Ebert Presents At the Movies

The first two episodes of the new Ebert Presents At the Movies are up at the show's website, but it is a real struggle for me to watch the streaming videos, because even though I again have a U.S. IP address, so it's not an international issue, the videos halt and stutter every couple of seconds. However, from what I can make out, I doubt this version of At the Movies is long for this world. Christy Lemire of the Associated Press is much better than I expected her to be; she is very sharp on the repetitive humdrum aspect of unambitious movies, maybe because she has been reviewing longer than her partner. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, on the other hand, is overplaying his boyish quality and is coming across as an uncritical softie, despite his bona fides as a cineaste. Way too many thumbs-up! There is a disbelieving glint in Lemire's eye when she looks at Vishnevetsky that telegraphs to the audience, I can't believe they paired me with a high school student! -- and that may seem ungenerous, but now that I've seen the show, I can't say as I blame her. It reminds me of the scenes from In the Loop when the Brits are agape at the American boy wonder bureaucrats. There was a ton of discussion of Ebert's plucking a sharp young writer from the blogosphere and giving him this kind of platform -- Vishnevetsky was a last-minute replacement for the experienced Elvis Mitchell -- and it was indeed a fresh, gutsy move that might have worked, but unless the kid develops on camera awfully fast, the blogosphere is not going to come out of this looking good.

POSTSCRIPT: My cynical suspicion is that Vishnevetsky was told in no uncertain terms that if he was only going to champion Rivette films and the like, he couldn't have the gig; so he is over-compensating by defending Ashton Kutcher and Seth Rogen movies against an industry player who understands far better than he does why such films get made. His approach is naive and wide-eyed -- it strikes me as a little too wide-eyed. The enthusiasm is real, but there are perils to conducting your education in public. I know that I wince at most of what I wrote before the age of 30 -- at the tone, not so much the opinions themselves (my tastes haven't changed much).