Ben Lyons: Too Much Of a Cub For At The Movies

The recent announcement that Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz are taking over At The Movies with Ebert and Roeper in September does not get a good rating from me. I'm not giving this news a thumbs-down, because I can't -- that's copyright protected/owned by Ebert and Siskel's estates -- but it does get a low "grade" and zero stars from me.

Let's be honest. With such top-notch, continuously updated movie review sites out there -- like Film.com for example, the very site you're reading this post on -- few of us are tuning into television for movie recommendations these days. But, like most of us, I have a nostalgic fondness for At The Movies. I remember being a kid in the late '80s, watching the original Siskel-and-Ebert version with my mom, and thinking that those guys really knew their movies. Today, I only watch the show when I'm traveling -- I seem to always catch it while hungover from a friend's wedding on a Sunday morning at a suburban Hampton Inn. I'm grateful to tune in when I do, even though it's just Richard Roeper these days, with various guest co-hosts (since Ebert has been off-air to undergo surgeries in a battle with thyroid cancer, and Siskel passed away years ago), and even if none of these replacements are as loveable in a stubbornly-opinionated-grandpa kind of way as the original hosts used to be.

But when I see those two younger, fluffier Bens in the theater seats this fall, I think I'll keep channel surfing. I'm not on board with a TMZ reporter and the resident E! movie "expert" taking over.

To be fair, the forty-something Ben Mankiewicz has an impressive resume: he has considerable television reporting experience on daily news programs, was the co-host of The Young Turks on Air America Radio and has been the daytime weekend host on Turner Classic Movies, not to mention the fact that his grandfather wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane. Unfortunately, since last year he's also been working for TMZ. He's not the Ben that concerns me.

Ben Lyons is the one without cred. He's the film reviewer on E! who appears for a handful of seconds on E! News Live, and whose "criticism" is rife with "It's awesome" and "killer" comments. His blog has no written film reviews or essays, only video clips, sound-bites, and tons of photos of him posing with Hollywood celebrities. The possibility of nepotism in his career doesn't bother me. The possibility that he might bring his ADD-sound-bite and watered-down un-analytic commentary to a historic television show built on the importance of intelligent debate does make me feel sad.

What, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, was Leonard Maltin already busy? What about Today Show's Gene Shalit? Or what about another unsexy but wise film critic, Peter Travers (Rolling Stone magazine)? Or, why not pick a woman co-host while you're revamping the show -- you didn't think about that, Disney, did you? That maybe a woman could be in one of those theater seats? (Sigh.) At The Movies needs wise, experienced (i.e., older), opinionated, articulate, nerdy intellectuals at the helm if you ask me. But no. The show is moving in the direction of the "young and inexperienced." Of course, Disney is trying to appeal to a younger demographic with these choices.

Maybe Ben Lyons will come into his own and become a genius movie critic on the revised version of At The Movies. Because we don't need one more cute, young thing without much to say on TV. The last show with Roeper airs this Satruday. Enjoy it while you can.

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