Ben & Ben AT THE MOVIES!
That was quick. It really does feel like Disney have pushed Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert out of the balcony. It's been confirmed that Disney/ABC will kick start a new look and very much a younger based version of At the Movies when it's new season starts on September 6th. Less than 24 hours after the official announcement of both men's departure and E! Entertainment critic and blogger Ben Lyons and American radio personality Ben Makiewicz have been named the new hosts Ben Lyons...
Ben Lyons reviews films for E! News, The Daily Ten, and E! Online series The Lyons Den. Lyons makes frequent appearances on Good Morning America, MTVs Your Movie Show, MSNBC at the Movies and Access Hollywood. Lyons' father, critic Jeffrey Lyons, is the son of New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons.Ben Mankiewicz
Ben Mankiewicz has hosted for Turner Classic Movies for five years, as well as the alternative pop culture radio show The Young Turks. Mankiewicz was also a reporter and anchor for WCSC-TV in Charleston, South Carolina, and served as the anchor of The Times, a daily news magazine at WAMI-TV Miami. Mankiewiczs grandfather, Herman Mankiewicz, won a screenwriting Oscar for Citizen Kane. His great uncle, Joseph Mankiewicz wrote and directed All About Eve and A Letter to Three Wives. His cousin, Tom Mankiewicz, wrote the James Bond movies The Man with the Golden Gun, Live and Let Die and Diamonds Are Forever.Tinkering with what has been a pretty solid format for three decades, Disney plan to introduce such new segments as "Critic's Round-Up" where Ben & Ben will talk via satellite to other critics from across the country. BLAH! Looks like we probably haven't seen the end of Michael Phillips then after all. It seems like they have been plotting to change the format for a while. Like I mentioned yesterday, Roger Ebert looks to be in no fit state to make it back on screen anytime soon, and Disney knew this. It's come out that at the fall of last year, they gave an extended trial run to the far too laid back and often bore-fest Dallas Observer Critic Robert Wilonsky but after "dismal ratings" (which I would guess always come at that time of year) ABC panicked and soon stopped calling him. They quickly went to two respected critics who looked comfortable on camera, A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, who both signed four year deals where they were expected to inter-change every 2 months. However, when Scott was (this is me talking here) "too nice" on screen and probably too much in love with film because he could never seem to hate anything, they canceled that plan and went exclusively with Michael Phillips who looked like he was destined for the chair for Roeper & Phillips. He co-hosted for several months, but he was often smarmy, pretentious, looking for smart and clever put-downs of films to gauge cackles of laughter or to continually reference obscure and not so obscure films rather than talking about each individual one - or to talk about film-making terms which often became tiresome for the average reviewer. Again, that's just me talking but that's what was clear to me watching the show go downhill. So he was let go and with no sign of Ebert returning or the ratings improving (was averaging a 1.7 household rating, down 11% from last years 1.9 and a 2.0 for two years ago) Disney have probably been the one's to push the two long standing critics out in favour of some new younger blood. The great Roger Ebert said in a statement...
"After 33 years on the air, 23 of them with Disney, the studio has decided to take the program named 'Siskel & Ebert and then 'Ebert & Roeper in a new direction. I will no longer be associated with it. Gene and I felt the formula was simplicity itself: Two film critics, sitting across the aisle from each other in a movie balcony, debating the new films of the week. We developed an entirely new concept for TV that has lasted all these years. "Few shows have been on the air so long and remained so popular. We made television history and established the trademarked catchphrase 'two thumbs up. The trademark still belongs to me and Marlene Iglitzen, Genes widow, and the thumbs will return. We are discussing possibilities and plan to continue the shows tradition.This new show sounds like a disaster don't it? Let's hope Ebert and Roeper find a new home soon. source - variety