatest spoof movies ever made!"

Really?! I thought we were beyond that kind of talk. Compared to all the "spoof" movies that are made these days, maybe Spaceballs comes out on top. But at the very least, it has nothing on much superior Mel Brooks spoofs, Young Frankenstein in particular.

Criticwatch - The seedy underbelly of Ben Lyons

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Except for Ben Lyons, unfortunately.Erik Childress finally gets his chance to tear apart The Hangover--oh yeah, and Ben Lyons, too:

Last week I was unable to counter the Bens’ early positive review of The Hangover due to constrictions of an embargo. And the fact that its seriously one of the worst films of the year. Laughter can vary from person-to-person, but I’m rather shocked that more professional students of film have been unable to call Todd Phillips out on his utter inability to setup or payoff a gag, punchline or comic situation. Continue reading on to last week’s column where you can see some of the “intelligent” and “sophisticated” humor to be found in The Hangover. This week we had the painful reminder that they believe this “strong script” to be “one of the funniest comedies this year so far.” It got more painful as Lyons tried to sell the idea that this was somehow a darker and edgier piece about Vegas.

Ok, full disclosure, I actually thought it was pretty funny, unfortunately most of the characters are unlikable and it falls back on crude stereotypes and just crudeness for crudeness sake. Oh yeah, and the closer we get to the end of the mystery, the more absurd and unbelievable it gets. On the other hand, it actually doesn't descend into the grittiness of Las Vegas at other moments, which is what Ben Lyons held it up for, and where Erik rightly takes him down, starting with this quote:

Lyons: A great slice of authentic Vegas. This is not Oceans’ 11 with slick suits and gorgeous casinos or even a movie like 21 which tried to glorify Vegas.

And then this exchange:

LYONS: “This is modern Vegas. It shows you the good, the bad, the ugly. It really captures the feeling of sin city being tucked away in the desert.

MANK: Little bit of the despair.

LYONS: A LOT of the despair.

To which Erik responds:

Selling this idea that Phillips succeeded in making The Hangover worthy of the title of a “dark comedy” is profoundly absurd. How many down-and-out losers end up at MIKE TYSON’S MANSION??? How dark can a movie be when it channels Rain Man - and I say “channel” instead of “satirize” since Phillips doesn’t understand how the scene doesn’t come as funny but rather as something straight out of 21, which Lyons scoffed for glorifying Vegas - and has our characters go off on a blackjack streak that even William H. Macy in The Cooler couldn’t ice with the most golden hearted stripper/escort who looks like Heather Graham on one of their arms? Todd Phillips’ Vegas – the place where dreams go to die.

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At the Movies: Rent it over and over again!

Last week, Ben Lyons told us that the movie Spring Breakdown "is hit or miss, so I can understand why it wasn't released in theaters." Then he recommended that we go out and rent it as his DVD pick of the week.

This week, after filming the video above for E! on his way home from the preview of Land of the Lost, he says that it spirals out of control and is "not that good". But on a different (presumably later) review he filmed for At the Movies, Ben Lyons tells us why we should "Rent it":

Lyons: I think this is one of those Will Ferrell movies like so many of his previous films that has the potential to get funnier the more you watch it on DVD. Five years from now, you're catching it on a Saturday morning it's on cable, on DVD, you might notice little things that make it amusing.

To which we get the appropriate response:

Mank: I don't know what I'm going to be doing in five years, but my hunch is I'm not going to be watching Land of the Lost on DVD or on television or anywhere. Obviously, I think you should "Skip it."

What Lyons seems to be suggesting is that this movie has the potential to get funnier as you become more accustomed to it, noticing bits of humor that you missed the first time. Actually, I find that seeing a movie in the theater with an audience helps make you more aware of subtle bits of humor that you might miss only watching it on DVD or video. More importantly, Lyons is essentially making a bet--it "has the potential" to get funnier with age, but he cannot say for sure that it will.

But to make this sort of "bet" with a movie you wholeheartedly recommend--"I think we will be enjoying this as a classic for years to come"--is quite different than saying you should rent a movie that is "not that good". In fact, on his Lyons Den Web page he says:

Can a Will Ferrell movie get too ridiculous? Yes, sadly, and that's what happens when Land of the Lost goes off the rails. (Costar Danny McBride, though, killed it—in a good way.)

He seems to have lightened up between posting this review for E! and filming his softer criticism of the movie on At the Movies. But guess what? This same page also featurs an interview Ben did with Danny McBride (see the video below). I can't help but think that the existence of this interview affected his softening attitude toward the film and his glowing review of McBride.

Criticwatch - The rules of the game

Erik Childress on this week's episode of At the Movies, in which we get an early review of The Hangover:

This week’s column is reflective of everything that’s wrong with the established laws of film criticism. Actually, the word “guidelines” would be more apropos than “laws” since the enforcement of such things is a rather arbitrary exercise. But I’m getting ahead of myself. A greater examination of these “rules” will be published at the end of this summer once the required research has come to fruition, so stay tuned for a very special report in August. Call this week’s entry a little preview though into everything that’s wrong with the stipulations we’re asked to follow.

You see there’s one review that the Bens did on the show this week and to comment in full I would be forced to break the understanding I have with our local publicists not to publish my thoughts before the release date . . . I, like so many of my colleagues are handcuffed into revealing our thoughts. Lest you think this is a full-on disagreement with the Bens, consider the fact that I saw a film several weeks ago that I believe to be one of the best films of the year. Maybe even THE best film to date. My review is written. The studio reps have seen it. The film opens next week in NY & LA. But since it doesn’t open until a week later in Chicago, I’ve been asked to withhold my review from public consumption until then. And, again, this is a film I believe may be the best film of 2009 so far. Makes perfect sense, don't it?

Read the entire article here.