Stop Ben Lyons!

Yellow Tail + Ben Lyons = Wine + Cheese

2011-02-26T13:28:00.000-08:00

So, you were wondering who will win on Oscar night? Of course you were. Then, you were wondering, which wine would go best with each of the nominated films? Of course you weren't. Because Ben Lyons already figured it out for you.

ReserveYourNight.com, sponsored by Yellow Tail, now offers wine pairings for each oak-y film on the Academy's bloated list of 10 Best Picture nominees. The pairings are supplied by cinephile-cum-oenophile Ben Lyons, so you know they are solid. A publicist even sent out emails to various media outlets (although not this blog, mind you) asking:

As you prepare your content for the Oscars, I'm wondering if you're available for an interview with celebrity film critic Ben Lyons? Ben is available for interviews... for either phone or Skype interviews. If you prefer Skype, we can record it and provide back to you as a YouTube video.

During the interview, Ben can discuss his Oscar picks, as well as Oscar party planning tips. He is representing [yellow tail] Reserve wine* and can also discuss suggested movie and wine pairings. Appreciate your feedback. We only have a few slots left for the day, so I appreciate it if you could get back to me as soon as possible.

This text was provided by Jim Emerson, editor of RogerEbert.com, who was invited and chose to post a partial copy of the message along with a few snide comments. Better yet, PopEater (run by AOL) actually took the bait during what must have been a dreadfully slow news day. Make sure to stick it out to the end if you want to see Ben's recommendation with a proud little smirk on his face, or see my comments below.

You can check out the wine pairings at ReserveYourNight.com, where you can also put each movie on your Netflix queue, creating a Lyons/Yellow Tail/Netflix corporate sponsorship trifecta.

Their recommendations, based on the genre of each film, include a food pairing and some commentary to make it look like somebody actually took the time to think this stuff through. The pairings are below:

Black Swan - Genre: Intrigue, Pairing: Cabernet Sauvignon
According to somebody at the web site (and I am not convinced Ben Lyons did anything there besides sign a contract and cash a check), "you'll find flavor-filled red meat recipes that offer comfort as you the whole night." Missing a verb, I think. There are many things you might do the whole night, I suspect they are not referring to any of the activities you are thinking of.

The King's Speech - Genre: Drama, Pairing: Merlot
"There's no doubt, drama movies are emotional. Movie-makers certainly know how our emotional connections to each other pull at the heart strings!" Yes, somebody actually wrote those two sentences, although apparently nobody edited them.

Personally, I would recommend drinking something German to remind you of the pro-Nazi sympathies of the characters that the film conveniently ignores. And based on Ben's pairing, I assume he has never seen the movie Sideways.

Toy Story 3 - Genre: Comedy, Pairing: Pinot Grigio
No, I am not making this up. But in this case, why don't we just skip Yellow Tail altogether and get a Wine Cube juice box at Target and switch it out with the little ones' grape juice. They'll be out so quick you can send the babysitter home early!

The Kids Are All Right - Genre: Romance, Pairing: Chardonnay
I'm not sure where they got the idea this was a romance, unless you consider having one of your mom's cheat on the other mom with your biological father, thus destroying your family, to be romantic.

Along with your Chardonnay they recommend you "try out some of these great Asian, chicken, and vegetable dishes before you cuddle up in front of your TV." Yes, I think Jules might like something "Asian-y" and Nic would like a VERY large glass. But let's be honest, absolutely none of these characters would be caught dead drinking a $6 bottle of Yellow Tail.

The Fighter - Genre: Action, Pairing: Shiraz
Again, this is not an action movie. The horribly choreographed "kidney shot" scene is proof of that. And what you should be drinking while watching this movie to go with its working-class posturing is a really crappy beer, or "beah" as Markie Mark would say. The perfect choice would be a Coors, another corporate product touting its affiliation with the workin' man. It goes down nicely with notes of water, carbonation and the sweat of underpaid workers toiling over it.

Finally, if you are listening Ben Lyons, what I really want to know is which Yellow Tail wine would go best with a viewing of The Human Centipede? (If you don't know, don't ask. Trust me.)

* I will NOT refer to the Australian wine company as [yellow tail], as they prefer (does the comma go inside or outside the bracket?) lest e e cummings should arise from his grave and strangle me with a spare question mark. To read more about Yellow Tail and how they have helped destroy wine in their home country, read John Pilger's wonderfully titled exposé Australia's reds are revolting.

Ebert Presents At The Movies

2011-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

Check it out if you have not seen it already

At the Movies Cancelled!

2010-03-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

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."

Another Manchurian Candidate?

2010-03-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

by Scott Johnson

Note that there are POTENTIAL SPOILERS in what follows, although some of this may not make much sense if you have not seen the movie recently. Please add your comments if you have any opinions about this analysis.

After watching the Manchurian Candidate recently I was struck by the scene where Janet Leigh and Frank Sinatra meet on a train and exchange a series of bizarre lines. Through the entire scene, I was uncertain whether they were a) having a real conversation, b) were exchanging a series of code words, or c) Leigh was a Communist dropping post-hypnotic suggestions to Sinatra.

I was pleased to find that Roger Ebert had his own suspicions, writing in his Great Movies review of the film:

Is Sinatra's Maj. Marco another Manchurian sleeper, and is Rosie his controller? If you look at their scenes carefully, you find that she broke off her engagement immediately after their awkward train meeting and before their first date. Reflect on the scene where she talks about Marco beating up "a very large Korean gentlemen," and ask yourself what she means when she calls this man, who she has never seen, "the general." I don't know. Maybe Rosie just talks funny. It would be a nice touch, though, for this screwball story to have another layer circling beneath

In fact, I believe that their relationship suggests that there is something going on beneath the surface--either Leigh is a spy or she is attempting to drop post-hypnotic suggestions to a brainwashed Sinatra. Consider the first few lines of dialogue in their first meeting:

Leigh: Maryland's a beautiful state.
Sinatra: This is Delaware.
Leigh: I know. I was one of the original Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch. But nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio, for that matter.

This sounds precisely like an exchange of code words between spies--or a post-hypnotic suggestion. Sinatra continues:

Sinatra: I guess so. Columbus is a tremendous football town. You in the railroad business?
Leigh: Not anymore. However, if you will permit me to point out, when you ask that question you really should say, 'Are you in the railroad line?'

Again, this is even more suggestive, as though Sinatra got the code wrong and Leigh is correcting him, or that his response to the questions is a part of the post-hypnotic suggestion and she is trying to keep him on track. Each character also asks the other--for no apparent--reason whether they are Arabic. At the end, Leigh tells Sinatra her address--Apartment 3B--then repeats her phone number twice, forcefully, as though assuring it gets marked in his hypnotically suggestive mind.

The scene is immediately followed by the entry of Chunjin--the "large Korean man"--into Raymond Shaw's office looking for work. After this scene is a brief interlude with Mr. and Mr. Iselin, then we see Sinatra walking inside an apartment building. Over his shoulder we see a door which is clearly marked "B" in 3 distinct shots--3B?--though we never see the marking of the door he is knocking on. Is this the room Leigh was suggesting he go to? Chunjin opens the door--it is actually Shaw's apartment--and Sintara assaults him.

We next see Sinatra in the police station. Leigh arrives after having been called by the police--Sinatra remembered her phone number! And she shows up! They get in a taxi and she mentions her apartment--"Apartment 3B" he says. On the one hand, he remembered the room number. On other hand, it seems like it is probably her real apartment number and that she did NOT send him to Shaw's, where he was already headed. She then makes a comment about "the general"--she is actually, jokingly referring to General George Washington, whom she admittedly confused with Washington, D.C., so this is a red herring. It is also here that Leigh mentions ditching her fiancee after having met Sinatra once for five minutes.

Shortly afterward we see Shaw's snake bite accident, where he is miraculously discovered and treated by the flirty Jocelyn Jordan (Leslie Parrish) another attractive blonde who even more miraculously has a razor but no spare cloth and so proceeds to remove her blouse to treat his wound. Is this all a coincidence or was she planning to seduce him? After having seen Leigh's strange behavior, this meeting seems almost too good to be true as well. Immediately afterward, Shaw asks Jordan's father for her hand in marriage!

Finally, note that Parrish later appears wearing a Queen of Diamonds costume, which is the symbol that causes Shaw to enter a hypnotic state. She enters immediately after Shaw is shown the symbol by his manipulative mother, saying "I've been watching you through the window." It almost seems like it is not an accident and she knows what she is doing. This is followed by a scene in which Sinatra proposes marriage to Leigh, followed by a scene in which Shaw (Laurence Harvey) and Parrish tell Sinatra that they have just married.

Are both Leigh and Parrish stooges of some form and are their relationships setup with ulterior motives? Probably not--in fact, all of this is probably most easily explained by the "naive" reading that Leigh and Parrish are behaving honestly, if strangely. But the whole backdrop of the movie is that the "Manchurian Candidate" cannot behave honestly. His actions are hardwired and people do strange things to him in order to control his actions. The interactions with Leigh and Parrish ought to be innocent but these various connections and ambiguities create a sense of paranoia.

It is always unclear who can be trusted in this movie, even the women that these men love.

Ebert on the Lyons debacle

2009-12-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

Months after the demise of the reborn At the Movies, Roger Ebert gives his take on the state of the show. Originally posted on Ebert's Sun-Times blog

Time keeps on slip, slip, slippin' away
By Roger Ebert on November 25, 2009 1:22 PM

I sense it's about time to share some of my thoughts about television and movie critics, myself, and the past, present and future of my corner of the critics-on-TV adventure. My friends A .O. Scott and Michael Phillips are well into their first season as the new co-hosts of "At the Movies." Richard Roeper just announced he will be streaming reviews on his web site, and they will re-run a week later on the Starz cable channel. I wish them all good fortune. And good health.

This act of the saga began for me with a call from good Dr. Havey, who had some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that I had thyroid cancer. The good news was that it was the most common kind, which is usually curable by the peculiar treatment of surgery, followed by tossing back a shot glass of radioactive iodine, being isolated for 48 hours and not sitting next to any pregnant women for a month. Enough about that. It worked.

The thyroid removal surgery left me with a slight speech impediment which I tried to deal with by punching out words more forcibly. One side of my mouth drooped a little, and it was recklessly reported online that I'd had a stroke. Diagnosis by video. No such thing.

Follow-up x-rays revealed I had salivary gland cancer, very slow-growing, which had returned after surgery 15 years, as I was told it probably would. I had surgery again in July 2006. Saying goodbye to Chaz in the hospital room were be the last words I would ever speak.

It was said reconstructive surgery would restore my speech and repair my face. I had three such surgeries. Twice it worked, and Chaz held a mirror so I could regard my face as it had been. All three times, as the doctors say, "it fell apart." No need for additional details. They did their very best.

It became clear I might never return to Ebert & Roeper in a speaking role. I had other ideas for participation. Richard Roeper carried on with guest co-hosts, some of whom had also done me the same favor after Gene Siskel's death in 1999. Our long-standing producer and director, Don Dupree, coordinated this, obviously with a look for good long-term candidates.

I believed that such as Michael Phillips, A .O. Scott, Christy Lemire, Kim Morgan, Lisa Schwartzbaum and a few others were good hopes. Roeper and Dupree thought so too. Most of the guest hosts were possibilities for the permanent job. Certain potential guests were suggested to us by friends. Many agreed, One popular recommendation however said she just wasn't interested in doing TV.

Disney in Burbank, who had been a good company to work with, now had a younger generation less impressed with our history. (We were Disney's first show in syndication, and therefore its longest-running.) The studio was concerned about improving its demographics in younger age segments. After Roeper and I announced we were leaving, Disney had Phillips shoot test segments with Ben Lyons, a young Los Angeles celeb-TV personality. Phillips was a good sport; he was essentially helping to choose his replacement. I heard Lyons was pretty much at sea in debates with him. In way, he wasn't to blame; he'd been recruited despite Dupree's incredulity for a job he was obviously unsuited for, but the infatuated Disney producer was dangling a prize plum.

Ben Lyons at that time had never published a single movie review, and to my knowledge still never has. To put him in my seat was a mistake, and it was not well-received. A full-page story in the Los Angeles Times displayed a huge thumbs-down -- not the opinion of the writer, but the general opinion. I wrote a blog entry, "Roger's Little Rule Book," that never mentioned a critic by name, but...

Our new Disney executive from Burbank had other new ideas. She looked at the balcony set at ABC/Chicago, one of the most iconic set ideas in the history of television history, which had survived for more than half of the life of the medium, and decided it needed to be replaced. Now workers tore at our set with sledge-hammers, and it collected in a dumpster in the alley. It was replaced by two sets, one resembling a demo counter at a trade show, the other two nice chairs at an Admirals' Club. (Siskel advised me 25 years ago to buy a Lifetime Pass to that club for, as I recall, $200 at the time. He gave me a lot of useful advice. When I pull out that ancient piece of plastic at a club, I'm treated as if I were George Clooney with his Titanium Pass in "Up in the Air.")

The first Ben & Ben season did not start well. "Roger," an ABC/Chicago friend called and said, "the first taping is this afternoon, and right now they're repainting the sets. They didn't like the color." Those sets could have been painted like Joseph's amazing dreamcoat and they would have been the same crappy sets.

The show's reviews were not kind. Two websites opened to catalogue Lyon's lapses. I e-mailed Mankiewicz in sympathy, comparing him to the victim of a drive-by shooting. That he remained polite and supportive throughout the ordeal is the mark of a gentleman. I was nowhere near that nice to Siskel, and I loved him.

It was clear that the two Bens would have to go. Roeper and my wife Chaz and I had announced a new show. Would Disney simply pull the plug on theirs and walk away? What, and vacate the "At the Movies" time slots for us to try to grab? Unlikely. Time slots are like chess pieces.

The studio announced the hiring of -- why, A. O. Scott and Michael Phillips, of all people! Michael courteously came over to our house to inform us personally. I e-mailed my congratulations to them both, and in our living room enthusiastically told Michael I would bring back the Thumbs and give the show my endorsement. Disney turned down my offer, explaining that the show had "moved on." That was a sad day for me.

Watching Michael and Tony on the show, I felt sorry for them being deprived of the famous set. It would have felt creepy to see Ben Lyons in one of our seats, but Scott and Phillips deserved better. It was sad to see them working on a set which, for all of the paint jobs, looked better suited to a couple of earnest preachers on Sunday morning. TV loved the movie balcony illusion. Now we no longer understand why they're sitting like that. There's no screen for them to look at. Why then are they at such an awkward angle, instead of sitting more conversationally?

We were not blowing smoke about our new show. Gathering up Richard, Michael and Christy Lemire (the Associated Press film critic), Chaz and I seemed to have found a welcome at a major syndicator. Unfortunately, its president left. I suspect, but do not know, we fell victim to the ancient Hollywood custom that a new executive must clean house by throwing out his predecessor's projects. Perhaps there was more to it than that. They treated us honestly and fairly, but it was not to be. At about that time, the economy went into free-fall. Roeper & Phillips & Lemire was the show that was never to be.

Now here we stand. Chaz and I still have plans. We still love Christy. She and Chris just had baby boy Nic. Don Dupree has caught fire as assistant news director of CBS/Chicago, helping them to a recent ratings surge. Richard has announced his own plans for his web reviews and Starz. Good luck, buddy.

I confess I felt a twinge that Rob Feder's column quoted you: "As much as I loved doing 'Ebert & Roeper,' this will have much more of an unfiltered, uncut, viral feel. As someone at Starz put it, they wanted 'Roeper uncut.' If a film is a piece of shit, I'll say it's a piece of shit."

Richard, were you not uncut at E&R? Did you never say a movie was "a piece of shit?" On the web and cable you can use that very word, of course, as you do in your web site's promo for your new enterprise, promising to review "a lot of big movies, and some smaller, shitty ones as well."

Things are better. Ben Lyons has returned to celebrities. Ben Mankiewicz is still at Turner Classic Movies and will prevail. Scott and Phillips are doing exactly what we all advised Disney two years ago they should be doing. Everybody still has the day job.

I still can't speak aloud, but I have the dear Sun-Times and write more than ever. When I try to put things in context, I remember Olympia Dukakis's wise dialogue in Norman Jewison's "Moonstruck." Her husband thinks he's been getting away with cheating on her, and she tells him: "I just want you to know no matter what you do, you're gonna die, just like everybody else."

Criticwatch: Giving credit where credit is due

2009-08-31T18:34:00.000-07:00

So here we are. The end of the Ben Lyons Quote of the Week in spinoff form. Criticwatch will always have an eye out when he crosses our field of vision, but no longer will he have a major network venue to inch film criticism closer to the world of Idiocracy. It’s a glorious time. Proof that the written word can make a difference after all the talk from the powers that be and Mankiewicz who said, “this is a TV show and the notion that only people who qualify to talk about film criticism are people who have written for a newspaper seems silly." Disney never wanted to cop to sagging ratings on the show, so maybe the constant criticism by this column and Scott Johnson over at StopBenLyons.com really did have a hand in the change.

That is Erik Childress from Criticwatch giving his final Ben Lyons Quote of the Week. He continues with a top ten list of Ben Lyons' worst quotes of the past year:

10. "And it seems like this is going to be the one film we’re gonna see of this franchise. It wasn’t like Zack Snyder was trying to setup the sequel. I really appreciate that.”

9. “I like Splinter too, I just don’t have the stomach for horror movies. Life is too short. I have to say rent it.”

8. “If someone said to you and told you this was the same directing team that did No Country for Old Men, I wouldn’t believe you unless you said it was the Coen Bros.”

7. “It helps me improve my movie knowledge, and it's a lot of fun to play either alone or with some of the homies when they come over.”

6. “It’s really important to tell people to go out and see W. so they can talk about it and have an opinion about it and this freedom of speech of course that allows us to go and talk about a film about a current sitting president.”

That's five, you can click here to read the rest.

Back to bad habits

2009-08-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ben Lyons certainly did not excel in his role as a "serious film critic" during his tenure on At the Movies, but he seemed to realize that some of his more ridiculous hyperbole needed to be toned down--or at least heard the voices of reason telling him to do so. That did not stop him from making all sorts of gaffes, but at least he did not once again call some silly action movie the greatest film ever (more on that below) and backed off his early Twilight hype.

But since getting canned, he has fallen right back into his old habits, and it will doubtless be only a short time before he returns to being the complete fool he was before he was hired by ABC/Disney. Granted, this move already started before the ink was dry on A.O. Scott's contract, as witnessed in the interview below Lyons did with the stars of New Moon--that would be the second film in the Twilight series for those of you over 13 years old:

Unless I missed it, Lyons does not call the original Twilight a "really great film," or the next one "highly anticipated," but for somebody who gushed all over the series, then was forced to backtrack and call it the tenth worst film of the year (it was lame, but it wasn't that bad--The Spirit and The Day the Earth Stood Still didn't even make his ten worst list) this just seems to confirm what we all thought--he really loved Twilight but embarrassed himself by gushing all over it while pretending to be a serious film critic.

This interview was done while he was still presumably working for At the Movies. Since he was fired, Lyons wrote this on his Twitter page on August 17:

@wilcassettes sadly back in LaLa land. quick trip for a cameo in a @iamqueenlatifah movie with @thefatjew. Crazy!! 10 year reunion coming up

That's right, we're not going to have just The House Bunny to kick around anymore but some other movie as well.

But now, we get a full defense from Ben Lyons of some of his past behavior, specifically his claim that I Am Legend is "one of the greatest movies ever made." A reader of this blog left a link to an interview Ben did where this came up--I kept meaning to listen to it but the one hour running time kept making me think that I must have something better to do with my life. Fortunately, Erik Childress from Criticwatch took one for the team and summed it up for us. You can read his entire article here, but I'll give you a few highlights. First, on being asked whether he really believes this statement about the movie, Ben says:

Lyons: Yes, I do. OK, listen I’m going to explain it to you. This is a film that I saw and it blew my head to bits and I grew up in New York and it looked unlike anything I had seen before and I grew up on Will Smith. I think it’s an emotional movie, it’s funny, it made 700 million dollars around the world and inspired a prequel so there’s obviously a connection that people have made to the story. There are certain movies that just speak to you and that’s a film that I connected with and I won’t (inaudible) hide my opinion when that’s what I’m being paid to do. I love that film. That film is awesome. Every time I watch that film I notice new stuff in it.

Erik responds:

Is there anything sadder than a so-called professional film critic who grew up on Will Smith? Actually yes. It’s one that needs to justify their own feelings about a film by inciting the rule of the almighty public dollar. See, look at all the money the movie made so clearly I’m in the right. There is no quicker moment that you can call bullshit on any critic or moviegoer who jumps to that well to defend their opinion. Even Ben Lyons himself, I suspect, would scrunch his face at someone who said Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is good because it’s the highest grossing film of the year. But there he is whipping out figures to back up his opinion. It didn’t inspire a prequel (still in the planning stages) because of some fantastical, emotional connection to the story. It’s BECAUSE it made 700 MILLION DOLLARS worldwide. Chicken and the egg maybe since it can only make money if people go see it and recommend it. But how many crappy movies have made a dime at the box office? Even Wild Wild West made over $110 million. The best of Lyons’ defense though was yet to come.

It might be fun to watch Lyons try to regain the fan base that he lost by slamming Twilight but life may be just too short to devote too much time to that either.

Criticwatch: Hyping till the end

2009-08-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

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!"

Malicious attacks from behind a computer screen

2009-08-07T03:00:00.000-07:00

I did not write this and no, it is not real (other than the part about the Bens getting fired) but it is pretty funny

Lyons And Mankiewicz Fired From At The Movies
5 August 2009 (celebrityfreakshow.com)

Disney and AMC Media Productions today announced the firing of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz from the movie review show At The Movies. The show, a descendant of the popular Siskel And Ebert At The Movies show from the eighties and nineties, suffered poor ratings and the scorn of thinking people everywhere due to the complete vapidity of its hosts.

Of the firing, maligned host Lyons managed to maintain a typically enthusiastic outlook. “This firing is the best thing that ever happened to television, movies, or entertainment media in general!!!” said the deposed host with his trademark big toothy grin.

Lyons’ co-host on At The Movies, Ben Makiewicz, greeted the news with relieved exhaustion. “If I had to sit across from that fucking dumbshit for one more week, I swear to God I was planning on detonating a tactical nuke,” raved Makiewicz. He added: “I’ve actually heard K-Mart mannequins give more insightful film criticism than that grinning asshole.”

A spokesperson for Disney said that the move was inevitable given the rapid decline in ratings. “We tried everything in an effort to make this show work. We tried teleprompters, sock puppets, and casual Fridays. We even attempted to replace him with a CGI version of Ben Lyons giving marginally decent reviews. In the end, we realized that the guy simply knows nothing about film whatsoever,” said Janine Freese of AMC. “In response to this catastrophe, we have also fired our entire development team. They should have known that Lyons was a wet hamburger during the first interview.”

The response from show founder Roger Ebert, still recovering from salivary cancer, was predictably effusive. When asked for a comment, Ebert replied, “FFfffflllluccgkkking rllrlrright!”

Makiewicz said that, with his new freedom, he intends to review films that contain no CGI effects whatsoever in an attempt to “clear his palette.” As for his counterpart, Makiewicz offers this advice: “Rot in hell, you stupid fucking retard.”

As for the unpopular Lyons, he says that the unexpected sabbatical will do some good. “The most popular aspect of my career was being pushed aside by this reviewing thing,” said Lyons with a smile. “Now I can get back to doing what fans expect of me, namely, posing for photographs with the marginally famous.”

No word yet on whether he knows how to spell the word “film”.

This should be awkward

2009-08-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Heads up L.A.--this is coming at you tomorrow. Talk about bad timing . . .

5th Annual HollyShorts film festival opening night celebration at DGA theatre hosted by E! Entertainment Television personality and co-host of the nationally syndicated, “At the Movies” Ben Lyons

July 28, 2009 Hollywood, CA—Ben Lyons, E! Entertainment Television personality and co-host of the nationally syndicated, “At the Movies,” will host the 5th annual HollyShorts Film Festival (HSFF) opening night celebration, which takes place on Thursday, August 6, 2009 at the DGA Theatre in Hollywood. NBC’s “Open House” and “1st Look” correspondent, Viviana Vigil, will be the special guest presenter. The announcement was made today by Daniel Sol, Festival Director, HollyShorts Film Festival.

“We are delighted to have Ben Lyons, one of the sharpest correspondents in the industry today hosting the HollyShorts Opening Night Celebration and can’t wait to gather the top and fastest rising talent in Hollywood all under one roof,” said festival organizers Theo Dumont and Daniel Sol.

Ben Lyons is one of the most sought after television personalities in Hollywood. At the age of 27, Ben is the resident film critic and an entertainment correspondent on E! Entertainment Television, co-host of Nickelodeon’s “My Family’s Got Guts” and co- host of televisions most popular and respected movie program, “At the Movies.” Ben is also a regular correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America.

“It is a great honor to be involved with the HollyShorts Film Festival this summer. I have always respected and admired short films and find that they are a great way to get familiar with the next generation of talented filmmakers,” said Lyons.

. . .

BREAKING NEWS: Ben Lyons fired!

2009-08-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I am not making this up

Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips, N.Y. Times' A.O. Scott take over 'At the Movies'; Ben Lyons, Ben Mankiewicz out

by Phil Rosenthal, Chicao Tribune (Tower Ticker blog)

A year after its extreme makeover of "At the Movies" went over like "Land of the Lost," Disney's ABC Media Productions said Wednesday it is overhauling the Chicago-based syndicated TV program yet again in hopes of reconnecting with its respected past.

Gone are Ben Lyons of E! Entertainment Television and Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies, the cable hosts Disney chose last summer to front what it called "the next generation of the series," in favor of a return to dueling newspaper film critics, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times.

Both Phillips and Scott filled in for Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Ebert opposite fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper in the earlier incarnation of the program, which traces its roots to Chicago public broadcaster WTTW-Ch. 11 in 1975, when Ebert was first paired on-air with Gene Siskel, the late Chicago Tribune reviewer.

The new pair will make its debut when the series begins its new season Sept. 5 on ABC-owned WLS-Ch. 7, where the show is produced for syndication by Disney-ABC Domestic Televison.

“We are thrilled that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips will be lending their well-respected and influential voices to At the Movies,” Brian Frons, who oversees ABC Media Productions as president of daytime for the Disney-ABC Television Group, said in a statement. “They are regarded by millions of people as authorities in film criticism and will take the series back to its roots of one-on-one film debate that was established when the show first began with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.”

Ebert and Roeper split with Disney last summer as their old show underwent several changes. Some such as a new theme song and set were minor. Others, such as the hiring of Lyons and Mankiewicz and including the input of other critics, were major. Very little of it seemed to gain a foothold, particularly with those who had been drawn to the original show.

Siskel and Ebert and later Roeper and his counterparts engaged viewers by talking about films -- both big and small, domestic and international -- in a sophisticated way that allowed them to share both their obvious love of movies as well as for spirited, well-considered debate.

Mankiewicz would escape much of the criticism directed at the revamped "At the Movies," most of which targeted Lyons, whose inability to articulate his opinions undercut his cinematic knowledge and critical skills.

Too often Lyons sounded as though he were dictating a blurb for an ad, rather than giving serious counsel as to whether a consumer should buy a ticket, rent a DVD or skip a film altogether.

“We tried something new last season and we think the world of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz," Frons said. "They did everything we asked of them and they have been complete professionals. However, we’ve decided to return the show to its original essence – two traditional film critics discussing current motion picture and DVD releases. We thank them for their hard work and dedication this past year and wish them nothing but the best on all of their future endeavors.”

Phillips has been the Chicago Tribune's film critic since 2006. He has written for about entertainment and the arts for the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Dallas Times-Herald and the Twin Cities weekly City Pages, and also covered movies for Minnesota Public Radio, WGN-AM and MSNBC.

"I can't wait to mix it up with Tony, who's one of the sharpest critical voices in the nation," Phillips said. "To co-host a show with such an extraordinary legacy is a privilege and an opportunity. I know we're both humbled by that legacy, and we're eager to get people thinking--really thinking--about movies and to guide cinema lovers in the right direction. And perhaps some unexpected directions."

Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times for nearly 10 years and been a frequent guest on PBS' "Charlie Rose," NPR’s "Talk of the Nation" and other radio and television programs. Before joining the Times, Scott was the Sunday book critic at Newsday and a freelance contributor to dozens of publications, including the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal and The New York Review of Books and Slate.

“I’m overjoyed and honored to be joining 'At the Movies,' and especially excited to be working with my colleague Michael Phillips, one of the most intelligent and wittiest critics around,” Scott said in the announcement. “This show, with its long history and rich tradition, stands for the idea that there is a place on television for vigorous argument and independent thinking about movies.”

Phillips, 48, and Scott, 43, have the respect of readers and their peers, but whether the new team enjoys the same kind of chemistry that Ebert shared with Roeper and can engage in the show's old brand of lively give-and-take will be among the challenges in regaining the show's standing.

"I have the highest regard for both Michael Phillips and Tony Scott," Ebert said by e-mail.

Siskel and Ebert were anything but polished themselves when they made their WTTW debut, but that may have been part of their charm. The pair went national on public TV in 1978, moved to commercial syndication with Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. in 1982 and then to Disney in 1986. Siskel died in 1999 and Roeper was named his successor the following year.

Ebert had to leave the program in 2006 because of health issues that have robbed him of his voice, but his name and imprimatur remained with the program until the split with Disney last summer.

A sign of trouble had surfaced a few months earlier as the show dropped its use of "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" as shorthand for a recommendation or rejection of a film. Ebert and Siskel's estate owned the trademark on the thumbs.

"At the Movies" will continue to employ the “see it,” “skip it,” or “rent it” ratings system it adopted at that time.

“I loved working on this show, every moment of it,” Mankiewicz said through Disney. “It was an honor to continue a broadcast legacy not merely started by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, but created by them. No doubt the show is in good hands."

Criticwatch: Party pooper

2009-08-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

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 . . .

2009-07-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

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!

Worse than Ben Lyons: Cambridge police

2009-07-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

"Driving While Black" is a "crime" for which many African-Americans are pulled over. To this we can add the "crimes" of "Swimming While Black" (from a recent incident in Philadelphia) and "Breaking into your own house while Black." To make matters worse for the Cambridge police, the victim of this racial profiling is Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a highly respected Harvard professor.

BOSTON — Police responding to a call about "two black males" breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who lives there – Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar.

Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling.

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home after a woman reported seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry."

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates – the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research – initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.

"Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him," the officer wrote.

Gates said he turned over his driver's license and Harvard ID – both with his photos – and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com
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He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." He was released later that day on his own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26.

Gates, 58, also refused to speak publicly Monday, referring calls to Ogletree.

"He was shocked to find himself being questioned and shocked that the conversation continued after he showed his identification," Ogletree said.

Ogletree declined to say whether he believed the incident was racially motivated, saying "I think the incident speaks for itself."

Some of Gates' African-American colleagues say the arrest is part of a pattern of racial profiling in Cambridge.

Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years, said he was stopped on campus by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification.

"We do not believe that this arrest would have happened if professor Gates was white," Counter said. "It really has been very unsettling for African-Americans throughout Harvard and throughout Cambridge that this happened."

The Rev. Al Sharpton is vowing to attend Gates' arraignment.

"This arrest is indicative of at best police abuse of power or at worst the highest example of racial profiling I have seen," Sharpton said. "I have heard of driving while black and even shopping while black but now even going to your own home while black is a new low in police community affairs."

Ogletree said Gates had returned from a trip to China on Thursday with a driver, when he found his front door jammed. He went through the back door into the home – which he leases from Harvard – shut off an alarm and worked with the driver to get the door open. The driver left, and Gates was on the phone with the property's management company when police first arrived.

Ogletree also disputed the claim that Gates, who was wearing slacks and a polo shirt and carrying a cane, was yelling at the officer.

"He has an infection that has impacted his breathing since he came back from China, so he's been in a very delicate physical state," Ogletree said.

Lawrence D. Bobo, the W.E.B Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard, said he met with Gates at the police station and described his colleague as feeling humiliated and "emotionally devastated."

"It's just deeply disappointing but also a pointed reminder that there are serious problems that we have to wrestle with," he said.

Bobo said he hoped Cambridge police would drop the charges and called on the department to use the incident to review training and screening procedures it has in place.

The Middlesex district attorney's office said it could not do so until after Gates' arraignment. The woman who reported the apparent break-in did not return a message Monday.

Gates joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 and holds one of 20 prestigious "university professors" positions at the school. He also was host of "African American Lives," a PBS show about the family histories of prominent U.S. blacks, and was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997.

"I was obviously very concerned when I learned on Thursday about the incident," Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. "He and I spoke directly and I have asked him to keep me apprised."

Originally posted at The Huffington Post

At the Movies: Growing old gracefully

2009-07-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

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'?

2009-07-14T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Smile

2009-07-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Jermaine Jackson sings what Brooke Shields called Michael Jackson's favorite song: Smile, written by Charlie Chaplin

As a Chaplin fan, I couldn't help posting this. But I have also been deeply moved by Jackson's death--after years of seeing the increasingly erratic behavior and unnecessary cosmetic surgery, his death is a reminder of what incredible talent he had. I was only 5 or 6 years old when Thriller was released, and not interested in music at all at the time, but this was a different sort of phenomenon. Listening to his music again today is a revelation, stripping away all the negative press and accusations to reveal something far too extraordinary to ignore.

If you have any doubts or lingering hostility toward Jackson, watch the clips from the making of the Thriller video where he appears with a Mickey Mouse sweater and a huge smile, clearly loving every beautifully creative moment of the experience. Perhaps that was just hiding deeper insecurities that would be more clearly revealed and enhanced by years of media scrutiny. But if you were young in the early 1980s, I defy you to listen to this music or watch the videos and not remember a time when this beautiful, extraordinary young man stole our hearts.

It is fitting that Jackson loved Chaplin's song, as the two have much in common. Both came from quite modest working-class backgrounds looked down upon by society at large--African-American in Jackson's case, Cockney in Chaplin's. Both became performers at a young age, displaying an innate ability to entertain people on the stage, later trailblazing new media and becoming the greatest international stars of their eras. After their meteoric rise, both were dogged by scandal and saw their popularity drastically decline as a result, with many calling for legal action against them.

Those not familiar with Chaplin's life will probably scratch their head in wonder at what all this could have been about, and while Chaplin was a deeply flawed individual, there is no question that the campaign against him was hysterical, short sighted, and utterly reactionary. It is a shame that it took exile and a changed political climate for Chaplin to win the hearts of American movie-goers again, but at least he was able to live a long life with his family while attitudes change.

Jackson has not been nearly so lucky, succumbing to the pressure of success with a drug addiction that appears to have killed him. He will not live to see the warm acceptance that might have been bestowed upon him late in life, nor the changing tone from a press that has dogged him mercilessly for decades. The vultures that devoured and destroyed him will likely be none the more introspective about their future victims, but the rest of us will at least have the privilege of enjoying his work for the rest of our lives.

So good it's bad

2009-07-06T19:56:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-23T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Critic Fail - Mark S. Allen

2009-06-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

Recent TV ad for The Hangover:

Um . . . no . . . probably not. But it looks like Ben Lyons may have competition for the "Stupidest thing ever said about a movie" award.

You suck, Twitter!

2009-06-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I received this email from Richard Verducci, the originator of the BenLyonsFoReal Twitter page:

Hey Scott,
I feel awkward writing this but I wanted to thank you for shouting out Benlyonsforeal's twitter on your webpage. Unfortunately, it seems my little joke won't be able to continue. On May 28th Twitter suspended my account. I've submitted two tickets regarding the matter. The first was closed without answer, the second is still open and unresponded too. I don't think it takes a genius to figure with the current Tony La Russa case Twitter is probably cracking down on celebrity "impersonators" (though if anyone took that account seriously for a minute, I feel they deserve to be misled). Anyhow, just wanted to let you know that I appreciate the support and that I didn't just run out of steam or close up shop. Thanks for the support and for the Stop Ben Lyon's blog.
-Rich (BenLyonsFoReal)

So long, BenLyonsFoReal, we hardly knew ye . . .

Criticwatch - The seedy underbelly of Ben Lyons

2009-06-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Click here to read the entire article

At the Movies: Rent it over and over again!

2009-06-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-02T03:00:00.000-07:00

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.

At the Movies: The real definition of "Rent it"

2009-06-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

My Dad just got fired!Last week, Jeffrey Lyons was laid off from his job as a televised film critic. To which everybody who heard the news immediately asked, "Jeffrey Lyons is still on TV?" followed by, "And how does Ben Lyons still have a job?"

Ben Lyons is too big to fail--for the powers that be at ABC/Disney, anyway. Though some of his reviews have as much coherency and consistency as an American bank selling a Mortgage Backed Security and then selling a Credit Default Swap to insure it. Either way, we're all fucked!

Now, I don't want to seem too glib about this. Jeffrey Lyons is only one of many film critics to get laid off in recent years, and I don't relish the thought of more getting the ax. But it still beggars belief that in spite of all this Lyons still has a job. We'll see how long that lasts . . .

In the meantime, this is what we get from Ben Lyons on this week's At the Movies:

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First, we get this exchange about The Hangover:

Lyons: Back to casting with Todd Phillips, not just the leads but having Heather Graham show up and add some energy to the film, and Ken Jeong, and the Mike Tyson cameo is just brilliant here.

Mank: You mentioned Ken Jeong, he plays a, I think, stereotypically gay character and that seemed to be the source of the only reason to laugh at him. Not so much just for The Hangover, but all of Hollywood, enough with the characters where the whole sole purpose is to sort of point at them and go "Heh heh, he's gay."

Lyons: I agree, it doesn't need that, it has so many other funny things going for it, that element to it, I agree, made me kind of wince a little bit.

After which I am sure Lyons was prepared to add, "Oh yeah, dude, that's what I meant. I was totally about to say that."

------------------------

Secondly, in What Goes Up, we get Lyons responding to Mank about the movie failing as a comedy:

Lyons: I didn't really find it trying to be a comedy as much as it was trying to use music to convey some emotions, in kind of that quintessential "Indie feel" that we always talk about on this show.

Yeah, well, somebody keeps mentioning it.

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Finally, Lyons shows us how poorly reviewed a movie can be and still get a "Rent it," with his DVD Out Now recommendation for the straight to DVD movie Spring Breakdown, which he says "is hit or miss, so I can understand why it wasn't released in theaters."

But you should go right out and "Rent it!"

Nothing personal, strictly business

2009-05-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

The Girlfriend Experience
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Starring Sasha Grey
78 minutes

Review by Scott Johnson

Steven Soderbergh can do more with a digital camera and a few months than most directors can do with tens of millions of dollars and years of development. This should not be entirely surprising--the paradox of making films in the corporate Hollywood environment is that seemingly unlimited resources are doled out with equally unlimited strings attached. Projects are given a green light based on their expected ability to return a profit and the only predictor for future success--in business terms--is past success. Stars, directors, and of course plot lines are regurgitated from previous box office hits, although box office bombs only doom the first two but do little to halt the latter.

Producing films like The Girlfriend Experience and Bubble gives Soderbergh a limberness that the Hollywood machine does not have. Not only are these films not necessarily submitted to the arbitrary rewriting process Hollywood executives demand--if for no other reason than to show that they put their stamp on a film--but his current film has a timeliness that is unlikely to be found in Hollywood any time soon.

If you know anything about The Girlfriend Experience, it is probably that it features porn star Sasha Grey as a high-priced prostitute in New York City. The film takes place shortly between the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September and the election in November--we know this because Grey's character Chelsea spends endless hours listening to her clients complain about the economy and the bailout while giving her advice on investing and how to vote.

The fundamental insight the film portrays is the way the free market distorts personal and sexual relationships. This is not entirely original--Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels made this same insight over 150 years ago in the Communist Manifesto, describing how the capitalist class turns women into commodities:

[I]t is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.

More recently, this same point was made by a prostitute interviewed by Studs Terkel in his oral history Working, who describes how women "hustle" legally all the time:

A hustler is any woman in American society. I was the kind of hustler who received money for favors granted rather than the type of hustler who carefully reads a women's magazine and learns what it is proper to give for each date, depending on how much money her date or trick spends on her.

What makes the film uniquely clever, though, is the way that this insight shapes the story. There are a surprising number of scenes in which our expectations are turned on their head--we come to expect that every man she talks to is a client, but it turns out that one is her boyfriend, another a journalist interviewing her, and yet another is working for Chelsea, not vice-versa. One of the best scenes involves film critic Glenn Kenny, whose character we think we have pinned down several times before we actually find out his real purpose for meeting with her. The conclusion to their meeting provides a bitter satire on the self-important critic.

It has been suggested that Grey's experience in pornography makes her particularly apt for this role and there is certainly some truth in that. As a young woman who sells her sexuality, she certainly knows something about the world Chelsea inhabits. But Grey's recent interview with RottenTomatoes.com suggests that she is an intelligent, experienced actress who did not simply fall ass-backwards into serious acting.

She does not exhibit the sort of confident emotional range of other serious young actresses, but I could not possibly imagine an Ellen Page or Anne Hathaway in this role. Grey has the sort of restrained, near-confident shyness that a 21-year-old inhabiting a foreign and intimidating world typically shows. She does not create a thoroughly nuanced and vibrant character--rather, she acts like a young woman who is smart and confident but also somewhat in over her head and keeps the men in her life--her clients and her boyfriend--at arms length. This may be the result of a nervous young actress working with a world-class director, but it creates an authenticity that is perfect for Chelsea's character. With a few exceptions, we never feel like we quite understand her feelings--whether she is enjoying herself or just going through the motions. But I suppose the men in her life feel the same way as we do.

The "girlfriend experience" that Chelsea is selling is about more than just sexual intercourse, although that is always hanging in the background of every one of her relationships. Terkel's prostitute describes this in her own experiences:

The favors I granted were not always sexual. When I was a call girl, men were not paying for sex. They were paying for something else. They were either paying to act out a fantasy or they were paying for companionship or they were paying to be seen with a well-dressed young woman. Or they were paying for somebody to listen to them.

This reality underscores how the combination of economics and sexuality distorts a young woman's relationships with men, which is the question explored throughout the movie. Chelsea's interactions show that "prostitution" occurs not only at the intersection of sex and money but often in interactions when only one of the two is present. The final scene also humorously raises the question of what can actually be considered "sex"--Bill Clinton's definition notwithstanding--in a world of alienation and personal isolation.

This scene--and the film, appropriately--ends far too soon.

A new movement

2009-05-26T22:16:00.001-07:00

It's only a matter of time before marriage equality is achieved in this country. Tonight's protest were just a small part of helping to make that history. Decades from now, our grandchildren will wonder what all the fuss was all about, but that doesn't change the urgency to act and speak out now.

Below are some photos from the protest against Prop 8 in San Francisco tonight. The march went from SF City Hall to the Yerba Buena Gardens--that is the park between the Metreon and the SFMOMA, in case you have been here. The photos don't quite do justice to the size--I would guess there were a few thousand people on the march.

Day of Decision - Protest Prop 8!

2009-05-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Protest the California Supreme Court's upholding of Prop 8 tonight! I will be at the protest at San Francisco City Hall tonight at 5pm, check out Day of Decision for the local protest in your area.

Criticwatch - The Lyons Experience

2009-05-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

Lyons: And you really do lose yourself in these characters and yes it jumps around and the narrative can be a little difficult to follow. But when it does come together, there’s a sense of ahhhh, this is interesting. I see why now how it connects and I’m ready to move forward with the story.

Then Erik continues:

After finally running his positive/negative batting average to .500 on the year, it was a five “see it” show for Ben Lyons this week. Four of those “see it”s I’ve seen for myself and three of them are definite “skip it”s. I don’t play the “rent it” game. The only one worth anyone’s adult time is Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, which I’m actually shocked Lyons recommended after his fervent panning of last year’s Synecdoche, New York . . . He spends half his allotted time going through Soderbergh’s IMDB page and the other half-heartedly responding to Mank’s assertion that the fractured timeline hurt the film for him. Nothing to say about Sasha Grey’s performance. Nothing about it being set during the last Presidential election. Nothing to say about it’s a thinly-veiled guise for the world of art and film criticism. Those elements probably flew right over his head. He left it to Mank to get in talk about the film’s economical ironies. When people ask why we continue to give Lyons such a hard time, it’s for reasons like this. He doesn’t have the critical faculties necessary to discuss film. Even on the films that should be right up his little hypeboy alley – like Terminator Salvation.

Click here to read the rest of the story

At the Movies: Now he's embarrassed, too

2009-05-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

See It!The picture to the right gives some indication of the embarrassment Ben Lyons displays in his review of Terminator: Salvation on this week's At the Movies. You may think this still image is unfair to Lyons, but if you watch the video you will see that in fact the photo does not quite do justice to his level of embarrassment.

On the way to his "See it" recommendation, Ben tells us how convoluted the plot is and then follows with these insights:

Lyons: Ok, enough with the plot break down, which thankfully becomes less and less complicated as the movie goes on. This is the fourth Terminator movie after all, so let's see some robots . . . [after the clip of the robots] The explosions and several key action sequences are cutting edge, and that's what you want from a Terminator movie . . . [Christian Bale] didn't really become John Connor in my eyes until the third act. By then I was already on board for a summer movie that delivers on promises of big action and some eye-opening special effects. "See it." I know what you're going to say Mank, not for you.

Mank goes on to attack the story's emphasis on people "running from machines," to which Lyons responds:

Lyons: But to the films credit it's these different types of machines that makes this Terminator film stand out from the previous three films. For fans of the genre, they're going to love seeing these spaceships and these new motorcycles and these snake-like things in the water.

Wait, is Terminator now a genre? Or are we talking about Sci-Fi? The former would be another dubious genre category, and fans of the latter are generally more interested in how characters and stories play out in a different world--consider the Star Trek and Star Wars series, for example--and not just explosions and cool machines.

Mank again attacks the story as "complicated, undeveloped, and silly," and Lyons responds:

Lyons: For me, it's a fun time at the movies. It's explosions, it's new robots, it's a Mad Max-style feel to it. And it's got great set pieces.

Not too surprising that Lyons is embarrassed by his recommendation, since he cannot really defend it.

But imagine my embarrassment--and surprise--when Mank gives a "Rent it" to The Girlfriend Experience:

Mank: As much as there is to admire about [Director Steven] Soderbergh, his indifference to time sequencing hurts the story here. Though it's very satisfying when a particular arc comes together, more often than not it's frustrating 'cause you don't know which scene or, more importantly, which character is more important than another. As experimental filmmkaing shot cheaply this is certainly a victory, but it doesn't belong at the top of the list of films you need to see.

On the contrary, this movie should be at the very top of your list of movies to see. My review will be up later this week, I'll just say for now that the "confusion" between the scenes and the discovery of who is a client and what they are a client for is one of the brilliant accomplishments of the film. This is no more confusing than entertaining films like Pulp Fiction or Memento--much less confusing than Memento--which also tell their story out of sequence. Mank doesn't seem to realize that Soderbergh's "indifference" is actually a method, and is the key to the film's success. And while there is plenty of "confusion," it really is not very confusing to follow and sort out.

Unfortunately, we are left with Lyons to tell us how good this robot-less movie is, and we get to hear him explain why Soderbergh now has the "right" to make different, independent films--although it is not clear why anybody has the "right" to make crappy, big budget movies. But otherwise, to my embarrassment, he seems to pull it off:

Lyons: Of all of the films [Soderbergh] has made like this, you can think of Full Frontal or Bubble, this is by far the most effective one. And you really do lose yourself in these characters, and yes it jumps around and the narrative can be a little difficult to follow, but when it does come together there is a sense of "Ah, this is interesting, I see why now how it connects" and I'm ready to move forward with the story.

Maybe not the most eloquent comment on an interesting film, but at least he understood it.

Well, don't ever say I'm not fair to Lyons. Although it is odd that this praise does not put the film onto his "3 to See" list at the end of the show.

Worse than Ben Lyons - The RNC

2009-05-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

Keepin' it real. Real sexist.After John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate in the presidential campaign, the Republican Party was shocked--shocked!--to discover that sexism still existed in the United States. Every criticism of her was turned into an attack on all women--although some of them were--and she was held up as a fighter against the "old boys club" of the Republican Party in Alaska. An odd compliment, coming from the old boys club in Washington, DC.

But now that the campaign is over, they can go back to their old ways. In spite of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's promise that their attacks on Obama and the Democrats would be "classy", there is no evidence that they will be.

Case in point: the RNC released a video this week attacking Nancy Pelosi's accusation that she was lied to by the CIA. Personally, I could believe both that the CIA lies (even to Congress) and that Pelosi and other Democrats don't want to admit that they actually knew that the Bush administration was torturing people.

But the RNC has descended into pure sexism in their attacks on Pelosi. They released this video which begins with the James Bond theme and Nancy Pelosi in the cross hairs, tending to her hair. The video ends with the image to the left, basically equating Pelosi with the Goldfinger character "Pussy Galore".

According to Politico.com, this is only one of a series of sexist attacks on Pelosi:

Earlier this week, Pittsburgh radio host Jim Quinn referred to the speaker on his program as “this bitch”; last week, syndicated radio host Neal Boortz opined “how fun it is to watch that hag out there twisting in the wind.”

There has also been a steady stream of taunts about the speaker’s appearance, and whether it’s been surgically enhanced. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Republican strategist Alex Castellanos said, “I think if Speaker Pelosi were still capable of human facial expression, we’d see she’d be embarrassed.”

This is exactly the sort of backroom frat-boy humor that occurs in any old boys club, where making crude comments about women and their bodies is considered just plain fun. Although unlike most old boys clubs, the RNC is incapable of telling the difference between their offensive backroom banter and what is acceptable as public discourse.

Stay classy, Michael Steele.

Bitter fruits of the occupation

2009-05-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

Lemon Tree
Eran Riklis
Starring Hiam Abbass
106 minutes

Review by Scott Johnson

In Lemon Tree, Hiam Abbass plays a character much like the one she played in last year's The Visitor--a middle-aged woman whose life is upended by the personal effects of global politics. She only appeared in the last half of the earlier film, but she is the lead character of Lemon Tree, displaying the same sort of quiet nobility in the face of an inhumane system.

Abbass plays Salma Zidane, a Palestinian woman living in the West Bank who makes her livelihood from a small orchard of lemon trees. She has inherited the orchard from her family who cared for it for 50 years until the (fictional) Israeli Defense Minister Israel Navon moves next door. Their homes are literally separated by a few yards and a barbed wired fence marking the Green Line--the border between the West Bank and Israel.

The minister's security team hastily erects a watchtower to look over Salma's land and then decides that the orchard is a security threat and the trees must be removed. This indignity forces Salma to sue the state of Israel and eventually take her case to the Israeli Supreme Court.

In the meantime, of course, she must deal with a security force that slowly encroaches on her land and deprives Salma of her livelihood and her dignity. Eventually, the orchard is fenced off pending review of the case, but while Salma cannot access the orchard, the security team has free reign. At one point, the soldiers even enter the orchard to retrieve lemons for Navon's pampered guests.

This leads to a very effective scene in which Salma reacts with justified outrage at this double standard while the guests look on. We can tell that the Israelis think they see a crazy Arab woman, but we have much more sympathy for Salma and cannot blame her for trying to protect her land.

Other indignities ensue as the legal process slowly unfolds and "the facts on the ground" are altered in the favor of the defense minister.

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The human story here has much potential and some of it is realized, but there are also some missteps in the film. For example, while Salma slowly comes to have more confidence in herself, a near romance develops with a man in her life. But rather than developing her character, it simply feels forced and awkward, unlike the tenderness of the relationship Abbass' character finds in The Visitor.

Even more problematic--and more central to the story--is the character of Mira Navon, the defense minister's wife. Mira seems to represent the viewpoint of the liberal Zionist who both wants to defend her homeland and reach a peaceful agreement with the Palestinians. She would prefer to replace the barbed wire with white pickets. The untenability of this position is shown well with her vacillations between supporting her husband--and succumbing to his pressure--while desiring to reach out to Salma.

She quietly objects to her husband and wishes that she "could just be a better neighbor" to Salma, as she tells an American reporter when the international media picks up the story. But it seems inconceivable that Mira--clearly an educated woman who is married to a major Israeli politician--would be shocked by the act of cutting down a few trees. Certainly, she must be aware of the policies for which Navon and his government are responsible, but many of her actions are based on this presumed ignorance.

There is also a sense in which both women have a common bond in that they are rebelling against the men in their lives--Mira against her husband and Salma against the ineffectual and male-dominated Palestinian Authority, among others. This bond is somewhat tenuous, as we can see with Mira's failure to take decisive action and her ultimate freedom to extract herself from the situation.

But this leads to a jarring moment in which Mira laments how the lemon trees have upended her life. Certainly, she deserves more respect from her husband, but considering what Salma is confronting, the comment feels incredibly out of touch and insensitive. A moment that appears to be designed to build sympathy for the character only achieves the opposite.

This is not at all to say that Mira should be portrayed as simply a racist land thief--there are many ways that she could be confronted by the reality of her husband's policies that are both honest and convincing. This is clearly the intent behind Mira's character, but I don't think it entirely succeeds.

A better example of this is seen in a brief moment involving the young, M16-wielding Israeli soldier stationed in the watchtower overlooking the orchard. He is prepared to blow away terrorists on sight, but he has no idea what to do with this pesky Palestinian woman who insists on tending to her trees. His situation is both funny and revealing.

Salma's quiet resistance is the central and most affective part of the story. The roadblocks she encounters are cause for much pessimism--nobody believes that she will really achieve justice, probably the audience least of all.

However, the point of Lemon Tree is not to point the way forward but to expose the indignities of life under occupation. Aside from the atrocities and bloody massacres in Gaza, there are bitter conflicts that ordinary Palestinians face even during times of "peace." Portraying these everyday outrages is where this film is most effective.

This review originally appeared at SocialistWorker.org

Criticwatch - Well done, Ben Lyons

2009-05-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

Erik Childress at Criticwatch has a definite advantage over me in discussing At the Movies, which is that he has actually seen all of the movies these guys are talking about while I am just playing catch-up. So when Ben Lyons throws out a quote like this about Rudo y Cursi, Erik is much better than I at realizing how wrong-headed it is:

Lyons: It’s a great little sports movie and what’s really cool about it is often times in sports films the actors can take you out of the moment because they aren’t accomplished athletes. Here they do a nice job of not even really showing the soccer. You don’t even really see it that much. But it’s, it’s really well done.

I heard Lyons say this and all I really got out of it was that the actors don't "take you out of the moment" with their crappy soccer playing. The "not even really showing the soccer" part just went over my head--obviously (I thought) he was saying the soccer they did show was "really well done." My biggest mistake, I suppose, was assuming that this was in fact a soccer movie, since that is what it looks like based on the trailers I have seen. But I guess I should have learned from Lyons' missteps to avoid making any assumptions about a movie based on the trailer, even seemingly benign ones.

Erik catches the real point, as he writes:

The sport in question is soccer and as you can see, according to Benny Boy, you don’t really need to show the sport in order to call it a sports movie. Did Will Ferrell’s lack of skills behind a race car deter in your viewing of Talladega Nights? How about Billy Blanks thumbing his nose at the rules of football by using a loaded pistol on the field of play in The Last Boy Scout? Or would you just simply not call them sports movies? My remembrance of the film, Rudo y Cursi, does include some vague references to the brothers playing soccer, but mostly that the storytelling was so poorly handled I didn’t know how to label it . . .

If Rudo y Cursi is a “great sports movie” then it better damn well either be about the sport in more than just a passing capacity or have some solid footage of the sport being played. Lyons is saying the film does a nice job of not showing the soccer. OK, so they’re covering up the fact that Bernal and Luna can’t play? Why is it “really cool” for a sports movie to not really show the actual sport that much?

There is more this week, including some exclusive info that Erik picked up outside of At the Movies. Click here to read the rest.

At the Movies: Making molehills out of mountains

2009-05-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

As is sometimes the case, the worst thing to come out of Ben Lyons' mouth in the past week occurred not on his TV show At the Movies--which is filmed under the security of a friendly director and a large cutting room floor--but during an appearance on another show, where he backtracked on his early enthusiasm for G.I. Joe--based on the trailer--after reconsidering it, still based on the trailer.

But the biggest flub of the show was in his DVD Out Now recommendation for Valkyrie. He says that the movie was controversial because,

All the talk surrounding the film of course focused on the star power of Tom Cruise. Was he miscast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the German commander who in WWII found himself at the center of a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler? And why was he speaking in English without a German accent?

Well, yes, casting Cruise was controversial but not for the Hollywood-y reasons that Lyons comes up with. The controversy was around casting the role of a German hero--as much as any Nazi could possibly be thought of as a hero--with a leading voice for Scientology, a religion/cult which is highly unpopular in that country because it is seen as a totalitarian sect. Germans, after all, know something about the results of crazy cultish sects.

For example, the son of von Stauffenberg said that Cruise's religion was "off-putting" and that he "should keep his hands off my father." German politicians threatened to disallow production and the German Protestant Church said that Cruise's casting would "have the same propaganda advantages for Scientology as the 1936 Olympics had for the Nazis".

Now, that is not the entire story. The German government eventually allowed filming to commence and many came to defend Cruise's right to portray the character. I don't mean to either condone Scientology or the effort to keep Cruise out of the film. Just to say that this is the nature of the controversy--not his "star power" or whether he was using an accent.

All other criticism preceding the film's release was simply magnified by the political issues involved.

Backtracking on GI Joe

2009-05-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I knew I saw this somewhere but I just finally remembered where. On Twitter, Ben Lyons wrote on May 3: "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".

Do you think he saw a different trailer during the 11 days between writing the "Tweet" and filming the interview below? More likely, somebody on At the Movies read his Tweet and then smacked him upside the head for gushing over a G.I. Joe movie. I'm afraid G.I. Joe is the new Twilight.

A live action G.I. Joe movie is probably the stupidest idea to come out of Hollywood since somebody cast Shia LaBeouf was cast as a Brando-like motorcycle dude in Crystal Skull. That actually worked out OK--it was the rest of the movie that sucked.

Ben Lyons, however, cannot see past hype and the dollar signs and seems to have expressed some enthusiasm over the release of this movie, having said (quoted by Erik Childress on April 27) that "Channing Tatum does have a star quality to him. This isn't his best work by any means. He's gonna be a big star cause he's got G.I. Joe coming out in the summer."

After actually having seen the trailer--one of Lyons' favorite methods of film criticism--he now seems to be realizing that the movie might suck--see the clip above. Of course, his problem is not that the idea of making the movie is inherently stupid--especially at a time when the US is fighting two unpopular wars and debating whether torture is performed by the US and whether it is permissible. This is an especially questionable time for cartoonish war mongering. No, his problem is that it does not appear to have the "heart-and-soul of G.I. Joe".

The other critic in this clip, Devin Faraci of CHUD.com, has enough intelligence to question Ben's assertion that what is missing is the "heart-and-soul of G.I. Joe". The real problem is that IT IS A FUCKING MOVIE ABOUT G.I. JOE! It looks like a movie based on "plastic toys for 9 year olds"--that is the real problem.

Thanks, Faraci--unlike some people, at least you can call out stupidity when you see it.

Worse than Ben Lyons - IMAX

2009-05-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

Aziz Ansari from the show Parks and Recreation has posted a comment on his blog that has caused quite a stir regarding fake IMAX screenings. That is, screenings advertised as IMAX that are less than what we have come to know as the full IMAX experience, but charging the extra 5 bucks anyway. The IMAX CEO has even felt it necessary to respond to Ansari's blog, although fairly ineloquently.

You may remember a similar discussion on Ebert's blog a few months ago, starting with this letter, followed by this one and this one.You might also remember my rant against AMCHD--note that Ansari is also complaining about AMC, but attacks their theaters and not their cable TV channel.

Here is Ansari's blog posting:

REBLOG THE FUCK OUT OF THIS. WARNING: AMC theaters are running FAKE IMAX's and charging $5 extra for a slightly bigger screen. Boycott IMAX, AMC, and Regal. Don't let them fool you.

I went with a friend of mine to see Star Trek: The IMAX Experience at the AMC Theatre in Burbank today. I drove out of my way to see the film on the large IMAX screen and paid an extra $5 for the ticket, which felt worth it at the time.

HOWEVER, we get in the theatre and its just a slightly bigger than normal screen and NOT the usual standard huge 72 ft IMAX screen. I was very upset and apparently this problem is happening all over at Regal and AMC theatres. Here’s a graphic representation of what’s happening at these “FAKE IMAX” screens:

If you don’t want the whole long story, I did some research online and found this article that explains it. Basically IMAX is whoring out their brand name and trying to trick people. These new “IMAX” theatres are really just nice digital screens with good sound, but they ARE NOT IMAX, in that they don’t have the huge 72 ft gigantic screen which people would expect. However, they still charge $5 more for tickets as they would for the regular IMAX.

REGAL, AMC, AND IMAX - YOU ARE LIARS!

Read the rest of the post here

Ben Lyons gives 30 "See Its"

2009-05-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

Lyons: Dude, this is way better than watching Goodbye, Solo.There are two types of people in this world--those who think that Ben Lyons' skills as a critic are overused and those who think they are underused. There appears to be no middle ground. To the latter category, which already includes not only ABC/Disney but also the American Film Institute and Microsoft, you can now add the New York Jets.

Ben was invited by the New York Jets to judge the tryouts for their cheerleading squad--AKA The Flight Crew--and help select the 30 finalists, according to this report and this one.

This puts a bit of a different spin on Ben's recent criticism of the movie Every Little Step, in which he said, "Maybe it’s the fact that American Idol . . . we see people audition every night. The idea of auditioning is not really interesting in a documentary.” Of course, you can only vote in American Idol via text message, but his apparent preference for voting in person would be perhaps the only occasion where he prefers to NOT use his cell phone.

But if ogling women in relative privacy were not enough, E! has posted "exclusive" video of Ben gushing over "opposite marriage" supporter Carrie Prejean in her underwear during an appearance she made as a model on the network in 2008. I'll give you the link if you are terribly interested but maintain the dignity of this as the only blog in the blogosphere which has not published scantily clad pictures of her.

Stay classy, Ben Lyons.

Criticwatch - Obsessed with fake positive images

2009-05-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

Lyons: "Say what you want about the movies of Tyler Perry or even the recently released, Obsessed, but those films, for the most part, at least project positive images of intelligent, powerful and sophisticated minority characters.”

Ben Lyons’ entire review of Next Day Air this week was in the running for the Quote of the Week. Such a veritable cornucopia of “what-did-he-say?” moments that it would have been easy to print one long run-on sentence in quotations. I refrained since doctors recommend smacking yourself in the head over a period of time rather than one after another. At least that’s what mine told me after I checked myself into Alexian Brothers directly after this week’s show.

Lyons giving a half-hearted compliment to his DJ buddy and future household name (his words), Idris Elba, while panning the film wasn’t that big of a deal. Basically saying Elba can do much better really isn’t saying much, although that’s really only held true of his TV work on The Wire and The Office. When I saw Obsessed a couple weeks back with my colleague, Peter Sobczynski, we agreed that at least Tyler Perry’s films, as abhorrent as they are, at least had a streak of trying to create a positive message. He fails miserably each time out, but at least he tries. Obsessed, on the other hand, has no redeeming positive values. Sure, Idris Elba’s character doesn’t go full Michael Douglas and sleep with the crazy white chick but no one would accuse ANY of the characters in the film of being “intelligent.” Certainly it’s the white women of the film (Ali Larter’s temp, Scout Taylor-Compton’s babysitter and Christine Lahti’s detective) who lead the pack in batshit stupid but I doubt anyone is looking towards Beyonce’s character (Elba’s original secretary who later became his housewife) who goes all "oh no you didn't" on Larter as a positive image.

Read the entire review here

At the Movies: "Pop" goes the weasel

2009-05-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

On this week's episode of At the Movies, Ben Lyons reviews (again) the new Star Trek movie thus:

Lyons: It's a pop culture movie. And it really crosses over and satisfies those hard core fans and appeals to a wider audience. Really easy to say to do but harder to execute and they were able to do it nicely.

So Star Trek has gone from being an "event movie" to being a "pop culture" movie that "crosses over". Putting aside that "pop culture movie" is an even more dubious genre category than "event movie" as I explained last week, the idea of the Star Trek franchise crossing over seems a bit unusual to me. Granted, there are hard core "trekkers" who speak Klingon and dress up as Spock:

But to talk about Star Trek "crossing over" forgets that it was a major television show in the 1960s and a long running film franchise in which this is the eleventh film of the series. A list of well-known "Trekkies/Trekkers"--including King Abdullah of Jordan, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Angelina Jolie, and Eddie Murphy--suggests that a fairly wide audience has enjoyed the series. It would almost be like talking about the James Bond series "crossing over" with Casino Royale. Or, in Ben's case, Goldeneye.

Of course, what all of those listed fans have in common is that they are over 30--and many over 40. Teenagers don't necessarily know anything about Star Trek, for no fault of their own. But to consider their ignorance as making it less than a "pop culture" phenomenon, and then attribute their acceptance of it over the weekend at the box office as "crossing over", is an unusual way of looking at things. Although not necessarily unusual inside of the Hollywood bubble that Ben Lyons so proudly inhabits.

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Now take his comment slamming Next Day Air:

Lyons: Why this is being released in theaters and not on DVD I don't understand. From the actors on screen to the filmmakers behind the scenes, seems everyone is just trying to make a quick buck. Save your money and "Skip it".

I'll leave judgment aside, other than to ask: when exactly did Lyons get all up in arms about people doing something for a fast, cheap, and unworthy buck? I suspect Mos Def could teach him a thing or two about working in the entertainment and not just selling your soul outright.

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Finally, a couple of odd "Rent it" moments happened this week. First in reviewing Little Ashes, Mank responds to Lyons' critique that the movie was too black and white and did not have enough ambiguity:

Mank: I hear your criticisms and I think some of them are valid. I thought there was enough ambiguity here and ultimately I'm going to go ahead and reflect that ambiguity and say "Rent it".

That's a bit of a refreshing comment considering how twisted Lyons in particular gets about saying how lame a movie is then recommending that we "Rent it". But then we get a double "Rent it" recommendation on Taken, which is just being released on DVD and is given time for a full review since they did not talk about it earlier in the year. But that means they do not find time to review any of The Lemon Tree, American Violet, Tulpan, or Adoration, which have all opened recently--among MANY other films--but get no mention.

Of course, some of those are foreign films, which seem to have an especially difficult time making the cut in their list of movies to review.

Worse than Ben Lyons - This trailer

2009-05-07T03:00:00.000-07:00

This fake trailer may be worse than Ben Lyons insofar as it misrepresents The Shining, but the guy who made it is totally awesome:

I found this through an otherwise uninteresting article at Big Hollywood.

Criticwatch - This is blowing Ben's mind

2009-05-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

Erik Childress gives us the Ben Lyons quote of the week, regarding the release of Benjamin Button on DVD which includes, Lord help us, an extra 3 hours of footage:

Lyons: The way in which they constructed Pitt’s facial expressions to match them to the bodies of smaller actors working with essentially giant blue socks on their heads worked seamlessly, brilliantly in fact and will be what the movie is most remembered for.

Erik then continues:

That wasn’t just in reference to Lyons’ DVD pick of the week, but also his choice for the best film of 2008 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And, according to him, it will be remembered for the [little people] who wore giant blue socks on their heads. Not for being an epic romance or a meditation on life and death. No. For the short people behind the scenes who couldn’t become one of the Blue Man Group. There’s no denying that Lyons is referring to the special effects involved in the film; effects that are, no doubt, impressive. But I have always believed the movie to be a massive failure and could make the same statement to deride how the film will ultimately be remembered. I could also say its just a bloated copy of Forrest Gump minus the heart, humor, sentiment and, well, curiosity. How could someone who loves the film so much to announce its better than any other film they saw in a calendar year not think of anything better than to say its special effects will be the reason people come back to it time and time again? Should we now fully expect Lyons to name Transformers 2 as the best film of 2009?

Read the entire Criticwatch Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here

At the Movies: That new starship smell

2009-05-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

Bones: Dammit, Ben, I'm a doctor, not a film critic.
Lyons: Neither am I, but I play one on TV!Ben Lyons has been waiting for the new Star Trek movie for some time. Back in February on a live chat on the At the Movies Web site, both Bens were asked which movie they were both looking forward to this summer. Their answers were as follows:

Mank: I honestly try not to get too excited about anything because I dont want raised expectations to detrimentally affect my enjoyment of the film. Its not a cop out. Its true. 

Having apparently completely missed this statement of honesty and integrity on the part of Mank, Lyons immediately gushed:

Lyons: I am so looking forward to star trek from director JJ Abrams. From the few scenes Ive looked at so far, Ive been really impressed. Im not a huge Star Trek fan by any means, and dont hold the franchise near and dear to my heart as many people out there do, but I love an incredible event movie, and I'm hoping this lives up to the hype...

Also, when asked in an interview around the same time "is there a specific genre that you prefer more so over another? What do you look for when watching a movie?" he answered:

BL: I love the "event" movie – that movie you buy tickets to weeks in advance and see opening weekend with all your friends...but I love all types of films, big and small.

Yes, he loves an event movie. That, in case you don't know, is probably the only "genre" of film which is defined less by the content of the movie (the time and place of the story or the nature of drama and/or comedy involved) than by how much hype is built into its publicity campaign. This is probably the only "genre" which is almost solely defined by how much money is spent on the making of the film. (In case you are wondering, I put the term "genre" in quotes here for much the same reason I often do so with the term "film critic" when referring to Ben Lyons)

A few weeks ago, I criticized Lyons for saying of Monsters vs. Aliens that it has that "blockbuster event movie feel," without saying much more about why it is a good movie. But on this week's At the Movies, though he says more about the new Star Trek movie, it still comes back to the same gush:

Lyons: With an accessible story line for movie fans not familiar with the world of the franchise, Abrams is able to capture the spirit of Star Trek. Add to the mix first rate special effects, and what's left is an event movie.

First off, I think what he wants to say is that "the result is an event movie." Secondly, and I don't think this is nit-picking, he says it in a way that assumes this is a good thing--it has that "event movie feel" like your new Honda has that "new car smell".

Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to Star Trek just as much as the next guy. And I don't need Ben Lyons--or any film critic--to tell me that it is an event movie. Because I am not stupid, I figured that out without ever seeing the movie, which is partly why I--unlike Ben Lyons--refer to it as a "genre".

It is this sort of confusion--and forgetting that there is a difference between a good movie and an event movie--that gets Lyons in trouble and makes people think he is more of a bandwagon rider of Hollywood hype than a serious film critic.

Right on, Bea

2009-05-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

I never watched the show Maude--it is a bit before my time--but I loved this article by my friend and sometimes editor Elizabeth Schulte about the late Bea Arthur.

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WHEN YOU hear five-foot-nine, 47-year-old woman with a deep, husky voice, one of the last things most people think of today is a prime-time television star. But go back to 1972, when the women's liberation movement was in full swing, and the choice was obvious.

The sitcom Maude, which ran from a 1972 to 1978, starred Beatrice Arthur as the liberal feminist head of her Westchester, N.Y., household. Bea Arthur died on April 25 at the age of 86 of lung cancer. Arthur's depiction of Maude--oftentimes abrasive, sometimes sensitive and always funny--made a mark forever on television comedy history.

Before television, Arthur had a long career on the stage in musical theater. In 1947, Arthur moved to New York City to study theater at New School for Social Research. Her classmates included Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau and Tony Curtis.

In 1954, she got a part in the off-Broadway premier of the English version of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Opera, alongside Lotte Lenya. With her big voice and big stage presence, she dominated in later roles as Vera Charles in Mame and Yente the Matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof.

She said in an interview several years ago that she always dreamed of playing the big female leads, of being the actress "wearing the white dress," but it never happened for her on the stage. Arthur said that something actress and movie magazine beauty Tallulah Bankhead said to her stuck with her: "It's all about bone structure."

Despite what Bankhead said, Arthur's imposing presence and bass-baritone voice didn't stop her from becoming an unforgettable comedic talent and stage presences. As late as 2002, she returned to Broadway to star in show that incorporated stories and songs about her life and career.

Arthur managed to span several decades of television era, from the George Gobel Show in the 1950s to The Golden Girls--the only sitcom where all the lead characters were all older women (and they all have sex lives) in the 1980s. In her later years, she made several cameos, including the voice of the "Femputer" that ruled the giant Amazonian women on an episode of the animated TV comedy Futurama.

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BUT MORE than anything else, Bea Arthur will be remembered for her role in Maude. In 1972, television writer Norman Lear called with an offer for Arthur to take on the part of Maude Findlay, the "women's libber" cousin of Edith Bunker on All in the Family. Liberal to a fault, Maude was supposed to be the antithesis of Edith's husband Archie.

Maude's theme song gives you the picture:

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider
She didn't care if the whole world looked.
Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her
She was a sister who really cooked.
Isadora was the first bra burner
And you're glad she showed up. (Oh yeah)
And when the country was falling apart
Betsy Ross got it all sewed up.
And then there's Maude...
That old compromisin', enterprisin', anything but tranquilizing,
Right on Maude.

Like the characters on All in the Family, Maude was an exaggeration of the idea of the middle-class liberal. She was loud and opinionated, but at the same time, Maude wasn't always completely sure what doing the right thing meant.

Oftentimes, Lear was poking fun at this middle-class person with a conscience whose guilt sometimes got in the way of her common sense. For instance, in one episode, Maude insists on her new Black maid walking through the front door, because of the way it will look to the neighbors--even though the woman really wants to go through the back door, since it's easier for her to do her work.

Maude was like no other woman on television until that time--she was divorced (four times), she was outspoken, she was brash and she was pushing 50. And while her character may not have always been right, Maude grappled with themes and issues in ways that are unheard-of today.

Maude dealt with racism, sexual equality, divorce, menopause, mental illness, alcoholism--the list goes on. In one episode, Maude points out the hypocrisy of drug laws, where poor people get arrested for a tiny bit of marijuana while middle-class people pop handfuls of prescription drugs with their cocktails.

"We tackled everything except hemorrhoids," Bea Arthur said in a 2001 interview with the Archive of American Television. And while not everyone will agree with everything it said, the show embraced the debates and discussions of the time--managing to be irreverent, but also take things seriously. The war in Vietnam, the women's movement, the Black Power movement--they were all topics.

Reflecting the political climate of 1970s, Maude usually took the right side, and Maude usually won. Whether it was words of warning to her husband, Walter--"God will get you for that, Walter"--or a jab at her Republican neighbor's support for Richard Nixon, Maude usually won the fight.

The best controversial episodes, however, were those about Maude's unplanned pregnancy and decision to seek an abortion. Not only had no other TV show ever talked about abortion before, no show has talked about it in the same way since.

The two-part episode was broadcast in November 1972, just two months after abortion became legal in New York state. It was not until January 1973 that the Supreme Court made their ruling on Roe v. Wade, making women's right to abortion the law of the land.

Two CBS affiliates canceled the episodes, called "Maude's Dilemma," and 32 affiliates were pressured not to rerun the segments in the summer of 1973 by abortion opponents. But some 65 million people tuned into the second airing of the program.

The episodes are available online and well worth watching. It's immensely liberating to see people in a sitcom talk frankly about a woman's right to control her own body. And while there are also any number of vasectomy and morning sickness jokes to go around, these episodes are dead serious.

As Maude's grown daughter Carol (played by Adrienne Barbeau) assures her:

Mother, we are free, we finally have the right to decide what we can do with our own bodies...You're just scared, and it's as simple as going to the dentist...Listen to me, it's a simple operation now. But when you were growing up, it was illegal, and it was dangerous, and it was sinister, and you've never gotten over that...it's not your fault, when you were young, abortion was a dirty word. It's not anymore. You think about that.

Maude responds by embracing her daughter.

The resolution Maude eventually reaches with her husband is just as satisfying. Over a game of gin in bed, Walter admits that he never wanted to have children and has always felt guilty about feeling that way (another conversation that never happens between a couple on TV.) When it's clear that Maude has decided on the abortion, Walter says:

For you, Maude, for me, in the privacy of our own lives, you are doing the right thing.

Here's to hoping a new generation of struggles will shake things up and bring us the kind of television that reflects actual people's concerns and hopes. That's reality TV that I can't wait for.

Originally published at SocialistWorker.org

Worse than Ben Lyons - Virginia Foxx

2009-04-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

What is an unknown Republican Congressperson supposed to do when their party is in a shrinking minority and they want get their name out to the broader public? Well, there are two options. One, do something beneficial for all of humanity so that maybe your name will be associated with some great deed and maybe even you will be remembered in history as somebody important. Or, two, take a page out of Michelle Bachman's book and say something crazy.

Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) took the latter option, claiming that gay-bashing victim Matthew Sheppard was not killed because he was gay at all:

I was in college in 1998 at San Francisco State University at the time Sheppard was killed. In response, some of us organized a speak-out about homophobia on campus and a march at Castro and Market on Halloween of about 1,000 people. Granted, it's not hard to get a bunch of pro-gay people together at that place and time, but it was important to speak out, even in SF. But there was also an outpouring of opposition to homophobia with small rallies all across the country.

Foxx's lunacy--not just calling it a "myth" or a "misunderstanding" but a "hoax"--sounds all too much light nutty paranoia. The only reason to say this sort of thing on the floor of Congress--even if she believed it were true--is to rally a voting base of ultra-right homophobes.

A vacation from Ben Lyons

2009-04-27T11:46:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posting today. I spent the weekend on vacation in Santa Cruz, CA, and had every intention of posting about the latest episode of At the Movies today. However, it appears that Santa Cruz residents--not only a major NorCal tourist spot but also the home of the University of California, Santa Cruz--do not have access to the show!

The hotel I stayed in has a very good cable package and even gets the same ABC channel 7--with the same local newscast from San Francisco--that I get at home in Oakland. But when At the Movies is supposed to appear, inexplicably, there is an infomercial. The local TV listings do not provide any other alternative time to watch the show. Apparently, there has not been a sufficient outcry from the locals to change this state of affairs, and you can imagine why.

I've left Santa Cruz as of Monday afternoon, but I have not yet made it home to my DVR as I am spending the day doing research at a library to prepare for my presentation on Charlie Chaplin later this summer. So I will leave you with Erik Childress' review of At the Movies.

We start with the quote of the week:

Lyons: "See for me a great documentary really exposes something you hadn’t seen before, you didn’t know existed.”

And then continue with Erik's commentary:

So it’s that simple, is it, Ben? You can like a documentary if you’ve seen the subject matter before. But if you haven’t it automatically achieves greatness. I see. Appropriate that last week’s juxtaposition of the old school vs. the new school (Lyons framed with Ben Affleck and Mank with Russell Crowe during their State of Play review) has given way to this week’s photo with Mank sitting in front of Robert Downey as a down-on-his-luck journalist and Lyons in front of the mentally disturbed character he’s desperately trying to assist.

Wow, I thought last week's juxtaposition was stark, now I'm wondering if the AtM staff aren't just messing with these guys. Good catch, Erik. But wait, it get's better, like when Lyons talks about the new movie Every Little Step:

Lyons: “There’s so many talking heads spread throughout the film that I never really bonded on any level with the dancers or producers that are profiled. It takes place in dimly-lit dance studios and dark and empty theaters.”

As opposed to those theater auditions we’ve all seen in front of a packed house, Junior? This guy prides himself on his knowledge of growing up in New York but doesn’t realize this wasn’t just some style choice on the part of the filmmakers?

LYONS: “I mention the dimly-lit theaters. It could have been shot a lot better…”

MANK: “BUT THAT’S WHERE YOU AUDITION! IN THESE SPARSE, BARREN ROOMS!”

LYONS: “But that’s not where you perform. You perform on stage in Broadway and I didn’t feel the sort of grand importance of what this was all about. Maybe it’s the fact that American Idol…we see people audition every night. The idea of auditioning is not really interesting in a documentary.”

Oh boy, looks like I missed a good one. Lyons not only has difficulty critiquing a movie but also has trouble discerning differences in time and space.

Read the rest of Erik's Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here.

Socialism 2009

2009-04-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

The Socialism 2009 conference will be held this year in Chicago and San Francisco. Here are a few of the talks at the SF conference (which I will be attending) that might be of interest to readers of this blog:

Charlie Chaplin: Never Afraid to Stand Up, Featuring Scott Johnson, movie reviewer for Socialist Worker.
Political Art in a New Era, Featuring Dave Zirin, author of What's My Name Fool? and A People's History of Sports; and Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, A History of Hip-Hop.
Prop 8 is Going Down! Winning Gay Marriage in California, Featuring Sherry Wolf, author of Sexuality and Socialism, alongside leading LGBT activists and gay marriage activists from across the West Coast.

Of course, there is no reason why you wouldn't also be interested in the economy, the anti-war movement and other issues, so take a look at the Socialism 2009 site for yourself if you would like to see the full schedule.

Finally, I'll leave you with videos of Sherry Wolf and Dave Zirin from previous conferences.

Note: I've had trouble getting these to work correctly on Windows/Firefox, but on Windows/IE and Mac/Safari the videos work just fine.

SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

2009-04-23T03:00:00.000-07:00

This article was originally posted at CounterPunch.org

The Perils of a Faithless Membership
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

By DAVID MACARAY

On Friday, April 17, after nearly a year of negotiating, a humbled and restructured Screen Actors Guild (SAG) reached tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on a two-year contract. The following Sunday the 71-member board voted to recommend the agreement to the membership.

This contract is said to be no better than the one that’s been sitting on the table since last summer and virtually identical to the one accepted by Hollywood’s writers, directors and competing actors’ union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).

Because the original team (headed by SAG president Alan Rosenberg and chief negotiator Doug Allen) couldn’t get the deal it wanted, Hollywood is now piling on, accusing the previous leadership of having under-estimated the Alliance, misread its membership, and failed to anticipate the recession. Indeed, people are now saying the negotiations were an exorbitant waste of time and money.

Those people are wrong.

First, to criticize SAG for not accepting essentially the same contract that was accepted by the writers, directors and AFTRA is to miss the point. Yes, the WGA (Writers Guild of America) signed the contract, but they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table. Don’t forget: They took a 100-day strike to avoid signing it.

Why did they strike? Because the AMPTP’s offer didn’t adequately address critical issues, including New Media jurisdiction—an area which happens to be (along with residuals) one of SAG’s key agenda items. And Rosenberg’s committee believed the Alliance’s “last, best and final offer” was still inadequate. Second-guess them all you like, but don’t say they were wrong for wanting to secure the membership’s future.

Second, a quick look at the dynamics of contract negotiations tells us that there are two (and only two) considerations that matter: fairness and attainability. Obviously, what is deemed “fair” is subjective and is going to depend, by and large, on where you’re sitting. What’s fair to the union may not seem fair to management. That’s why you bargain.

As for “attainability,” that can never be known in advance, because a union never knows what can be gotten until it sits down at the table and tries to get it. Bargaining is not about sharing new ideas or reaching a consensus; it’s about trying to get very powerful and selfish people to part with their money.

Also, it’s important to remember that if organized labor had routinely accepted management’s “last, best and final offer”—if they took as gospel management’s assurance that such-and-such was simply unobtainable—we’d still be working 12-hour days with no health insurance or overtime premiums.

Third, management will use any excuse to avoid sweetening the pot. When there’s a recession, they’ll use the recession; when there’s a hurricane, they’ll use the hurricane; and when the economy is healthy and everyone is prospering, they’ll give you ten reasons why that prosperity is irrelevant to your negotiations.

And finally, the union knows what to expect. It knows that taking a hard line can be tricky, especially if management chooses to take an equally hard line. On one side, you have management, fully mobilized and dug in; on the other, you have your usual mix of union people: loyal members ready to battle, puzzled members wondering what’s going on, and nervous members ready to abandon ship at the first sign of trouble. It’s Negotiations 101.

Similarly, union bargainers will be regarded as either weak and gutless, or belligerent and stubborn. Unfortunately, there’s very little middle-ground. If a negotiating team puts the membership in jeopardy by asking for a strike vote, they’re militants; if they bring back a lousy contract and recommend ratification, they’re wimps.

So let’s get it right, people. Labor relations is a contact sport. Unless you take the view that your union should never fight, or that it should fight only when it’s assured of winning, you’re always going to risk having your butt handed to you in a sling. But if you’re not willing to fight for a decent contract, you don’t deserve one.

And not to rehash the past, but if SAG’s membership had remained faithful—if some of its big-name stars had not seen themselves as deputy ambassadors, and set off on their own bizarre, diplomatic mission—this bargain might have turned out differently.

Actually, it’s not over yet. SAG’s membership could still reject the offer, which would put the AMPTP in a bad spot. The Alliance can posture all it likes, but a membership rejection, particularly after a board recommendation, would be a body-blow.

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and writer, was former president and chief negotiator of the AWPPW, Local 672. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net

Real Ben Lyons!

2009-04-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

Those of you who followed the link to Erik Childress' page about Ben Lyons yesterday will already know by now that there is a new player in the "Ben Lyons Hate Storm". This one is BenLyonsforreal, a fake-Lyons Twitter account that is pretty damn funny.

I actually first found out about this Twitter page--is it called a page, like a Facebook/MySpace page?--from Ben Lyons himself, who "Tweeted" about it to let people know that it was an imposter. Not sure why he thought we wouldn't figure that out ourselves--all he really did was let us know about this Twitter-er, who we very well may have never heard of otherwise.

Anyway, here are my favorites "Tweets" so far:

I gave 17 Again a rating of "rent it" because it's easier to talk about how cute Zach Efron is when you're in your own home.
State of Play is an amazing movie about staying relevant in newspapers...LOL/JK, who reads newspapers? It's like twitter for geezers.
Who remembers Gummybears? That'd be a great film! Gummybears: Premiering here and there...and everywhere.
Fast and Furious should be renamed "Best and Bestestest". It took literally dozens of people to make that movie!
Inglourious Basterds is going to be a riveting thrill ride about men transformed by mustaches. Best WWII movie ever!
Many people call me a visionary. I respond with, "are you famous? let's take a picture together"
I'm a movie dude! What the fuck does that mean? I don't know but it's better than being some fat fuck who's partner is a dead bald fuck

Read the BenLyonsForReal Twitter page here

Criticwatch - Ben Lyons finally asks for help

2009-04-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

A snippet from this week's Ben Lyons Quote of the Week from Erik Childress at Criticwatch:

Lyons: "It’s the old school vs. the new school here which is really interesting. As much as it is a political movie, it’s a movie about journalism and how technology has affected journalism and the world of blogs and the internet and being credible in that world. And its really interesting to look at it from that angle.”

Yes, technology has expedited the world of journalism. Stories are released faster than ever. Or, at least, rumors travel faster. It’s certainly given credence to the old adage that everyone is a critic. All you need is a message board, blog or a website of your own creation. And if its fancy enough you could even wind up on Rotten Tomatoes. Before you throw the first stone though, at least most of those people (young and old) express their thoughts through a keyboard. Some, like our buddy Ben Lyons, have the benefit of just saying something on television and having a quote pulled for the website, likely by one of the show’s handlers. Who needs the Quote of the Week when you can take your pick from Rotten Tomatoes? If you really want the Ben Lyons Written Experience though, you can always follow him on Twitter. My personal favorite Tweet of his in the last few hours:

Lyons: “After a long weekend in Vegas, I'm back on my TWITTER grind people. Off to NYC to interview Beyonce & Idris Elba. Send questions?”

I guess he’s looking for some objective queries to ask his household name on a film that’s not even being screened for critics. When are journalists going to get it through their thick heads not to provide free press for films they won’t even bother to show us? Sorry, did I just call Ben Lyons a journalist?

Read the entire Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here

At the Movies: 27 Again?

2009-04-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

Lyons and Mankiewicz had a discussion on this week's episode of At the Movies which was surprisingly relevant but, unfortunately, only to the perceptive viewer as they did not follow the discussion through to its logical end.

Talking about the new movie State of Play, Mank says it is "a political thriller chronicling the uphill battle newspapers are facing to stay relevant in a Twittering world." Yes, there is much to be said about the decline of the newspaper, especially in the world of film criticism, where the center of gravity has shifted from the newspaper film critic to the Internet and, well, the TV critic. Of course, what is not mentioned is that these two critics we are watching are hosting a show which abandoned three newspaper writers in favor of TV personalities, especially for the not-ready-for-newspapers Ben Lyons in particular. Don't forget that his boss Brian Frons pumped him up by saying:

Did he spend 20 years as critic for a major newspaper? No. He's very much of the TV generation who don't spend time reading newspapers. I think we have a guy who is giving the information that audiences want to hear about film to make decisions about what to see.

Unsurprisingly, none of this is mentioned in their review, although it is hard to miss the image of Lyons and Mankiewicz juxtaposed against the poster of Ben Affleck and Russel Crowe (above), suggesting that these two are really talking about themselves. Then there is this exchange at the end:

Lyons: As much as it is a political movie, it's a movie about journalism and how technology has affected journalism and the world of blogs and the Internet, and being credible in that world. And it's really interesting to look at it from that angle.

Mank: Crowe and McAdams are working the story together, and he comes from the world where you hold the story and hold it for days and days and days until you get it right and put it in the paper. Meanwhile, she's blogging three or four times a day on the papers Web site, there's nice contrast there . . .

Lyons: Yeah, good movie, absolutely, you should "See it".

It is hard not to think about Ben Lyons' role--small though it may be compared to larger economic forces, but it is a role nonetheless--in the decline of the newspaper critic and the effect that has on film criticism after hearing this. It is especially hard not to think about him when he refers to "journalism and the world of blogs and the Internet, and being credible in that world," since it is this sort of credibility that Lyons has been able to sidestep completely. But in case you missed that, immediately after Ben's "See it" recommendation which occurs seconds after his mention of journalistic credibility, without missing a single beat we get this:

Ben puts on his signature big, cheesy, gushy smile and we get:

Lyons: "Current pop culture phenom and High School Musical alum Zac Efron stars alongside Mathew Perry in 17 Again . . . While movies like Big and the sometimes forgotten Vice Versa from the late 80s tackled this theme more effectively, 17 Again is sweet and young Efron maniacs will enjoy seeing him take the next step in his career. But for the adults you can 'Rent it'."

Vice Versa? How about Like Father Like Son, while we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. But once again, we find Ben stuck 'tween adult moviegoers--like the long-time fans of Siskel & Ebert--and his own teeny-bopper fan base. HSM fans will want to see Efron's career evolve--although there is no sign from Ben that his acting skills are evolving--and adults, well, won't. So split the difference and say 'Rent it'.

As problematic as the "Rent it" rating is, it has been horribly abused by Lyons. By saying "Rent it," he can have things both ways--he doesn't have to tell serious film buffs to "See it," but he can give a wink-and-a-nod to his E! fans by not dissing their "pop culture phenom". But again, it is hard to see from Ben's review why anybody should want to see it unless, of course, they already want to.

Finally, last week Lyons gave his 3-to-See, which were Adventureland, Lymelife, and Sugar. At the time I said, "Missing is the movie that both Ben's called the best movie of the year so far, Sin Nombre. In its place is Adventureland, a movie that Ben previously said was on the verge of a 'Rent it' but was just pushed over the edge by two very funny side characters."

Mank basically made this point with his own 3-to-See picks this week, which included: State of Play, The Escapist, Sin Nombre.

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

2009-04-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today is Charlie Chaplin's 120th birthday. In honor of this I wrote an article about Chaplin's movies and politics.

Never afraid to stand up
by Scott Johnson

CHARLIE CHAPLIN did much of his best work as an actor, director and even composer in films such as The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Circus and City Lights.

Playing "The Little Tramp"--dressed in an ill-fitting suit with a toothbrush mustache, cane and bowler hat--he was not only a brilliant physical comedian, but also conveyed a great sense of pathos with moments of loneliness, heartbreak and failure. This Chaplin--who would have been 120 years old this month--is well worth remembering, and his films well worth discovering.

Chaplin also held socialist ideas and surrounded himself with a number of left-wing friends and acquaintances. Though he often held his tongue, after City Lights was released in 1931, Chaplin made a series of films with explicit political statements in them that eventually found him hounded out of the country by the rise of McCarthyism.

Several years into the Great Depression, which left millions unemployed, Chaplin made his film Modern Times (1936) between the great labor upsurges of 1934--which saw mass strikes in three cities--and the wave of sit-down strikes in 1937. Chaplin's Little Tramp, the most recognized impoverished character in all of American film, could not help but be affected by these events.

The movie begins with the Tramp slaving over a factory line, constantly struggling to keep up with the pace as the boss sits in a quiet office reading the comics in a newspaper. Chaplin's physical comedy is on full display as he works harder and faster to no end other than uncontrolled twitching due to a repetitive stress disorder.

He is eventually driven mad by the stress and finds himself accidentally leading a demonstration of Communist workers, who are beaten and imprisoned by the police.

Chaplin's wife at the time, Paulette Goddard, is his female co-star, playing a young woman in even worse poverty than the Tramp. The two meet and fall in love, spending the rest of the film searching for the American Dream. They move into their dream house--a typically Chaplin-esque run-down shack--and find work again, but they can't avoid either their past or the continuing turbulence in society. The two eventually walk off together, destitute but happily in love.

Modern Times doesn't convey a consistent political message about workers' struggle, other than to generally take sides with the downtrodden working class and their efforts to retain their dignity in the face of economic collapse.

This is a perfect theme for Chaplin, who had been telling this story for two decades, and it gave him the opportunity to sharpen the political issues confronted by the Little Tramp. The film is ultimately more about two people in love struggling to keep their heads above water than it is about challenging capitalism, but it succeeds on these terms.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CHAPLIN'S NEXT film was his most consistently and overtly political. After spending decades as the world's most popular silent comedian, The Great Dictator (1940) saw Chaplin create one of the classic vocal impersonations of American cinema.

Chaplin stars in two roles, most notoriously as "The Phooey" Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania--based explicitly on Adolph Hitler. Hynkel's hate-spewing speeches in mock German are so full of vile epithets that they can't be "translated." At times, he snorts and snarls his anger and desires, and, at other times, he performs a ballet with a beach ball-like globe that he tosses through the air, joyfully anticipating world domination.

But beyond the silliness, the story sharply examined at some of Hitler's most despicable practices. For example, while Hynkel openly discusses his desire to eliminate the entire Jewish race, his storm troopers engage in pogroms in the Jewish ghetto and paint "Jew" on their shop windows. This was not only before the U.S. had declared war against Germany--and still maintained diplomatic relations with the country--but also at a time when anti-Semitism was a regular part of American life.

Some of the residents of the ghetto express their desire to rebel against the fascist regime and eventually decide to organize a suicide mission to assassinate Hynkel. This leads to one of the funniest moments in the movie when Chaplin, in his second role playing the Little Tramp as a Jewish barber, does everything he can to avoid being chosen for the mission.

It's classic Chaplin--we can't help but laugh at the Little Tramp's selfish maneuvers to avoid his responsibility, while, at the same time, recognizing the great burden that he is about to carry. In this case, the burden involves ending up in a concentration camp.

The final scene--in which the Jewish barber is mistaken for Hynkel and giving a lengthy speech denouncing Nazism--is hotly contested among critics. Many consider it to be unnecessarily preachy, but that seems to be a tedious criticism considering what Hitler was engaged in at the time. It took great courage for Chaplin to have the Little Tramp, the most recognized character in all the movies, give a rousing speech against the spreading Nazi menace in his final screen appearance.

In the speech, the Jewish barber articulates a progressive worldview, denouncing the "greed" that "has poisoned men's souls...has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed...Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want." But all is not lost:

You the people have the power...then in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world, that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age security...Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!

This moment is far more subtle and heartfelt than Chaplin is often given credit for. When the Jewish barber gives this speech, there is some confusion and it's unclear what effect it is having on the audience of Nazi soldiers. The barber worries that he is turning into an angry demagogue--exactly what the film's critics accuse him of--and so he speaks out directly to one of his Jewish friends, hoping to keep her spirit of resistance alive. The film ends with a sense of great hope for the future in spite of what must have been an incredibly bleak outlook.

What Chaplin does deserve criticism for is that he neither joined the Communist Party nor broke with its politics of Stalinism and the Popular Front--uncritically supporting liberal efforts, especially insofar as they supported Russia. As the U.S. entered the Second World War, he actively supported the Soviet front and encouraged American intervention, not to mention the New Deal programs that preceded it. But it never appears to have dawned on Chaplin that the police who brutally attacked workers in Modern Times very well could have been Roosevelt's National Guard.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NONETHELESS, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was not about to give Chaplin credit for his pro-war efforts. On the contrary, they continued to see him as a dangerous radical, and his FBI files are filled with half-truths and paranoid Cold War hysteria.

The two most famous gossip columnists at the time, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, both cooperated with the FBI to collect and distribute information that would be damaging to Chaplin. Another fierce anti-Communist, a pre-variety show Ed Sullivan, would spread the rumor that Chaplin was on the verge of defecting to Russia.

Rather than back down, Chaplin continued to defend and support his friends, giving his name to efforts to oppose the investigation of suspected Communists in Hollywood and supporting many who were forced to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

After being subpoenaed himself, Chaplin invited the Committee to see his latest film, Monsieur Verdoux (1947). A suspenseful comedy about a man who marries and then kills several women for their money, Verdoux ends with a harsh denunciation of Western imperialism. The title character, played by Chaplin, defends himself by saying,

As for being a mass murderer, does not the world encourage it? Is it not building weapons of destruction for the sole purpose of mass killing? Has it not blown unsuspecting women and children to pieces, and done it scientifically? As a mass murderer, I am an amateur by comparison.

He later comments, "One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."

Inviting HUAC to hear this commentary was a shot across the bow and an announcement that he was fully prepared to defend himself. Furthermore, Chaplin was independently wealthy and part owner of the United Artists movie studio, so blacklisting him would be essentially impossible. HUAC got the message, and his "invitation" to testify was quickly dropped, but he would later assert that he was prepared to appear dressed as the Little Tramp and make a mockery of the proceedings.

For several years, he would continue to be watched by the FBI and hounded by the press. Often there was a spotlight on his numerous affairs, occasionally with women who were far too young, leaving him open to charges of "moral depravity." Many asked aloud why the British-born Chaplin, who never expressed any interest in citizenship, should be allowed to remain a "guest" in the U.S. Increasingly, right-wing veterans groups like the American Legion and Catholic War Veterans picketed showings of his films and sometimes succeeded in getting them canceled.

In his next film, Limelight (1952), Chaplin starred as a washed up, aging stage comedian. This was not only one of his best films but also one of his least political. He also seems to have toned down his radical rhetoric in the years preceding its release. But once again, he would get no credit for taming his politics.

Immediately after heading on a world tour to promote Limelight, his re-entry visa was revoked by Truman's attorney general. After living in the U.S. for most of his life, he would not be allowed to return for another two decades when the political atmosphere had cooled.

Chaplin was a contradictory figure--a Communist sympathizer who was both a studio owner and a notorious womanizer--and leaves an inconsistent political legacy tinged by Stalinism and his own personal foibles. At times, he shook his fist at the system and at others he hid behind the slogan of being "an artist, not a politician." Nonetheless, this is a legacy worth remembering and, at its best, worth defending. His films, however, need no qualification and deserve to be seen and treasured for generations to come.

Originally published at SocialistWorker.org

One crappy TV show isn't enough

2009-04-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

In a series of Tweets on April 8, Ben Lyons wrote:

I'm more inspired now than I've ever been! If you think seeing me on E!, At The Movies, Good Morning America, Nickelodeon, & ESPN is a lot..

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!

I am more focused than ever to crush all the haters! As Clinton would say...GET FAMILIAR!

New chester French Mixtape! www.chesterfrench.com ! Have you ever heard of a film critic on a mixtape with Diddy & Common?

I didn't think so! I am changing th game! So should you...Be your own person, only place it's cool to follow someone is here on TWITTER!

If you listen to Ben's part on the mix tape, he basically plays a parody of himself--an over-hyping red carpet interviewer. Which would be funny, except that is who he is in real life. Also, he forgot to mention this appearance, which will probably do little to "crush all the haters":

Ben belatedly denounced Twilight as a movie-length CW episode, which I thought at the time was very accurate, although now I am wondering whether or not that was meant as a compliment.

Criticwatch - A rage-fueled thrashing

2009-04-14T03:00:00.000-07:00

Erik Childress at Criticwatch observes and reports on At the Movies, starting with a quote from Ben Lyons:

Lyons: “Often times, Mank, on the festival scene as you know, movies like this sorta get overhyped at Sundance or Toronto, these American stories of dysfunctional families, but here I think all this excitement surrounding Lymelife is deserved because this is a film that really builds to these awkward, uncomfortable places naturally, organically. It takes its time to establish the character dynamic and then you sorta take a breath as the audience, we say, this is really twisted and morbid these situations that they’re in.”

There Lyons goes again – paying attention to the hype from film festivals he couldn’t be bothered to see more than five movies at. And what’s his obsession with organics? Just two weeks ago the quote of the week focused on that very thing when he said that the script for Spinning Into Butter "kinda feels contrived and setup for certain power struggles instead of organically coming to that moment.” Then on The Cake Eaters he said, “the film establishes the intricate character dynamic with a guiding hand, not a forceful one, which I appreciate.” Nothing like recycling your indie review checklist, Lyons. But let’s take a breath for a moment and look at his Lymelife review a little more closely. It seems, according to him, that once that film established who its characters are he was able to take a moment and recognize that he was dealing with a film that he never expected would be so “twisted and morbid.” Imagine that! Lyons was able to organically come to that moment despite us having setup his less-than-intricate character dynamic (or entire lack of character.) And yet Observe and Report is stuck with a skip it. Way to look past your expectations, Junior.

Read the entire Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here

At the Movies - The worst of both worlds

2009-04-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, a tween movie that Ben can't recommendIs Ben Lyons learning his lesson?

I am forced to ask that question from time to time, especially after watching an episode of At the Movies which is not quite so dreadful as the previous week. The case in point this week is with Hannah Montana: The Movie. He said that the kids will love it, but the rest of us can "Skip it."

Now, compare this to his review of High School Musical 3--he said you should "Rent it," because your kids are going to force you to see it anyway, "Even though it may be cringe inducing for the rest of us".

Also, compare this to his review of The Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience--he said you should "See it" because it is cheaper than going to a real Jonas Brothers concert, and deserves more than a "Rent it" because "you can't watch it in 3D on television."

So I guess the real lesson here is that maybe Montana should have been shot in 3D.

But has Ben learned his lesson? Probably not--sometimes it is hard to tell when Ben is being "better" or "worse," rather than just inconsistent. Take his "3 to See," on which he includes Adventureland, Lymelife, and Sugar. Missing is the movie that both Ben's called the best movie of the year so far, Sin Nombre. In its place is Adventureland, a movie that Ben previously said was on the verge of a "Rent it" but was just pushed over the edge by two very funny side characters.

But he continues to find the need to justify his recommendation this week saying, "Going into this movie, I expected it to be a lot funnier, because it comes from the director of Superbad, Greg Mottola. But its intent was to be more heartfelt than hilarious." Actually, coming out of this movie he still felt that way, and continued to say so months later, but in the last two weeks he has changed his tune.

Lyons, it seems, feels an eternal debt of gratitude toward people like Greg Mottola who put him in their movies. Anybody else? Well, there is also Anna Faris--remember that Ben had a non-speaking role in The House Bunny. Faris gets singled out for praise by Lyons for her role in Observe and Report this week--which he said is otherwise worth skipping.

Now, is this nepotism or just an honest appraisal? Who knows--Ben's past behavior makes it hard to tell. That is exactly why getting too cozy with celebrities is a problem for critics. But I'll leave you with the following video so that you can make up your own mind about Lyons, Faris, and The House Bunny:

I cannot imagine why Richard Roeper refused to work with this guy . . .

Worse than Ben Lyons - AMCHD

2009-04-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased a High Def LCD television and I have been pretty happy with the results. Unfortunately, some channels seem to have a hard time with the whole HD thing, and I am not referring to channels like MSNCB which are not yet producing an HD signal. No, I am referring to the ones that are and don't seem to know how to do it. Watch just about anything on the Food Network, for example, and you will notice faces stretched and distorted all out of proportion. Switch over to the non-HD version of the Food Network and everything looks just fine.

But the worst offender in my book has to be AMCHD, not because everything looks awful but because, well, far too often it does and they should know better. In particular, some movies that appear on AMCHD actually look better when viewed on the regular, non-HD channel. For example, look at the first scan at the top (actually, it's a picture I took with my camera) from The Ox-Bow Incident. The faces of Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan look stretched out horizontally. Now look at the picture below it--this is the same image but with my TV set to the 4:3 aspect ratio instead of 16:9, which is the standard for HD. The 4:3 image looks better!

But it gets worse. The problem comes from the fact that stretching appears at the sides of the screen and not so much in the middle. Since the images above do not have anything in the space in between the two actors, the non-HD version (not pictured) looks about the same as the HD 4:3 version . But if altering your aspect ratio was all you had to do to fix this, then it would simply be a minor annoyance. So lets take a look at a picture where there is something on the edges AND in the middle. That would be the image to the left, which is from AMCHD at 16:9. If you notice, Henry Fonda (on the right side) looks a bit stretched out, and the fellow on the left side of the screen does as well.

Now let's look at the same image on AMCHD at 4:3. The figures on the sides of the screen look better, but now the two men in the middle have their heads squished and narrowed. So on AMCHD, this image (and many others from this movie) don't look correct at either aspect ration. According to IMDB the movie was shot at an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, which is essentially the same as 4:3. What appears to be happening is that the HD version is stretched out of shape in order to fill out the standard 16:9 HD screen size, so much so that when you set your HD TV to shrink it down back to 4:3 it still looks distorted. That means that you cannot get a consistently decent image from the movie in HD regardless of which aspect ratio you choose. You especially notice this distortion when something moves into the picture from the edge of the screen--you can see it squeezing itself into the image as it goes from being more to less distorted.

If you take a look at the non-HD version of this movie on AMC, IT LOOKS BETTER THAN THE HD VERSION IN EITHER ASPECT RATION! It is not distorted at the sides or in the middle. It is, oddly enough, the best of both worlds.

C'mon AMC, get your act together. I have seen HD channels show non-HD, 4:3 content with vertical letterboxing. This may seem like a waste of space, but for movie fans the letterbox is the way that you are used to watching a movie on TV. In properly formatted HD seen at 16:9, movies are often still letterboxed because they are typically shot in either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, both of which are wider than 16:9. But AMC prefers to punt and give the viewer a distorted image so they feel like they are getting their money's worth and not "wasting" any real estate on their fancy HD TV.

But they aren't getting their money's worth--they are actually just getting a crappier image. If viewers want to do something stupid like stretch out a 4:3 image to a 16:9 ratio, they can set their TV to do that. But the rest of us should just be given the image in the correct ratio so that we can enjoy it as it was meant to be seen.

Dropping knowledge 140 characters at a time

2009-04-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

What would an overhyped fad be withouth Ben Lyons jumping on the bandwagon? I don't know, but it wouldn't be Twitter, because Ben Lyons recently signed up.

The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.His screen name is iamBenLyons--possibly a reference to his favorite movie?--and he has taken to posting pictures of his father posing with famous people (see picture at the right, snagged before it was removed).

I apologize in advance for any misrepresentations of Twitter I might convey, since I have not really gotten into it. Twitter basically looks like Facebook minus the good parts. But suddenly the media are all a-Twitter over this latest fad, especially after a number of members of Congress got caught "Tweeting" during Obama's speech to their entire branch of government. Or rather, their staff members were caught "Tweeting", which is just as bad since the whole point is for a person to give their own personal commentary to a broad audience. You'd think that would be the end of it, but you would be wrong.

There is something quite amusing about Lyons, who has never written an article or film review that anybody can account for, signing up for a service that requires him to constantly put his thoughts to text. I was going to say that he should just put all his tweets together and call it an article and be done with it--but then I read them, which include the following nuggets of wisdom:

Watching THE PERFECT STORM. John C can do balance comedy and drama as good as anybody. Who else?
My LA TWEETERS!! At 630pm on ABC please check out 'At The Movies'. We've got reviews of SUGAR, FAST & FURIOUS, and DVD picks. What up Mank!?
Efron told my Footloose didnt happen cuz he wants new roles, new challenges, and to stop with the dancing! For now at least...
'Sorority Row' crew just arrived. Trailer reminds me of I Know What You Did Last Summer..

Yes, these are copy-and-pasted quotes. We can only wait for the moment when Lyons is caught tweeting in the middle of a movie . . . anybody want to start a pool?

Criticwatch - The guy who blurbed me

2009-04-07T03:00:00.000-07:00

Erik Childress breaks down this week's At the Movies:

Ben: Hey, aren't you Roger Moore?
Sean: Guess again, junior.Lyons was on my side of the fence [on rating the movie Gigantic] and you’ll notice that he wasn’t quick to label it as one of those Sundance-type movies. Probably because it never played at Sundance and Lyons wouldn’t know how to label it any other way, despite this week reviewing (or re-reviewing) three films on the show that played at the Park City festival. Just a few weeks ago he said Sunshine Cleaning was “a Sundance movie in every sense of the word…that quirky, American indie that’s looking to find moments of humor set against the backdrop of some dark, tragic moments.”What does he have to say to Mank in defense of Gigantic?

Lyons: “Zooey Deschanel and Paul Dano, sure, they play quirky indie characters and nobody does it better than them. And I think pairing them together really works. It’s the first time I’ve seen them on screen together and I really enjoy their chemistry and that’s the heart of this movie.”

Nobody does it better than them? From the female side, Deschanel has certainly done her share of independent quirk and few would argue that she hasn’t earned the right to be in the argument. With all due respect to Paul Dano though, Lyons has probably got Little Miss Sunshine (and ONLY Little Miss Sunshine on the brain) where referring to Dano’s indie resume. I somehow doubt he saw Weapons from Sundance a few years back or Explicit Ills which they couldn’t find time to review on the show just last month so they could do early reviews on I Love You, Man and Adventureland; Jesse Eisenberg being one of many who might have a beef (along with Sam Rockwell, Peter Sarsgaard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) over Lyons’ “nobody does it better” designation. Kinda makes me feel sad for the rest.

Read the entire Criticwatch Ben Lyons Quote of the Week here

At the Movies - Indy-ana Lyons and the Kingdom of the Empty Skull

2009-04-06T03:00:00.000-07:00

Lyons. Why'd it have to be Lyons?A few weeks ago on At the Movies, we heard Ben Lyons gush all over the movie Sunshine Cleaning as "a Sundance movie in every sense of the word. It's that quirky American indy that's looking to find moments of humor set against the backdrop of dark, tragic moments," after which he recommended that we merely "Rent it." This week, he further attempted to improve his "indy" street cred--which is especially in danger since he admitted to seeing only 5 movies at the Sundance Film Festival. He did this by, well, saying the word "indy" more often than really necessary in his review of the movie Gigantic.

You can't help but wonder whether this positive review is simply an attempt to bolster his tarnished image as a "stupid person" according to Richard Roeper. Unfortunately, he could have done better to disprove Roeper's point. Some of his comments about this movie included:

First time co-writer/director Matt Aselton brings us Gigantic, starring young indy film vets Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel . . . Sure, they play quirky, indy characters . . . For me, I was along for the indy ride and I enjoyed it.

Did he mention that it's an "indy" movie? Good thing it's not November, or you could replace "indy" with "Oscar-worthy."

But the real critical sin in this week's episode is Ben's ever-evolving attitude to Adventureland. In the live chat on the AtM Web site back in February, Ben called it a movie he "liked, but would have been more interested in it had the leads been a little funnier."

On last week's review, Ben said:

"I was on the edge of saying 'Rent it', but because of the strong performances of [supporting actors Bill] Hayder and [Kristin] Wiig, I'll say see it."

Ok, fine. But this week, he says:

"We had an early review on last week's show, it opens this weekend, and I say 'See It'. I had a lot of fun with Adventureland."

Then Mank goes on to say that this movie should not be confused with the director's other movie Superbad, a raunchy teen comedy. Lyons responds:

"It's definitely not. It's a lot more heartfelt and it's a little bit more understated in its approach to comedy. The leads really don't have the jokes here, the supporting actors do. I said last week Kristin Wiig and Bill Hayder, they are tremendous, and the best on-screen couple to possibly run an amusement park. It just worked. But Eisenberg and Stewart are much more serious and that's where the film really has its voice."

It sounds like Lyons is trying to prove that he is not confused by the trailer, something that he is embarrassingly notorious for doing. But this is a complete reversal in his explanation of his critique. The movie went from being mildly recommended because the leads just aren't funny enough, to a recommendation based on the leads' more serious approach to the material! Let's hope that next week he doesn't downgrade his rating to "Rent it" because, well, let's be honest, Wiig and Hayder made light of the seriousness of the material as portrayed by Eisenberg and Stewart.

Roeper didn't want to work with "stupid people"

2009-04-03T03:00:00.001-07:00

I personally don't listen to the Howard Stern (nor do I recommend it) but a friend of mine caught an interview Stern did with Richard Roeper last week and made it available for me. They talked a lot about Roeper's new book, but there was a very interesting snippet of the conversation about why he left Ebert & Roeper:

Roeper: You get these geniuses [TV producers], Howard, who say after 30 years, they're like, "You know, that balcony set, that's not really a great idea. And we don't really need two thumbs up or two thumbs down. Let's do a different kind of show, let's make it zippier and have stupid people on there reviewing the movies."

Stern: Who was the stupid person?

Roeper: Well, you can watch it now, and find out for yourself. But I left, I thought I'm not going to stick around . . .

Stern: Who'd they try to team you up with that you didn't like?

Roeper: (sighs, pauses) Well, they wanted to bring in Ben Lyons, from the E! Channel. Who's a nice kid, but I don't think had ever reviewed a movie in print or written an article in his life.

Stern: Oh, that's Jeffrey Lyons' kid. His Dad was a movie reviewer so he's becoming one . . . And so you felt he didn't have a legitimate, like, you have a writing background and this kid was not a legitimate movie critic.

Roeper: And you know, honestly it wasn't anything personal against him, it's just not a show that I wanted to be a part of. And it was some of the people who they put in charge of the show who just didn't have any respect for the legacy you just mentioned. You know it's been 10 years since Gene Siskel died? I was on the show with Roger for almost 8 years. And I just felt like Roger, as you just mentioned, he's still doing well and he's writing all his reviews but he can't go on TV anymore, and I thought "I'm not going to go and stomp all over the legacy of the show these guys created." So we moved on and Roger and I are working on another show now, it's going to be coming out soon, and he's going to be behind the scenes as an executive producer. We're going to restore the legacy of the show.

Most of that is known from Roeper's blog post a few weeks ago, except this is the first time that I know of that either Ebert or Roeper have publicly dissed Lyons (although Roger all but called him out by name a few months ago). This is also the first time that Roeper has stated that he left in part because the producers wanted to bring Lyons in--to replace Michael Phillips!

Until now, it just seemed like Roeper left because he didn't like the "new direction" the show was taking, and then Lyons was just one of the guys who happened to replace him. On the contrary, it turns out that Ben Lyons has been a willing participant to "stomping on the legacy" of Siskel & Ebert and has in fact had the entire show upended simply on his account! What a spoiled fucking brat.

This also does not exactly reflect well on Mank, who now looks like the one guy who was actually willing to work with Lyons (unlike everybody else). And any idea (which I admit to having in the past) that either A) the show might dump Lyons and have Mank host with somebody else, or B) Mank would leave the show, both now look highly unlikely.

April fools!

2009-04-02T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, I think most people have figured it out, but my post yesterday about Mank "storming off the set" was an April fools joke. I required all comments to be moderated so that nobody would get the joke without having to figure it out for themselves. Good thing, too--the first comment at 5am gave it away! I hope this doesn't discourage anybody from commenting in the future, so I'll turn comment moderation back off (so comments should show up instantaneously) and allow all of yesterday's comments to go through. That way, nobody will read that post six months from now and wonder what it was all about.

By the way, I'll have an interesting post tomorrow with a bit of behind the scenes dirt from At the Movies. I promise, this one is real, although not quite as breathtaking as "Mank storming off the set". In fact, it explains why that will probably never happen.

Mank "stormed off the set" of At the Movies

2009-04-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

CHICAGO (AP)--After several months as the co-host of the syndicated movie review show At the Movies, film critic Ben Mankiewicz stormed off the set Tuesday following a series of heated exchanges between himself, co-host Ben Lyons, and several staff members.

"Hosting At the Movies, the show previously helmed by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, has been a real honor," Mankiewicz told the Associated Press. "But let's be honest, this isn't Siskel & Ebert. I don't know if that is even possible anymore, film criticism has changed so much with the Internet. At the very least those are the standards that we should strive for. But I feel like the producers of the show have just stopped trying."

Mankiewicz declined to comment specifically about Lyons, other than to say that he is "a nice kid." As to his future with the show, he said simply of the producers that "the ball is in their court".

Lyons declined to be interviewed for this story.

Since the show parted ways with previous hosts Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper, speculation has been rampant for some time that the show was on the verge of either cancellation or the firing of Lyons or Mankiewicz. A number of highly critical articles in the mainstream press and the blogosphere since the new hosts were hired have helped to cement the opinion among many that the program was in decline along with film criticism in general.

Ironically, after a shaky first few months in which ratings dropped by 23%, the show's viewership rebounded during the period leading up to the Academy Awards. But the story behind the scenes has been far different from the rosy picture painted by the improved ratings.

"Lyons and Mankiewicz have had a very stormy relationship off-screen," says one production assistant for At the Movies who asked to remain anonymous. "Most episodes, there are at least one or two takes which have to be scrapped because Mankiewicz throws up his hands in frustration, rolls his eyes, or just lets out a long sigh. He really hasn't been a team player."

Brian Frons, the ABC/Disney executive in charge of the show, expressed disappointment with the behavior of Mankiewicz but assured the Associated Press that the show would continue with or without him. "There are literally dozens of laid off film critics who would jump at the opportunity to sit across the aisle from Ben Lyons. I am sure that we will have no trouble finding a replacement for him," Frons said in reference to Mankiewicz.

"I produce a hit show," Frons continued. "What did he ever do?"

Nothing official has been announced as to whether or not Mankiewicz will remain, but the anonymous staffer suggested that interviews may have already occurred. "Both Lou Lumenick [of the New York Post] and Roger Moore [of the Orlando Sentinel] have been in the office to talk to Frons. On the other hand, I hear that Lyons has been talking up Shawn Edwards [of WDAF-TV in Kansas City]."

Critics of the show predicted that this is the beginning of the end of At the Movies in its current form. "Hopefully this will now free my Tivo from the Sunday morning recap of At the Movies and restore our faith in the Lord," said Erik Childress, vice president of the Chicago Film Critics Association, who also writes a feature called "Ben Lyons Quote of the Week" that ridicules Lyons' critiques.

"The chickens have come home to roost," said Scott Johnson, the blogger behind the website StopBenLyons.com. "Maybe now Brian Frons can get back to his first love--ruining daytime soap operas."

Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have both made references on their blogs about starting a new television show. Roeper declined to comment for this article and Ebert did not immediately return a phone call from the Associated Press.

---

On the Net:

At the Movies

Ben Lyons' Written Movie Review Archive

Criticwatch - Manufacturing dissent

2009-03-31T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

"The script kinda feels contrived and setup for certain power struggles instead of organically coming to that moment.”

Erik then continues:

So says Professor Lyons in the latest of many statements that we could easily apply to the chemistry between him and Mankiewicz just as well as the movie in question (in this case, The Education of Charlie Banks.) So goes a big part of the criticism of Junior & Mank At the Movies; maybe the second most discussed topic I’ve seen in message boards next to the usual “Ben Lyons is a smiling no-nothing idiot” stamps. It may not be as noticeable when they are in agreement, but when they are miles apart there is a scripted quality to their argument. At least on one side of it. How many times have I read that the viewers’ faith in Lyons’ opinion is lower than their willingness to trust Jim Cramer with their investments because they get the impression that he’s either cowtowing to the types of movies professional critics are SUPPOSED to like or that he’s too frickin’ stupid to understand or appreciate others. Take this week’s discussion of the vastly praised Goodbye Solo by acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani.

MANK: "They [Souleymane Sy Savane & Red West] share a small but powerful story that never really felt undertold. It’s hopeful and tragic but without any false Hollywood melodrama. I think definitely you should see Goodbye Solo."

LYONS: "I can’t praise enough the performance of Souleymane Sy Savane in this film. He is incredible to watch on screen. Really a beautiful performance but for me that was sort of the only thing to watch. I thought the film was incredibly stripped down, which is fine, but there’s nothing else to sort of help build it back up again. It’s simply watching him, his positive nature, he’s great to watch on film, but the film itself kind of left me uninterested."

MANK: "YOU WEREN’T INTERESTED TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO WILLIAM, WHAT HAPPENS TO RED WEST?"

Watching this exchange live on tape has all the feeling of a staged disagreement. While Lyons is going on, Mank sits there almost catatonic (perhaps imagining ways to strangle his partner).It’s not that far of a leap to imagine the director off screen going Holly Hunter on Mank and telling him “you’re outraged, you disagree, go after him NOW!” At which point Mank raises the volume level only to have Lyons explain that he was more interested in the “incredibly engaging” Solo than the “isolated and grumpy” William who didn’t really draw him into the story. Solo was the one he “wanted to watch.” It’s a good thing that Souleymane Sy Savane (you know, playing the main titular character) is on screen at least 95% of the time in the film.

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

Two more seasons of FNL!

2009-03-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

Great news for my favorite TV show from Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly:

It's official: 'Friday Night Lights' renewed for two more seasons
Touch-freaking-down!

Sources at NBC are now confirming what I first reported earlier this month: DirecTV and NBC have come to terms on a deal that ensures Friday Night Lights will stick around for not one but two more seasons!

And I repeat: Touch-freaking-down!

Although NBC declined to comment, my Peacock insider says the pact guarantees that FNL will see a fourth and fifth season of 13 episodes each. Similar to this season's shared-window experiment, DirecTV will get first crack at the episodes followed by an encore run on NBC.

At the Movies - Lyons vs. Critical standards

2009-03-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

Here comes one of Ben Lyons' movie reviews! Run for your lives!Ben Lyons started this week's episode of At the Movies with a review of Monsters vs. Aliens saying that it seems like a new animated movie comes out every month (the last one was Coraline, which came out seven weeks ago, preceded by Bolt in November), that it "raises the bar" for animated movies (without saying a whole lot about why that is) and that it has that "blockbuster event-movie feel," just in case you weren't sure why you should see it.

We then move on to more gushing with Adventureland. He asks, "How does director Greg Mottola follow up his box office success Superbad?" First, by not casting America's most despised critic in a bit part in the movie, as Mottola did with Lyons in Superbad.

Remember, this was one of the five movies that Ben saw at the Sundance Film Festival this year. While he was there, he interviewed Kristen Stewart about her new movie, even though all he wanted to talk about was Twilight. Somehow, Ben found it in himself to avoid mentioning teen vampires in this review, which he described in a live chat on the At the Movies Web site as a movie he "liked, but would have been more interested in it had the leads been a little funnier". And that's in a comedy.

He summed up his review on the show saying:

"I was on the edge of saying 'Rent it', but because of the strong performances of Hayder and Wiig, I'll say see it."

On the other hand, Ben Lyons found himself capable of even defying the laws of math by giving a "Rent it" to Goodbye Solo, which has a whopping 100% on the Tomatometer as of Sunday morning. That is before Lyons gets his grubby little hands on the tomato, as he has with Sin Nombre, where he and Mank are the top two critics listed.

I eagerly await the movie as it still has not yet opened in San Francisco, so there is not much more I can say about it. But I'll simply point out that Ben says you should merely "Rent it" even though the lead performance was great (and that is, apparently, all), but you should see Adventureland because of the side performances by Bill Hayder and Kristen Wiig, even though the lead actors just aren't very funny. Listen up, Ramin Bahrani--maybe you should consider casting Ben Lyons in your next movie if you really want it to be 100% fresh.

Finally, there is Lyons' DVD pick of the week: Slumdog Millionaire. He gushes, "When you compare it with other best picture winners from recent years like The Departed and Gladiator, it ranks right up there as one of my favorites." That's a quote that says almost nothing (other than pointing out that he likes popular movies) while sounding important.

This is not just gushing in the hopes of getting blurbed in an ad (although Slumdog has enough critical praise that the marketing campaign does not need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a quote), it is also jumping on the Oscar bandwagon to legitimize his opinion. Seriously, who talks like this way--other than a blurb-gushing, bandwagon riding "critic"?

A. O. Scott on Neo-Realism

2009-03-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Anne Thompson's Variety blog, I recently discovered this article by A. O. Scott of the New York Times on the re-birth of Neo-Realism in the movies today. There are also links to some back-and-forth between Scott and another critic at the bottom.

Neo-Neo Realism
By A.O. SCOTT

It is now almost a year since Wendy and Lucy played in Cannes — not a watershed moment in the history of cinema, perhaps, but a quiet harbinger. Kelly Reichardt’s third feature, about the struggles of a young woman and her dog stranded in an Oregon town en route to Alaska, was certainly among the more admired films in a strong festival, where it showed out of competition. But by the time it opened in New York last December, the movie, a modest, quiet, 80-minute study in loneliness and desperation, seemed like something more — not so much a premonition of hard times ahead as a confirmation that they had arrived.

Wendy and Lucy, with Michelle Williams in one title role (the other belonged to Reichardt’s dog), had a successful art-house run and found its way onto many critics’ year-end best-of lists (including mine). There was some talk of an Oscar nomination for Williams, who was so believably ordinary in her look and so rigorously un-actressy in her manner that you could easily forget her celebrity. But Wendy and Lucy, released by Oscilloscope Laboratories, a small and ambitious new distributor started by Adam Yauch, a member of the Beastie Boys, would have looked a little awkward alongside the other Academy Award nominees. It’s true that the big winner, Slumdog Millionaire, concerns itself with poverty and disenfranchisement, but it also celebrates, both in its story and in its exuberant, sentimental spirit, the magical power of popular culture to conquer misery, to make dreams come true. And the major function of Oscar night is to affirm that gauzy, enchanting notion.

The world of Wendy and Lucy offers little in the way of enchantment but rather a different, more austere kind of beauty. And while Wendy, at the end of the film, is poignantly, even devastatingly alone, the film itself now seems to be in good company. This spring, as the blockbuster machinery shifts gears from Watchmen to Wolverine, a handful of small movies from relatively young directors are setting out to expand, modestly but with notable seriousness, the scope of American filmmaking.

Goodbye Solo is the third feature directed by Ramin Bahrani, a New York-based filmmaker whose previous movies, Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, explored corners of the city rarely acknowledged by Hollywood. In the weeks following its debut at the end of this month, Bahrani’s movie will be joined by — and, given the beleaguered state of distribution for noncommercial movies these days, may have to compete with — Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s Sugar and So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain, each a second feature. All of these films — like Wendy and Lucy and Lance Hammer’s Ballast, which came out last fall — were highlights of the 2008 film-festival calendar, showing up at Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and elsewhere.

The lives they illuminate, of fictional characters most often played by nonactors from similar backgrounds, are not commonly depicted on screen: the Senegalese cabdriver in Winston-Salem, N.C., whose friendship with a customer is at the center of Goodbye Solo; the aspiring baseball player in Sugar who is transplanted from the Dominican Republic to rural Iowa; the African-American shopkeeper in a sparsely populated stretch of the Mississippi Delta whose grief is the dominant mood of Ballast; the two very young Korean girls abandoned by their mother in an unfamiliar provincial town in Treeless Mountain. But these people and their situations are nonetheless recognizable, familiar on a basic human level even if their particular predicaments are not. And if the kind of movie they inhabit is not entirely new — the common ancestor that established their species identity is a well-known Italian bicycle thief — their unassuming arrival on a few screens nonetheless seems vital, urgent and timely.

What kind of movies do we need now? It’s a question that seems to arise almost automatically in times of crisis. It was repeatedly posed in the swirl of post-9/11 anxiety and confusion, and the consensus answer, at least among studio executives and the entertainment journalists who transcribe their insights, was that, in the wake of such unimaginable horror, we needed fantasy, comedy, heroism. In practice, the response turned out to be a little more complicated — some angry political documentaries and earnest wartime melodramas made it into movie theaters during the Bush years, and a lot of commercial spectacles arrived somber in mood and heavy with subtext— but such exceptions did little to dent the conventional wisdom.

And as a new set of worries and fears has crystallized in recent months — lost jobs and homes, corroded values and vanished credit — the dominant cultural oracles have come to pretty much the same conclusions. Remember the ’30s, when we danced through the Depression with Fred Astaire and Busby Berkeley and giggled amid the gloom with Lubitsch and the Marx Brothers? (Not many of us do, of course, which makes this kind of selective memory easier to promote.) Then as now, what we wanted most was to forget our troubles. In recession, as in war — and also, conveniently, in times of peace or prosperity — the movies we evidently need are the ones that offer us the possibility, however fanciful or temporary, of escape.

Maybe so. But what if, at least some of the time, we feel an urge to escape from escapism? For most of the past decade, magical thinking has been elevated from a diversion to an ideological principle. The benign faith that dreams will come true can be hard to distinguish from the more sinister seduction of believing in lies. To counter the tyranny of fantasy entrenched on Wall Street and in Washington as well as in Hollywood, it seems possible that engagement with the world as it is might reassert itself as an aesthetic strategy. Perhaps it would be worth considering that what we need from movies, in the face of a dismaying and confusing real world, is realism.

Read the rest of A. O. Scott's article here.

------------------------------

Richard Brody's version of a politically sophisticated message.Also, there was a response by Richard Brody on a blog published by the New Yorker, which was pretty harsh but lost me at this point:

What Scott praises is, in effect, granola cinema, abstemious films that are made to look good for you but are no less sweetened than mass-market products, that cut off a wide range of aesthetic possibilities and experiences on ostensible grounds of virtue. It’s not new; it’s self-consciously, fashionably old-fashioned. Many of these films have a whiff of the sermon about them. Gran Torino, in which Clint Eastwood portrays an old bastard who becomes something of a liberal despite—not in the absence of—his worst prejudices and most bilious emotions—is far more politically sophisticated and daring than any of the films Scott names.

Sorry, but Gran Torino is neither better nor politically sophisticated than Wendy and Lucy or Frozen River.

You can read Scott's counter-response here. And, finally, you can read Brody's counter-counter-response here.

Worse than Ben Lyons - Harry Denton

2009-03-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Harry Denton's Starlight Room is a hip/shmancy nightclub in San Francisco at the top of the Sir Francis Drake hotel on Union Square, although in their defense, I hear that they don't have a dress code and have a regular drag queen show.

Anyway, a friend recently forwarded me an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about cheap dining options (cheap by SF standards, anyway), which included this line:

Harry Denton's Starlight Room launches a new monthly dance party tonight ($10, 9 p.m.-2 a.m.) with DJs and drink specials, including the "Recession" - Pabst Blue Ribbon in a brown paper bag ($4)

That's right, for only $14 you can have a "recession" inspired beer! Which assumes, of course, you have not been laid off and are willing to pony up this kind of money rather than the less than one dollar per PBR you can get at Safeway, where a 12 pack goes for $7.50.

Way to show that you are down with the little guy, Harry Denton.

Criticwatch - The lesser critic on the left

2009-03-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

How does a guy get his head microwaved? That is an issue raised (although left unanswered) by Erik Childress in his roundup of the last two weeks of At the Movies. He starts by quoting Ben Lyons on The Last House on the Left:

"Now it’s no secret I have difficulty stomaching disgusting, horrific scenes of torture and mutilation in movies."

Erik then slams Ben (among others) for not distinguishing between well executed gore and lame gore (although I don't mind some decent gore myself, I will leave out the more . . . er . . . scatological references from the quote):

Jeffrey Lyons, who spent more time than any one person should endure with conservative Michael Medved, has been known over the years to dismiss films of this type. Maybe not the hypocrite that Medved is preaching how Hollywood is destroying America but openly advocating the last administration’s foray into ACTUAL torture, but there is subjectivity and there is objectivity. The only reason it’s no secret that Ben Lyons has “difficulty stomaching” these types of movies is because this column called him out for saying that life is too short to stomach horror movies . . .

But where does the difference lie? Is Lyons ready to dismiss films like Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs or even Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill on merely moral grounds or because the violence is a little too graphic for his taste? How would he react to Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (the inspiration for the film) which features distraught father Max Von Sydow picking up a little kid and throwing him into a wall? Would his first question be "who is this Bergman?" or "isn't that Ming the Merciless?"

For the record, I have seen The Virgin Spring, but I had to Google "Ming the Merciless".

Read Erik's entire article here.

At the Movies - I Love You, Man(k)

2009-03-23T03:00:00.000-07:00

Lyons: Dude, can we be, like, best friends?
Mank: No.
Lyons: But you told the AP that you like talking to me about movies and . . .
Mank: Fine. Casual lunch or after work drinks. You're not taking me to see Twilight.
Lyons: Oh, God, I love that movie!Last week on At the Movies, we had the spectacle of Ben Lyons hailing the movie I Love You, Man as being "quotable". More importantly, this blurb turned out to be quotable itself, as it ended up on the television advertising campaign for the movie. An alert reader even pointed out that The Onion ridiculed this blurb on their Tolerability Index.

The blurb seems to have been removed from the ad and from the show as well. This week, I Love You, Man was reviewed again (just as Watchmen was last week) but this blurb was not repeated.

We did, however, get a treat in the form of Ben's continuing struggles with the English language. In his review of Duplicity he says: "Tony Gilroy, who is one of the more accomplished writers in Hollywood, has finally caught the directing bug." Usually somebody is referred to having caught the "acting bug" as having an addictive love of the craft, not simply having been given the opportunity. You get the sense from Lyons, on the other hand, that Gilroy was sitting around and writing all these years and suddenly decided that he wanted to direct--which is highly unlikely.

Better than Ben Lyons - Random SF cabbie

2009-03-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival at the Castro Theater. In between Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality in the morning and Murnau's Sunrise at night, I wanted to catch Doubt again at a theater almost 2 miles away and then get some lunch. Time was running short and I hate to enter a theater late, so I caught a cab for the short ride.

Cabbie asks me where I'm headed, I tell him and we start talking about movies. This guy has seen everything and has an opinion about all of it. He liked Doubt but didn't think Meryl Streep deserved an Oscar nomination and expected more out of the movie. Sigh . . . We also talked about Taken and The International, Synecdoche, New York, many of the Oscar noms, and some of the recent animated movies, which he says are the only ones that his girlfriend will go to.

While some of the details escape me, what I remember was a discussion with a guy who loves movies (and hates when they suck) that was thoughtful, opinionated, interesting, and based on many years of experience. In short, everything missing from a conversation with Ben Lyons that we see on TV.

Thanks for a cool ride, nameless cabbie. And congrats--you are better than Ben Lyons. Way better.

Debbie Schlussel's tortured logic

2009-03-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

In the conclusion to the least awaited trilogy of the year, Debbie Schlussel makes a series a critical flip-flops that would make John Kerry blush. Apparently, Schlussel was for torture in movies before she was against it--before she was for it and against it at the same time.

The story begins with her review of Taken, in which she describes a scene of Muslim sex slavers getting their comeuppance from Liam Neeson:

One of them is purchasing the women as concubines for his boss, a big, fat, ugly Arab Muslim Sheikh on a yacht...There is a great scene where all of these evil Arabic-speaking scumbags get sent to a permanent conference call with the 72 virgins. That is the kind of stuff people went to movies to see, and they don't get to see it much at all anymore.

This is a movie in which a man is electrocuted (eventually to death) by Neeson in his search for his daughter. Presumably, this sort of torture is "the kind of stuff people went to movies to see."

On the other hand, she dismissed Watchmen as "a movie based on a comic book promoting rape, torture, and brutal killing." For the record, I believe she was saying that these are all bad things, although the comic book did not exactly "promote" them as much as it "depicted" them--as vile acts carried out by horrible people.

That sort of subtlety may be too much for Schlussel, who finds difficulty expressing a consistent viewpoint even in a single article. In her review of The Last House on the Left, she first writes:

Torture/snuff-porn movies like this have no purpose other than to satisfy some warped moviegoers' need for bloodlust. The movie was vile, sickening, and depraved. And we wonder why violent crime and the depravity of criminal acts is escalating, as its portrayal onscreen escalates. What's on the screen influences what's on the street.

Somehow she finds it in herself to write the following words in the very same review:

Some movie critics were disgusted with the cheering on of revenge by the family and planned to write about it. But, to me, that was the only "redeeming" part of seeing this . . . Of note, part of the revenge which people liked was when the parents waterboarded one of the criminal thugs who left their daughter for dead after raping her. It's the second movie I remember where viewers audibly enjoyed the waterboarding of criminal scum (the first was "Passenger 57," when Wesley Snipes waterboards a terrorist hijacker in the plane's toilet). And so they should--this is what we want (minus the rape and torture scenes that come before it). The bad guys deserve it.

Obsessing over--and defending--methods of torture like this, to the point of gleefully recording examples of a specific form of torture that occurs in movies and the audience's vocal applause for it, is simply torture-porn under the guise of film criticism.

But in Schlussel's defense, she is consistent about one thing--she hates Muslims. It is not just the sex slaver/terrorist variety, but all Muslims. You can see that from a St. Patrick's Day link she provides on her front page about the threat of the Muslim population taking over Ireland. She can't really name anything specifically bad that Muslims have done in Ireland, other than now Irish newspapers report on them or that mosques in Ireland are "Well, just like here in America, giant monstrosities."

Her final comment: "Blarney = Looking the Other Way as Islam Invades Ireland." She then found it necessary to add this important update to the article, a letter from a real-live Irish racist:

You forgot to mention we are just about 5 million and if these people keep breeding we will be overwhelmed in a very short time. We suffer from Elites and I mean Elites. It took us 800 hundred years to be free from England and now we are about to spend etentity [sic] serving animals. May God and St. Patrick help us from these Devils.

Now you can see why she liked Taken so much.

At the Movies - Race to Blurb Mountain

2009-03-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ben Lyons on this week's At the Movies found a tweeny-bopper movie that even he did not like in Race to Witch Mountain. Mank did have a comment about the film that made me think of this very show, talking about the poorly executed relationship between Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino:

Mank: There's no chemistry between them, and they have nothing in common . . . And then you mention the special effects, and this is a movie where you anticipate these being what would save the movie and it seems like maybe their budget got cut by 90% right before filming.

No chemistry and little splash? Sounds like the current At the Movies, which promised a big fancy upgrade but seems to have stumbled into a downgrade.

Then there is Sunshine Cleaning, about which Lyons has this to say:

Lyons: This is a Sundance movie in every sense of the word. It's that quirky American indy that's looking to find moments of humor set against the backdrop of dark, tragic moments.

With a blurb like that, pre-gushed with a big smile for the film's marketing campaign, it's got to be good! Except that he goes on to say "I enjoyed some of the performances, ultimately I didn't find it funny enough and I didn't find it emotional enough to give it a 'See It', but check it out on DVD. You can 'Rent It'."

Thanks Ben, at least we know that you are trying to be honest in half of your review. But more importantly, where does he get off talking about Sundance like some well-informed insider? Maybe a more honest comment would be "Based on my experience, the only thing missing from making this movie the penultimate Sundance experience is a series of awful interviews and a bunch of parties with cool people."

For whom the clock ticks

2009-03-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

Watchmen
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, and Patrick Wilson
162 minutes

Review by Scott Johnson

In spite of proclamations that the classic graphic novel Watchmen is unfilmable, I always thought that so long as the screenplay did not go too far astray from the source material the film ought to succeed. This is not the ravings of a purist fanboy--I did notice some differences, including an improvement in the final weapon of mass distruction--but just an observation that the material has more than enough to keep an audience engaged. Zack Snyder's new movie does remain fairly close to the original story and so it cannot help but maintain our interest.

In fact, the movie kept so close to the book that most of the lead characters look astonishingly close to their drawn versions. At the very least, the film is a good companion to the graphic novel, in many ways comparable to the filmed version of a play (although one with different actors in the roles). But Snyder does more than just copy Alan Moore's story--he has an effective sense of style that helps move the story along. This was the main thing--in fact, the only thing--that was interesting in Snyder's 300. With an interesting story to go along with the visuals, Snyder this time has found himself actually making a decent movie.

The film does well in introducing us to a series of troubled heroes, each of whom has a problematic relationship with the world. Most significantly is Dr. Manhattan, a god-like figure who is nearly all-powerful and is, of course, a tool of the US government. His long-ignored lover is Laurie, the second hero know as Silk Spectre, pushed by her mother (who should have known better) to take up the mantle she originated. Laurie eventually hooks up with Dan Dreiberg, another second generation superhero (Nite Owl) who spends his days reminiscing with the originator of his identity about the good old days--before masked vigilantes were outlawed. Except for Dr. Manhattan, the only heroes who refuse to give up are the Comedian, who becomes a mercenary for the US government, and Rorschach, a mysterious and extremely violent vigilante in the old fashioned sense. That is, Rorschach is less like Spider-Man and Batman than he is like the guy with a shotgun who lives down the street and nobody bothers anymore.

This is a rich tapestry of characters whose mere existence in the story--not to mention the mystery that develops--adds richness to the world they occupy and maintains our interest. In fact, it is surprising to consider that Watchmen is almost exactly the same length as the beautifully filmed but dramatically flat and uninspired The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But I could not help but notice some serious drawbacks to the film. None of these ruin the movie as an experience, but both find a way to keep it from being more than simply a decent entertainment.

The first problem is the stylization of the movie, which is not all bad and in fact adds something new. This occurs not only in the visuals but also in a series of extended songs by Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, among others. There is no way that I could possibly be bored listening to this music, and if the purpose is to keep the audience entertained through the nearly 3 hour duration of the movie, it succeeds. However, there is a serious drawback here, which is that the movie often feels like a series of disjointed dramatic scenes cut in between several music videos and fight scenes.

This is compounded by the fact that there simply is not much chemistry between the characters. We never really feel like Dan (Nite Owl) and Laurie (Silk Spectre II) really have a deep connection with each other, which is only compounded by the fact that Laurie still seems like she is 25 rather than the more world-weary and regretful 38-year-old she is in the book. A sex scene between the two characters is so stylized by Snyder that it seems more like a cool movie moment than a real passionate embrace between the two characters. The same goes with the troubled relationship between Laurie and Dr. Manhattan, whose detachment from the world seems much more real and sad in the book than simply a series of clever--if superficial--movie moments.

What is also lost is much of the nuance of the graphic novel. Dr. Manhattan, for example, was a game-changer for the Cold War in the original, not just helping the US win the Vietnam War but becoming a real scourge to the Soviet Union. There is an off-hand remark in the graphic novel where somebody comments that the USSR wants to talk about Dr. Manhattan as a part of an arms treaty--after all, he gives the US far more power than any hydrogen bomb. There is also more clarity about the Keane Act which outlawed masked vigilantes than we get in the movie.

It is quite clear in the film version of Watchmen that the heroes are flawed and not necessarily up to the task of heroism. What is not always so clear is that the world they are living in is even more flawed. For example, Dr. Manhattan's seemingly unlimited power and its cynical manipulation by the US exposes the myth of Superman, who fought for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But would that be such a good thing in our world? Author Alan Moore certainly didn't think so and that is made fairly clear in his graphic novel. And while there are hints of this view in the movie, much of the nuance that shaped this perspective are lost.

Even more, there are times when the literal adaptation of the source material seems strangely anachronistic. The threat of a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for example, gives us little concern at a time when the US is in the midst of a disastrous occupation of the country. What perfectly captured the zeitgeist 20 years ago is reduced to merely an unusual plot point in the movie to bring our heroes together for a final battle--a deus ex machina with Dr. Manhattan almost literally in the role of the Greek God.

I am not sure that this is a whitewash--a sanitized version of the story made acceptable for corporate Hollywood. The screenplay relies so closely on the source material for nearly three hours that this level of nuance might not have been feasibly added without extending the running time even further. So it is difficult to say definitively that the movie is purposefully dumbed down with all of its sharp edges removed.

But it is not difficult to say that this lack of nuance is unfortunate. The movie makes a fine companion piece to a great book, but viewers will need to go to the original to get the full story with all of its iconoclastic insights into our world and its supposed heroes.

Reading tea leaves

2009-03-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog have been generous with their tips in the comments section this week! Here is another revealing exchange on Richard Roeper's blog:

Sean O Says:
March 6th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

No clue why a decision was made to take Richard off At The Movies, especially since the “new” show isn’t revamped in the least, nor are the new hosts in any way different or more “hip” (if that’s what execs were going for). Without a doubt, agreement is universal that Ben Lyons was a major mistake. Ben Mankiewicz is fine, although it’s pretty obvious that he has no respect for Lyons’s opinion and so there’s no chemistry between them. Why not pair him with Richard? Instead, I can see the show going off the air completely within a few months and that’s a shame.

richard Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Just a note to Sean O.:

For the record, I wasn’t “taken off” the show. Disney offered me a very fair financial package to continue with the show for another three years. However, the executive who was put in charge of the show last year was–well, for now let’s just say I refused to tarnish the legacy of the show created by Roger and Gene, so I walked away. Some day I’ll talk about what happened behind the scenes last year. It was like being a character in a bad satire of the TV industry.

Best,

Richard

I can't help but think that they offered Richard a butt-load of money to work with Ben Lyons instead of Michael Phillips, and Roeper said "Um . . . you're joking, right?" And it all went downhill from there.

Anyway, I can't wait until he writes a book about this mess.

The return of televised film criticism?

2009-03-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

From Richard Roeper's blog:

I get messages like this every day:

Full Name: Steve Evans
Question: Movies
Message:
My apologies if you’ve covered this before but might you be returning to TV for movie reviews? The new guys in At the Movies are, to put it mildly, annoying. I think I’m more qualified than the young dude.

I know I’ve been hinting at a new show for some time now, but all I can say is I appreciate the continued interest, and I PROMISE I will have something concrete to announce soon—most likely before the month is out. Stay tuned!

RR

Criticwatch - When 50/50 is better than "Ask the Expert"

2009-03-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ben Lyons: Can I use a lifeline? I'd like to phone a friend.

Meredith Viera: Um, you are the lifeline.

The above dialogue is another one of my made up Ben Lyons parody scenarios and, of course, never happened. If it sounds familiar, you are probably thinking of the SNL skit with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Katie Couric.

But you may also be thinking of yesterday's episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, starring Katie Couric's Today show replacement (Meredith Viera) and featuring the Sarah Palin of film criticism (Ben Lyons).

After Monday's performance, in which the Bens could not come up with the correct answer, you would think they had nowhere to go but up. As always with overestimating Ben Lyons, you would be wrong.

Erick Childress from Criticwatch breaks it down:

Q: “What would be the title of the 1991 movie Thelma & Louise if the characters’ last names replaced their first names?”

A: Dickinson & Sawyer
B: Anderson & McBride
C: Slocumb & Lennox
D: Harlan & Biddle

This time it was just under seven seconds before one of them spoke up and the conversation went like this:

MANK: I feel like, uh, that, uh, the, uh, wha, what, what rings a very strong, uh, tone to me is Harlan. Um, and uh, uh, but uh, like I said it’s a strong feeling but it is not an overwhelming feeling.

LYONS: I know we can get rid of “A”. I feel confident in that. We can get that out of there.

MANK: It wasn’t Angie Dickinson and Diane Sawyer? No I suppose not. Um, uh, I, uh, man…(turns to Lyons) Uh, you have any, you’re not, uh…?

[Erik continues . . .]
So while we ponder the grade that probably eluded Lyons over the years and whether or not Mankiewicz has a relative somewhere over at AIG, there sits Anthony Dickey [the contestant] deciding to “trust them” and go with “D”. “It sounds familiar, and if not I’ve got no one to blame but me and them,” says Dickey pointing a finger at the Ben’s video monitor. Meredith’s face turns to that familiar “oh no” scrunch as the answer is revealed to be:

A: DICKINSON & SAWYER

The photo at the top is the unfortunate contestant who took their bad advice (he chose D instead of A), disappointed but still laughing his ass off at a humiliated Ben Lyons.

Oh yeah, and Erik rips up At the Movies as well, click here to read the rest of his review.

Who wants to be a film expert?

2009-03-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is doing a special Movie Week--every question is about movies--sponsored by Netflix and powered by Skype. But where would they be doing a movie program packed to the gills with corporate sponsors without Ben Lyons? Well, pretty much exactly where they are, but they invited him and Ben Mankiewicz anyway, continuing the duo's ABC/Disney getting to know you tour.

These two fit into the show as a new lifeline called "Ask an Expert". They were included via Skype, calling in from a bedroom with several bookshelves behind them--obviously, it must have been Mank's house. Sad thing is, they were no help whatsoever. The contestant zipped through several questions winning $50,000 but then asked for their help on the $100,000 question: Which of four movies used the fictional airline Oceanic?

Mank gave it his best shot but couldn't answer. Lyons just made fun of how bad the movies were that were among the possible answers. Apparently, playing hours of Scene It? is not enough to improve his movie knowledge--he may have the watch Millionaire Movie Week all week to fill in a few blanks.

Now, I'm not saying that I knew the answers, but when they are stumped on their first question, I wonder whether ABC/Disney's strategy is really working here.

At the Movies - B-list film critic

2009-03-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

Lyons: Why would I save film criticism when I no longer have any stake in it?
Mank: Do it for me.

After a pretty bad run this calendar year, Ben Lyons seemed to avoid making a complete fool of himself this week on At the Movies, although to his benefit there were no tweeny-bopper concert movies premiering for him to gush over. But he still found a way to act like a jerk in his description of the lead character in The Great Buck Howard:

Lyons: He carries himself like a high maintenance A-list Hollywood star, a lot like Mank. The problem is, he's not. A lot like Mank.

What a charmer. For a guy who desperately wants to be accepted by the A-List crowd to say this about a guy who is an admitted grumpy old man who doesn't like going out and partying, this comes off as less than endearing. Little did he realize that he seemed to be talking about his own show later in the segment:

Lyons: I just love seeing a buddy film between two guys you would never pair together, this aging entertainer and this young guy at a crossroads in his life.

Not unlike Ben's introverted comments about Frost/Nixon.

Another oddity--for the second week in a row, Mank's 3 To See included a film that the show has yet to review. Is this a way to squeeze in an extra movie when they do not have time? If so, they could have avoided a second review of Watchmen this week. But it seems more consistent with the show's ignoring lesser known independent and foreign films like Waltz with Bashir.

Not that it was all bad, though. This week, they finally cleaned up the DVD segment by calling it 'DVD Out Now' rather than the awkwardly worded and punctuated 'DVD "Out Now" List'.

Worse than Ben Lyons - Debbie Schlussel

2009-03-06T03:00:00.000-08:00

Way, way, WAY worse. If you read my previous comments on her take on Taken, it should come as no surprise that her "film criticism" is merely a superficial shell encapsulating her right-wing worldview. Her most recent writing to have caught my attention--unfortunately highlighted on the Big Hollywood blog--is a "review" and a follow-up article about Watchmen.

What's wrong with it? First, Debbie Schlussel wants you to die:

The e-mails they [Watchmen defenders] send me and the comments they make about how "deep," "edgy" and "profound" this vile piece of trash (which is none of these) is, reminds me of the blind statements of followers of Jim Jones. And we all know what happened after they drank he purple Kool-Aid. If only this movie could achieve that result, it would be the most fantastic exercise in natural selection ever conducted in America.

She calls it "a movie based on a comic book promoting rape, torture, and brutal killing." But the book does no such thing. These vile acts are committed to show us how despicable these characters are. The point is that superheroes are glamorized in comic books but if we had "real" masked vigilantes, they would be pretty awful people. It is not so much to make a point about superheroes as it is about who rules our society and how heroes are conjured to ideologically defend it. In short, saying that the graphic novel condones rape is like saying that Doubt balks at making "a clear condemnation of child molestation."

But that appears to be a standard right-wing tactic--if something is shown in less than your starkly black-and-white misinformed view of the world, say that it condones the evil thing being discussed. You think that not all Muslims are terrorists and that we should understand why some Muslims hate America? You condone terrorism! This line of attack makes very poor politics and even worse film criticism.

It is also hypocritical. For all her railing against condoning "torture and brutal killing," she enthusiastically praised the movie Taken, a movie whose hero both "tortures" and "brutally kills" people. This can easily be seen as an argument in defense of these tactics, and Schlussel's article cheering on the movie can be seen as a defense of them as well. But for Schlussel it is OK, because in Taken the victims are Muslims.

Among the other horrible things Schlussel objects to in Watchmen:

* Superhero "The Comedian" (a bad Robert Downey, Jr. look-alike) brutally beating and raping another superhero--this movie concludes that the rape was a good thing b/c the slutty superhero had a slutty superhero daughter from him;

* Superhero "The Comedian" shooting and killing a Vietnamese woman because she's pregnant with his kid;

* Superhero "The Comedian" being thrown off a roof of a tall building--we see his body hit the ground and the blood flow out;

Having not seen the movie but only read the book, all of this sounds very familiar. And while I can't comment on whether the film pulls this material off, it seems unlikely that the "movie concludes that the rape was a good thing." The whole point of all of this in the book was that these vigilantes would be very nasty people, nothing like the boyscout-like Superman who fought for "truth, justice, and the American way."

Maybe if the Comedian had been an Arab or a Muslim rather than a white American mercenary working for the US government, then Debbie Schlussel would have found much more to like in the portrayal of his disgusting acts and his ultimate demise.

Finally, Schlussel comes up with this brilliant comment:

It's 1985 and Nixon is President. We've won in Vietnam . . . Wow, isn't that cool that they got it wrong on purpose? I'm so amazed at this "high-brow art" of deliberately getting dates and timelines wrong, you know, just to be "artistic," and get the drooling of the critics. That is sooooo genius. Like way totally cool.

It was pretty clear in the book (although I don't think it was ever spelled out) that Dr. Manhattan's powers guaranteed the dominance of US imperialism and helped Nixon stay in power for decades. That is actually kind of interesting when you think about it for a second.

But that is apparently more than Schlussel was willing to do.