The End of "At the Movies" and the Failures of Mainstream Criticism

The announcement last week of the cancellation of At the Movies, American television’s longest running program dedicated to film criticism, most likely came as a surprise to no one who has followed the recent changes made to the show over the past two years, from the ill conceived, vapid and thankfully short lived era of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz to the improved-but-still-wounded past year hosted by A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips. The show has never quite managed to find the same spark as it once had before the death of Gene Siskel in 1999, and the loss of Roger Ebert as an onscreen host more or less left the series vulnerable to the alterations and fate it now faces.

However, as important as At the Movies was to me in my youth, I can't say that the end of the series bothers me at all. The apathy on my part towards the series’ demise is rooted in more than just the loss of the famed duo that once stood at the core of the show. The main problem the series has struggled with over the past decade has been one of identity: just what is/was the point of the show?

At one time, At the Movies it was about seeing two knowledgeable, intelligent, and passionate film fans discuss the subject they loved so much. It was a show that was at the center of the cultural dialogue for serious film fans, at least in North America. While the format of the show has roughly stayed the same over the years, the passion and sense of purpose has been long gone, with its hosts going through the motions rather than feeling a desire to be hosting the program.

The inability of At the Movies to continue to hold this cultural position is due to several factors, the first and most obvious factor being the rise of the internet. I am not just talking about the democratic nature of the internet mind you, as important as it is, but also how the internet broke the rules which controlled the discussion itself. Film conversations on the web are plural, continuous, and fluid, going in several simultaneous directions at any given moment. As brilliant as At the Movies was, even at its peak it was little more than a sampling of not only the films, but of the critics' thoughts. In a half hour format with several films to get through, plus commercials, the conversations were necessarily short and would cut off just as they were getting started. It was the best we had, so we put up with it.

Not so now. In this era, the real loss would be if Roger Ebert’s blog were cut off, as it gives the man the room to let his thoughts out and engage with a series of intelligent individuals from around the globe, unfiltered. What possible function would a truncated version of this serve? While Ebert may continue to talk of starting a new review program, the purpose of such an endeavour seems murky at best, and pointless at worse. Furthermore, given the large number of voices available on the web, the idea of a single series having such influence over the cultural discourse has long since passed.

This brings us to the second key factor, the value of the "day of" review which shows such as At the Movies provide. The value of such reviews are questionable at best. Not only are such reviews generally ignored, but the format plays against the strengths of talents like Roger Ebert, whose best work is reflective and detailed, going beyond simple recomendations. We want an analysis, not a simple recomendation. While a good review may push us to see a film we may not have sought out before, if we are to be honest, if we are interested in a film, will a bad review really stop film geeks from seeing a film? Most likely, we will see a given film to add our own thoughts to the conversation going on about a given work. Since that conversation is what we often crave, we will get it even if it means sitting through a bad film.

Yet the most important factor to consider is the outright failure of mainstream press criticism and journalism in understanding my apathy towards the end of At the Movies. Pick up your local paper or watch mainstream news programs with a film critic on staff, and you will generally find vapid eye candy designed to sell whatever is released to the viewing public, or a group of individuals who are not so much interested in film but rather in showing off how clever they are to their audience.

Ask yourself: why is it that there have been no new critical “rock stars” in the past twenty years, even on the level of borderline joke Rex Reed? Mostly because the recent crop hasn’t been any good, being little more than a group of narcissists who place themselves before their subject matter. Films for this batch of critics are a means to an end, that end being their face and name in the public eye. These “critics” have little love of film, rendering their thoughts rather pointless to those who give a damn. At the Movies, when it was hosted by the “Bens” was an embodiment of such failings, and a sign of where the series would ultimately have headed again eventually were it not being cancelled now.

The cancellation of At the Movies is thus little more than the final admission that the world of film criticism for the serious film fan has been radically altered, a point which the fans themselves have known about for quite some time. Yet at the same time, given that the point of the series was to do little more than to provoke, discussion of film, nothing has really changed. The conversation is where it has always been:

Wherever the hell you are.

Film Geek Flashback: Saturday Night at the Movies

If you are a Canadian from Ontario, then chances are you have seen “Saturday Night at the Movies,” a program which airs on the provincial owned and operated channel TVO (Television Ontario). Furthermore, if you are/were a film geek with limited access to classic films, “Saturday Night at the Movies” is/was an absolute Godsend, ever since its debut 36 years ago.

The format of the program is simple: every Saturday, two films are aired which are connected in some manner, be it by director, stars, genre, content, etc. In between the films are segments which interview various filmmakers, stars, and critics, exploring film related topics in a meaningful and detailed manner. Most often, the films shown are of noted historical significance or lesser known titles, presented commercial free and (most often) uncensored.

While its place on television might be more questionable in the era of digital television, special edition DVDs/Blu-Rays and digital downloading, I cannot stress just how important “Saturday Night at the Movies” was for me growing up. As I noted in the first Film Geek Flashback, I grew up in a small town, where access to classic and foreign films was limited at the time, as were books and other informational pieces on filmmaking. As such, “Saturday Night at the Movies” was my gateway to seeing the works of Frank Capra, Orson Welles, Ray Harryhausen and Stanley Kramer among others, and to learning about the importance and relevance of these people and their films.

However, what really made the program memorable in the olden days weren’t the films or the interviews, as great as they often were. No, what truly made “Saturday Night at the Movies” was the host: Elwy Yost, a man so identified with the show that people often referred to the program by his name rather than by its title. Yost wasn’t some slick television presenter of the likes we see these days, who are more interested in trying to look clever, young and hip than discussing film. No, Yost was (and is) a full blown, card carrying film geek of many years.

And damn, he was proud of it.

Gentle and reassuring, Yost was one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever seen discussing film, wanting to share his love of cinema with anyone who would listen. He wanted YOU to be part of the cinema geek club, to take in the films and have them be part of your life as much as they seemed to be part of his. One of the famous stories told about Yost which illustrates this point was that he once took his son out of school to take him to a screening of Citizen Kane. True story or not, that was the kind of love that radiated off the man towards cinema every week, and what made the show so special for its fans.

I will never forget when I was a kid in the late 1990s and Yost held what I believe was a day long marathon run of films one Saturday. I was supposed to be doing homework, but my eyes were glued to the screen as Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad aired early in the afternoon, along with the eyes of my younger brother. It was a joy to watch, and was made all the more so because Yost was there, beaming like a kid in his introduction of the film. The man looked like a respectable adult, but secretly, he was one of us kids. At least, it felt like that, and I am sure that I was not alone when he was on the air.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and Yost retired in 1999. While “Saturday Night at the Movies” continues to this day, it is notable that its attempts at replacing Yost with a new host were short lived. Unlike long running institutions like “The Tonight Show” or “Saturday Night Live” which are able to reinvent themselves around new personalities, “Saturday Night at the Movies” is a show that has a very specific need of its host. The host needs to let the subject matter be bigger than anything else, yet not fade into the background at the same time. Not many people are able to pull this off, so it is no surprise that the idea of a host was dropped altogether.

These days, “Saturday Night at the Movies” is connected to the film department at York University in Toronto, and is in the hands of individuals who labour with love behind the scenes of the show to continue the work Yost did for 25 years. Still, the show does not quite fill the same need as it had in the past, with classic films more readily accessible thanks to digital media. Film websites and forums are a dime a dozen these days, leaving fans plenty of places to participate in meaningful conversation (as well as plenty of places to engage in meaningless conversations. I am looking at you Ain’t it Cool News). And of course, Turner Classic Movies has cornered the market on film history, often showing better quality prints of films, commercial free, almost all day long. Yet, when looking back, there will always be a place in my heart for “Saturday Night at the Movies,” and perhaps for some young film geek out there, it is filling the same need that I myself once had.