At The Movies, once a “must see” for Adam and me, has finally (after a year) retconned the show back to what will hopefully be something closer to the ‘old show’ and is dumping its terrible new hosts as step one.

I feel bad for Ben Mankiewicz, who there was really nothing wrong with, but jammed into the ridiculous new format, and partnered with moron of the moment Ben Lyons, couldn’t possibly win. The good news is that I think Mankiewicz’s reputation will remain unscathed…we all know, and many articles and blogs have made it publicly clear, that he’s not the reason this went bad.

I was never a huge fan of frequent co-hoster of the old show, Michael Phillips (chalk it up to personal taste) but the guys knows films, which is what is required here.  And A.O. Scott is great – both fun to watch and incredibly well informed when it comes to film.  I’m excited to start TIVOing this show again…beginning September 5th.

As many of you know I railed against the new format, and especially the disgusting casting choice of Ben Lyons, as an actual film critic when he’s really just a sound bite shill for the machine.  And while from go there was no chance I was going to watch this show with Lyons masquerading as an “expert” I felt the need to blog about this and actively oppose it when Lyons had the gall to list the Twilight TRAILER as his “Three To See” pick in an early episode.  Yes, the man suggested that instead of seeing a real film, that people go view a highly publicized TRAILER online.  What a brainless dickbag.  Anyway…

Wouldn’t it be great if this small step signaled a change in the world at large?  The move towards using informed qualified talent rather than “attractive”* connected hacks?  It’s almost enough to make me have some faith in the world…almost.

Thanks to all you other fans, writers, etc., that both called this out for what it was – and most importantly refused to watch it and sent a message via the ratings, so that we could put a stop to this.  One small step for man…one giant leap for mankind I say.

*I use attractive in quotes because I find few things more reprehensible than looking at Ben Lyons face, but by “traditional beauty standards” I suppose he is considered technically more attractive than the rest of these guys.