Back in July 2008 when George Bush was president and mediocrity held sway, ABC thought it’d be a good idea to replace Ebert and Roeper on At the Movies with Ben Mankiewicz and a rich white kid whose Twitter feed is 30% hip hop talk, 30% the word “homey”, and 40% exclamation points. His name was also Ben. But then America got a library card and took some classes at University of Phoenix, and that didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. So ABC fired the Bens and replaced them with two guys wearing glasses, neither of whom use the word “homey”, both whom often use the word “juxtapose.”
Look how serious and intelligent it is now! You can tell because the title cards say “SERIOUS AND INTELLIGENT!” One of them even has a beard! I haven’t this impressed by a makeover since I made my dog wear a scarf! Erudite Shakespeare reference, everyone!
[via AnneThompson]

It still doesn’t have as much credibility as The Food Network’s “Heavy Breathing With Harry Knowles.”
The Erudites? Bah, The Klingon Empire has been at war with those Romulan-coddling yIntaghs for decades!
more puffy vaginas?
Obama !!!
*shaking fist at an empty sky*
I’m Michelle BlahBink and I’m the film critic at the Toilet Paper Poo Times. Gimme some candy.
If intelligence is directly related to the quality of one’s beard, then Tom Cruise may be onto something with this Scientology thing…
all I got out of that is they want to have a threeway
Juxtaposed (verb): A form of being which indicates requirement.
Why we gotta go to school, yo?
You juxtaposed to, man.
A O Scott
I can’t help but think that if Tom Cruise had gained the weight instead of Val Kilmer, I could resurrect those long dormant George Chuvalo masturbation fantasies.
Michael Phillips
I have no appropriate response to that.
I dunno about you, but I’m psyched to see see Bob Saget and Dave Coulier back on television.
Juxtaposed? Pfffffffffft.
I just wrote a facebook note using the word dirigible.
Jacktion!: 1
Everyone else: averaging 100
More reactions:
- Hey, Professor, the camera is over here.
- Please tell me they’re going to have them sitting in a theater and not on each others laps on some set they dragged from the dumpster behind Entertainment Tonight.
- I didn’t hear a single negative comment in that clip. The show is no fun unless they occasionally reduce a director to tears.
I really thought Vince and Chodin had a winner when they pitched their film review show, but I think ABC got scared off when they insisted on calling it The Aristocrits.
These are the same type of ass manglers that ejaculated all over Atonement. Intelligence ≠ taste
Honestly there is one reason to watch Atonement. There is a roughly 8 minunte long running single shot on a war torn beach that should be a class all of its own in any film school program. I watched it three times and jized on the third.
Almost as bad ass as the barricade bandit raid scene in Children of Men, which was full of awesome single shot action and generally underrated, but CoM’s was better for the complexity of the action.
Er, ah… Hipster douches are made of PBR and soy milk.
“I found that criticism was something I really enjoyed” = I like being an self-important asshole.
Phillips has glasses AND a beard. That makes him smarter than Stephen Hawking. He should put his energy into inventing a time machine, not reviewing stupid movies.
Didn’t they replace Ebert because his jaw fell off?
If film critic truly wise, film critic not have liberal arts degree.
Opinions like drivers licenses; sometimes make you look bad, sometimes make you look good, but not really useful for anybody but owner.
Nice Patton Oswalt reference
I used to be a journalist and now I got promoted to hosting a television show…
but it’s juxtaposition.