After only one season as co-hosts of the syndicated series At the Movies, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz have been replaced, ABC Media Productions announced Read the full post.
Aug 5
2009
07:58 PM ET
'At the Movies' shakes up hosts
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Great news. Scott and Phillips are much better critics.
FINALLY! I can watch my show again. Thank you ABC for getting rid of those two fools and replacing them with Scott (who I LOVE) and Phillips (who I LOVE to HATE!)!!
THANK GOD. Ben Lyons was a total joke. The other one wasn’t as bad but wasn’t that great, either. I’m glad real critics will be back in the chairs.
L! O! L!
This is fantastic news! Ben & Ben sucked. The worst thing I can say about a critic is that they never effected any of my movie going decisions either way. Good or bad, their critiques just never did anything for me. Mankiewitz may not have been that bad (he has a sing-song way of speaking) but Lyons just had no credibility at all. I don’t care who his dad is.
A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips are in fact, the 2 best guest critics Roeper brought on (I also liked Robert Wolanski). No one will be able to replace Siskel and Ebert, and I truly miss Richard Roeper, but Scott and Phillips? I couldn’t have made a better choice.
Now we need to change the corny music, replace those horrible yellow colors, and keep the ‘Critic Round Up’ a new feature that wasn’t half bad.
I am really excited about these two hosting. Both were my favorite guest hosts when Ebert left. I enjoyed Mankiewicz but not Lyon. Scott and Phillips will probably make me start watching on a regular basis now.
THANK GOD!! I was a loyal viewer of Siskel/Ebert, then Ebert/Roeper, then Roeper/whoever, for decades, and I dropped the show in two weeks with these other guys. Now I can start watching again!! I’ll miss Roeper, but this team has alot of potential.
Any certain reason why Ebert’s letter grades don’t appear in the magazine’s weekly grid anymore?
I remember A. O. Scott was guest host for the ‘Best of the year’ show and he chose 3 movies from Rumania in his top ten. He seems a little bit too pretentious.
It’s Romania with an “o”. And how can you call him pretentious for putting films from other countries on his top ten list?
It’s ‘Rumania’ with ‘u’ in French. I know, I know, I am the one who is pretentious now.
But why stop here? I am sure that there are also bad movies from Rumania, why not choose 10 obscure bad movies from Rumania as the ‘worst 10 movies from the year’?
because the ten bad movies from romania aren’t released in america.
it is not pretentious to appreciate a small foreign film. it is pretentious to try and appear more intelligent or cultured than you actually are. a.o. scott is not pretending.
plus, it’s far more pretentious to dumb down your tastes for mass appeal. it’s like you’re gauging your audience’s intelligence. he at least has the respect to assume his audience aren’t idiots.
My impression was that he put the 3 movies from Rumania and some other obscure movies in his list to appear more intelligent and cultured than the audience. We can’t really know if he is pretending or not, but I don’t believe him.
Mr. Scott isn’t the only film critic to put ‘obscure’ movies in his top ten list. My favorite films last year were Synecdoche, New York, Flight of the Red Balloon, Paranoid Park and other ‘obscure’ films that the masses hate or don’t understand. Am I pretentious?
This is the best news EVER. I despise Ben Lyons. Both of them make no sense whatsoever. They would recommend a movie, and I would hate it. They would bash a film and I would love it. If it wasn’t Oscar worthy, you could forget it getting a good review.
I totally agree replacing them was the right move. Mank is okay doing movie intros, but I found him grating during the reviews. The other Ben was alarmingly shallow in his reviews. Being a very long time viewer from the original Sneak Previews, At the Movies and the beloved Siskel and Ebert (sorry, Roeper didn’t do it for me), it was sad to see the show in such a state. I’m happy they have real critics taking over the reins again!
I love Phillips. Him and Roper had great chemistry and was so funny. Now I can watch the show again. I still think they should have gotten Roper back. Him and Phillips would have been great. I see Frons does make some good decisions. Maybe he can use that good decision brain to get rid of Sonny on GH and put Jason and Liz back together.
I can see that I’m probably in the minority here but I don’t quite see why the two Bens are getting such a bad rap. There were definitely no Siskel & Ebert or Ebert & Ropeer but I felt they got the job done. Although I did find the way they always threw the word “authenticity” into every review a bit annoying. But still I liked Micheal Phillips with Roeper (too bad he’s not coming back( and I also liked A.O. Scott when he filled in so I will definitely be watching.
Nobody with an ounce of credibility, that’s who.
That was in response to “who thinks Benjamin Button is the best film of 2008″.
I always said that I watched the Ebert/Siskel and Ebert/Roeper versions of the show BECAUSE of the hosts, while I watched the Ben/Ben version of the show IN SPITE of the hosts!!