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Movies editors Dawn Burkes and Holly Warren offer views, news and nuggets on all things movies.

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Goodbye Ebert and Roeper, hello Lyons and Mankiewicz

2:16 PM Tue, Jul 22, 2008 | Permalink
Stephen Becker

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As we passed along in a post yesterday, Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have called it quits on At the Movies, blaming contractual and philosophical differences with the show's owner, Disney. And today, we find out that their replacements will be Ben Lyons of E! News and Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies.
I can't say that i am too familiar with either of these guys, but I think it is telling that they chose to go with non-newspaper critics. Seems to me like it sends one of two messages (or possibly both).
1. Disney doesn't believe in the infuence of the newspaper critic, chosing to go with people already associated with television.
2. The new direction of the show, rumored to be focusing more on Hollywood in general rather than straight movie reviewing, wouldn't work for newspaper critics who often perfer to focus on the actual movies.
Either way, it's hard for this newspaper person to get too excited about this announcement.

Comments

Posted by Kip Mooney @ 10:25 PM Tue, Jul 22, 2008

Mankiewicz is actually a pretty decent host. He does TCM on the weekends. He's no Robert Osborne, but he's pretty likable. Still, no one needs (or asked) for another Hollywood insider show, what with The Insider, Access Hollywood, Extra, and E!'s Daily 10.

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Views, news and nuggets on all things movies

Goodbye Ebert and Roeper, hello Lyons and Mankiewicz

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