(This is an article I wrote back in 2010.)
When it became official that At the Movies would no longer be produced, I suppose the question wasn’t so much “Why did it end?” but “How did it remain on the air this long?”
In Chicago, where the show got its start on public TV as Sneak Previews, an interested viewer has to be ready to watch the half-hour review show at 10:30 AM on Sundays, sometimes at midnight the previous Saturday. This wasn’t a program that was vying for prime-time TV space.
Ever since the iconic critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert made the first version of the show the highest rated weekly entertainment series in public television history, debates have raged over the role of the TV critic, the use of thumbs to indicate quality, and whether opinions that didn’t come from the typewritten page even mattered.
Eventually Siskel and Ebert jumped the public TV ship and landed their own syndicated show which was distributed by Buena Vista, a subsidiary of the Disney Company. After Siskel’s death and Ebert’s retirement from on-camera work due to illness, several other critics attempted to keep the show going. One of them, A.O. Scott, recently wrote a piece in the New York Times expressing his thoughts and feelings about the show’s end.
He doesn’t seem too broken up about it. He concludes that despite the portents of doom and gloom, criticism as an activity will be just fine. In his words, “I’m sorry ‘At the Movies’ is over…but I have no scores to settle, no blame to assign, no might-have-beens to explore.”
Well I do. As someone who loves movies and likes to think about media rather than passively consume it, I find the end of this particular show a major victory for the corporate-studio system that dominates American film making.
The problem with all film criticism, especially today when there are so many outlets for opinions, is figuring out who is genuinely evaluating the merits of a creative work (be it a film, a play, a concert, a painting, or whatever) and who is merely an industry shill. Back when they were first starting out as film critics on TV, Siskel and Ebert had strong opinions and the credibility to back them up. They also had unique personalities that made them worth watching.
Being on public TV in Chicago also gave them a certain critical distance – there was always a chance someone could be trying to influence their opinion, but their home base in the Flyover States enhanced their credibility much more than the rent-a-critics who would gladly sing the praises of any roll of celluloid crap in exchange for a VIP pass to this week’s Hollywood or New York press junket.
The reasons behind Siskel and Ebert’s departure from public TV have never been fully revealed. Their choice to sign up with Buena Vista, at the time, wasn’t an entirely bad decision from a business standpoint. To me, though, the move represented a clear and obvious conflict of interest the second Disney, a producer of movies, signed an agreement to distribute the top movie-judging show on the air.
Siskel and Ebert joined Disney in the early 1990s, when all the major studios were consolidating production and distribution in ways not seen since the Supreme Court broke them up way back in the 1940s. (It’s interesting that during this era Disney also ended up buying Miramax, the most successful and well-respected independent film production house ever. Disney recently pulled the plug on that venture, too.)
After the tragic death of Siskel and Ebert’s health issues, a parade of newspaper and TV critics were brought on air to keep the show going. Despite their acumen and sharp observations, none of these replacements (and there were a lot of them) had the charisma of the original duo that sat in the balcony seats.
During this time, as the studios’ makeup changed, so did their needs. They needed guarantees that they were going to make a lot of money off of their movies, no matter how good the movies actually were.
Stuffing theaters with multiple screens showing the same flick is one way to accomplish this. Producing a lot of remakes and sequels helps too. One thing they did NOT need was a couple of respected journalists sitting around telling the public that their new products sucked.
It’s also worth noting that even with the terrible scheduling and mediocre (compared to the originals) on-air talent, people were still tuning in to watch the show. There is a market for film fans who want to listen to an intelligent discussion about movies, and maybe even hear an evaluation of one before spending $15 on a ticket.
Nevertheless, given a choice between a moderately successful program and nothing, Disney chose nothing. Not having all the facts, it’s easy to turn a commentary like this into a conspiracy rant. But I just can’t ignore that the benefits of canceling this show for the network far outweighed the benefits to the customers they are supposedly serving.
In the end, complaining about the cancellation of a show like At the Movies is futile – the networks are going to do what they’re going to do, and the market is going to respond positively or negatively in kind. But even with the many resources that have emerged to fill the movie criticism market (such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacrtic), I can’t help but feel there is something lost here.
The public space has long been dominated (at a deep discount) by for-profit companies. Diversity of opinions are in short supply, whether they are political, social, or artistic. Shutting down At the Movies destroys one of the very few broadcast media outlets film fans have to hear something other than the opinions of the Major Manufacturers. To anyone who hasn’t already given up on the idea of broadcasting, that should be a concern.
Even while movie studios continue to make record profits, mainly by increasing ticket prices, the general public gets fewer options. Meanwhile, broadcast TV ratings continue to slide and. with the demise of shows like At the Movies, TV studios continue their slow glide to complete irrelevance.
When it became official that At the Movies would no longer be produced, I suppose the question wasn’t so much “Why did it end?” but “How did it remain on the air this long?”
In Chicago, where the show got its start on public TV as Sneak Previews, an interested viewer has to be ready to watch the half-hour review show at 10:30 AM on Sundays, sometimes at midnight the previous Saturday. This wasn’t a program that was vying for prime-time TV space.
Ever since the iconic critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert made the first version of the show the highest rated weekly entertainment series in public television history, debates have raged over the role of the TV critic, the use of thumbs to indicate quality, and whether opinions that didn’t come from the typewritten page even mattered.
Eventually Siskel and Ebert jumped the public TV ship and landed their own syndicated show which was distributed by Buena Vista, a subsidiary of the Disney Company. After Siskel’s death and Ebert’s retirement from on-camera work due to illness, several other critics attempted to keep the show going. One of them, A.O. Scott, recently wrote a piece in the New York Times expressing his thoughts and feelings about the show’s end.He doesn’t seem too broken up about it. He concludes that despite the portents of doom and gloom, criticism as an activity will be just fine. In his words, “I’m sorry ‘At the Movies’ is over…but I have no scores to settle, no blame to assign, no might-have-beens to explore.”
Well I do. As someone who loves movies and likes to think about media rather than passively consume it, I find the end of this particular show a major victory for the corporate-studio system that dominates American film making.
The problem with all film criticism, especially today when there are so many outlets for opinions, is figuring out who is genuinely evaluating the merits of a creative work (be it a film, a play, a concert, a painting, or whatever) and who is merely an industry shill. Back when they were first starting out as film critics on TV, Siskel and Ebert had strong opinions and the credibility to back them up. They also had unique personalities that made them worth watching.
Being on public TV in Chicago also gave them a certain critical distance – there was always a chance someone could be trying to influence their opinion, but their home base in the Flyover States enhanced their credibility much more than the rent-a-critics who would gladly sing the praises of any roll of celluloid crap in exchange for a VIP pass to this week’s Hollywood or New York press junket.
The reasons behind Siskel and Ebert’s departure from public TV have never been fully revealed. Their choice to sign up with Buena Vista, at the time, wasn’t an entirely bad decision from a business standpoint. To me, though, the move represented a clear and obvious conflict of interest the second Disney, a producer of movies, signed an agreement to distribute the top movie-judging show on the air.
Siskel and Ebert joined Disney in the early 1990s, when all the major studios were consolidating production and distribution in ways not seen since the Supreme Court broke them up way back in the 1940s. (It’s interesting that during this era Disney also ended up buying Miramax, the most successful and well-respected independent film production house ever. Disney recently pulled the plug on that venture, too.)
After the tragic death of Siskel and Ebert’s health issues, a parade of newspaper and TV critics were brought on air to keep the show going. Despite their acumen and sharp observations, none of these replacements (and there were a lot of them) had the charisma of the original duo that sat in the balcony seats.
During this time, as the studios’ makeup changed, so did their needs. They needed guarantees that they were going to make a lot of money off of their movies, no matter how good the movies actually were.
Stuffing theaters with multiple screens showing the same flick is one way to accomplish this. Producing a lot of remakes and sequels helps too. One thing they did NOT need was a couple of respected journalists sitting around telling the public that their new products sucked.
It’s also worth noting that even with the terrible scheduling and mediocre (compared to the originals) on-air talent, people were still tuning in to watch the show. There is a market for film fans who want to listen to an intelligent discussion about movies, and maybe even hear an evaluation of one before spending $15 on a ticket.
Nevertheless, given a choice between a moderately successful program and nothing, Disney chose nothing. Not having all the facts, it’s easy to turn a commentary like this into a conspiracy rant. But I just can’t ignore that the benefits of canceling this show for the network far outweighed the benefits to the customers they are supposedly serving.
In the end, complaining about the cancellation of a show like At the Movies is futile – the networks are going to do what they’re going to do, and the market is going to respond positively or negatively in kind. But even with the many resources that have emerged to fill the movie criticism market (such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacrtic), I can’t help but feel there is something lost here.
The public space has long been dominated (at a deep discount) by for-profit companies. Diversity of opinions are in short supply, whether they are political, social, or artistic. Shutting down At the Movies destroys one of the very few broadcast media outlets film fans have to hear something other than the opinions of the Major Manufacturers. To anyone who hasn’t already given up on the idea of broadcasting, that should be a concern.
Even while movie studios continue to make record profits, mainly by increasing ticket prices, the general public gets fewer options. Meanwhile, broadcast TV ratings continue to slide and. with the demise of shows like At the Movies, TV studios continue their slow glide to complete irrelevance.
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