No Country For Two Bens
Thu, August 6, 2009 
They got the memo.It's official. Gene Siskel stopped rolling in his grave.
Of course, I'm referring to the announcement that At the Movies has shown "the two Bens" (Lyons and Mankiewicz) the door. Their replacements come in the form of New York Times film-critic A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune. You may remember them from such roles as previous fill-in guests during the two year period when Richard Roeper was all by his lonesome.
I'm not one who usually jumps on bandwagons. But Lyons is a hack. On the most recent Movie Moan podcast, Phil, Ed and I were airing our disgust in how he hogged stage-time at this year's San Diego Comic-Con during the public Q&A session at the Twilight panel. This despite the fact that he was already going to get his chance to have one-on-one interviews with the actors back-stage afterwards. Fuck letting the fans ask questions!
On the other hand, I actually like Mankiewicz and feel bad that he's (unfairly) being lumped in the same category as Lyons. And even though he knows what he's talking about, I was just never nuts about Scott to be honest. But it's a price we're all willing to pay to see Lyons gone.
But for me, this is also a sign that it's only a matter of time before the Mouse pulls the plug on the series altogether. There's just no need for a weekly movie-review show in the market anymore. And with the Internet, everyone can be a critic and do reviews on YouTube or their own website. But at the same time, that speaks to just how influential the greats Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were.
Hell, I used to stay up til 2:30 A.M. on Saturday mornings just to see what they thought of the latest releases. And if you haven't noticed, we use the theme from Siskel & Ebert & the Movies (which you check out for yourself here) anytime we review a film on Movie Moan. What I'm basically trying to say is I really miss Siskel and Ebert.
Reader Comments (3)
What will you do Jamie without your unabated hatred of Ben Lyons?
I'll merely channel my hatred elsewhere.
I hope Jamie isn't looking at me.
As others have mentioned, it wasn't just the two Bens that were the problem on the revamped show; it was everything. Will Disney have the balls to admit that their attempt to change what wasn't broken was a complete disaster and get back to the good old balcony set?
I'm really glad Phillips is getting to host as I think he's earned his seat on that show. He also occasionally gives thumbs up to bad movies like 10,000 BC just like Ebert used to. What you need is the equivalent of a Roeper to tell him how fucking stupid he is. Is Scott that man?