The histrionics might not have matched those exhibited during the recent scandal involving late-night talk show hosts, but when At the Movies radically shifted directions in 2008 — passing over long-established newspaper critics in favor of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz — many cried foul.
The worry was that one of TV’s last bastions of serious film criticism, which started in the 1970s with original hosts Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, was falling prey to more shallow reviews and a blurb-based mentality. Lyons, in particular, drew ire for his unapologetic embrace of celebrity culture, with a blog that featured several snapshots of him posing with famous people. He also notably referred to middling fare like 2007’s I Am Legend as “one of the greatest movies ever made.”
Seen as a bid to capture a younger audience, the gambit didn’t translate into higher ratings and after one season, the Bens were gone. That paved the way for the show’s return to form with the installation of A.O. Scott of The New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune as hosts. Both had logged time subbing for Ebert after a bout with thyroid cancer took away his speech in 2006.
I caught up with the pair in Chicago as they prepared to tape their weekly show, and while they passed on commenting about their immediate predecessors, Phillips did perhaps unwittingly allude to the direction many feared At the Movies was heading.
“Nobody wants this show to slide into that general pool of Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, TMZ,” Phillips said. “That is the last thing anybody coming to the show wants.”
“And it’s the last thing anyone would hire us to do,” Scott added. “The one thing I or any other critic has or needs is not the agreement of readers but their trust. What movie critics are or should be are people who offer independent opinions, who are not part of the machinery of hype, not part of the film industry, who are disinterested in [that]. If your readers or viewers can trust you, that you’re giving an honest account and a backed-up argument, that’s what you have to do.”
For instance, if you’re going to go on national TV and say you liked 2012, as Phillips did, telling me it was his kind of “craptastic fun,” you should have your reasons.
Defending their opinions in print and on TV requires different sets of skills, but both say that going back and forth has made everything they do that much better.
“It doesn’t really matter the order you do it, because they’re so completely different assignments,” Phillips said. “When we do it for the show, you really have to identify the two things about that movie that you absolutely want to say, whatever you thought of it. Often, you only get to one of those two. It’s not simplifying what you’re saying. It’s just absolutely prioritizing your thinking. ‘This is the one thing I absolutely need to say,’ and that helps you to approach your writing that way. Too often, I spent a lot of my 20s writing reviews for film or theater, whatever, basically clearing my throat, taking a little too long in identifying the main points. Television, one way or the other, forces you to get right to it.”
“You have to clarify,” Scott said. “You have to be emphatic. What I like about it is the exchange. When you’re writing, you’re in your own head, you’re alone with your response. It’s a solitary working out of what you think, which is gratifying, which I love. It’s what I’ve always been drawn to. But it’s also nice to have the spontaneity of having to put that out immediately for someone else’s response. Since so much of criticism really is a conversation with the readers, or with other critics, it’s an imaginary conversation, and to have it as an actual live conversation is just really exciting and very energizing. It’s helped with my writing, too.”
So how does the magic happen? How do the logistics work out of the New York-based Scott filming a weekly show in Chicago? Typically, Scott flies in every two weeks and stays overnight, with the first day serving as prep time with usually a screening or two to attend. The next day is spent taping the show (or two) in the studio at Chicago’s ABC affiliate, where Ebert began taping shows with Richard Roeper in 2001.
The intros to the movies are scripted and read off a teleprompter, but once the discussion begins, it’s much more free-form. They’ll generally have an idea of what the other is going to say, whether it’s a “See It,” “Skip It” or “Rent It,” but how that comes out is determined on the fly.
The night I visited them, there wasn’t much mystery to what each of them thought of the romantic comedy When In Rome. Scott had in previous reviews lamented the state of rom-coms, with shallow leading ladies falling for men who were either outright chauvinist pigs or vanilla pushovers. The forgettable Kristen Bell-Josh Duhamel pairing didn’t improve his mood. He and Phillips didn’t say much about it then — their bored, slightly disgruntled expressions spoke for themselves — but they articulated their disdain quite thoroughly at the next day’s taping, describing Rome as “lame” and “desperate.” Phillips even wondered whether it was impossible to make a good romantic comedy anymore.
Agreement has its rewards, but the duo is fully aware that many viewers want to see an argument. One of the draws of the two-critic format has always been the chance for conflict — where one person’s Citizen Kane may be another’s Gigli. They have their share of clashes (e.g., Sherlock Holmes, Extraordinary Measures) but they also understand that the show has more to offer than hyperbolic fireworks.
“People talk about it’s always more fun when we disagree,” Phillips said. “But you know I got more feedback on the fact that we both went nuts for Where the Wild Things Are … that we both were really knocked out by this controversial picture. We’re coming from similar perspectives only in that we’re both parents and we sit through enough crap all year that’s basically for a ‘family audience’ that’s just playing to everyone’s worst, stupidest comic instincts. But we each had different reasons.”
“We actually have had some of our most vigorous and interesting discussions when we agreed,” Scott said. “I don’t think it’s necessary for us to be combative. We have to give our viewers and each other something to think about, something to react to, something to talk about. What do people do when they go to the movies with their friends, people who care about movies as something other than just a way of passively passing the time? They’re going to talk about it, they’re going to argue about it, they’re going to exchange their ideas and impressions of what they think and what they want. That’s what we’re doing.”
5 Movies to See Before You Die
A.O. Scott
La Dolce Vita (1960)
City Lights (1931)
The Apartment (1960)
The Godfather (Parts I and II together)
The Grand Illusion (1937)
Michael Phillips
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Taxi Driver (1976)