To recap, last year America saw the nearest thing we've had to a revolution caused by people upset over the ruining of a movie reviewers chat show, when At The Movies replaced its beloved icons of decades, the inventors of the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down scale Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, with two smirking meatheads who looked like the only thing they wanted to debate about film was Megan Fox's cup size.

Heeding the outbreak of fury from its audience, At the Movies producers duly awarded the Bens their one way tickets to Palookaville. But then taking perhaps the audiences demands for more seriousness a bit too much to heart, brought in our new Movie Critic Overlords - venerable, scholarly, erudite AO Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune.

In a simpler time, one might have thought there would be some middle ground between Frat Party and The Grad School Profs Still Talking Hours After the Dinner Has Been Cleared And Not Noticing Their Wives Have Passed Out in Their Seats. But in this age, such a choice is not to be had.

At The Moviesis whetting out appetite for some good old critical banter about about Le Cinema with a video introducing their new critics, from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. Strangely, they only drop Scott's New York Times credential five times during the five minute video. If these people are truly going to pull off a highbrow show, they're going to have to find a way to get that up to once every twenty seconds.

The video sets the new season's scenario with the irresistible tag line "Two Accomplished Critics. One Stimulating Discussion." With a premise like that, who needs a script?

Some saliva-inducing high points:

• "Serious reviews from serious journalists" promises the voice over as the feeling sinks in this is going to be a very long evening.
• Scott recalls seeing Fantasia and Willie Wonka as a child and realizing "movies are an art form that can make fantasies real." He omits from story the ass-whooping he received. the next day on the school bus when he shared that realization with his friends.
• More on the youth of AO Scott: "I got interested in a very early age in reading film criticism...and I found that criticism was something that I really enjoyed."
• A whistful retelling of Scott's historic journey from the depths of writing for Slate to the aforementioned New York Times after a critical essay on Martin Scorsese caught the culture editor's eye, and Phillips travels across the landscape of American newspapers.
• On what makes At The Movies such a beloved national treasure, Scott says, "The show has always, I think, stood for critical intelligence brought to this popular medium of television in a way that's accessible, clear and fun." And who wouldn't think that's a hoot and a half?
• Phillips on Scott: "I can not wait because he works at such a high level of critical acumen."
• Phillips suggest that the show may actually redefine TV chat as we know it. "You get the debate going to right way, it's not going to be two way, it's going to be three way. Us two, and the viewers."

Let the jocularity commence!

Replacing Lyons and Mankiewicz as hosts of the long-running show, formerly hosted by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, will be A.O. Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, two men widely respected in the world of film criticism who have both served as fill-ins on the show in the past.

As the LA Times Patrick Goldstein notes, Ben Mankiewicz wasn't all that bad, but it appears as though he was brought down by the tremendous weight of Lyons' Herculean suckage.

To be fair, Mankiewicz, the scion of a fabled Hollywood family who hosts Turner Classic Movies presentations, was clearly more knowledgeable than his counterpart. As my colleague Chris Lee reported last December, Lyons, son of film critic Jeffrey Lyons, was held in such low esteem in the critical fraternity that others in the profession were lining up, happy to be quoted by name ridiculing his work, with Chicago-based film critic Erik Childress saying of Lyons: "He has no taste. Everyone thinks he's a joke."

So how awful was Ben Lyons? This awful:

You know what hurts a movie like Max Payne is the success of the Batman franchise. That obviously is about story and character so they think for all films of the genre it's gotta be about story and character and this whole backstory of him losing his wife. I don't care about that. I wanna see Max Payne shoot people. That's all I want from a movie like this.

Film lovers of the America rejoice — your own personal long national nightmare is finally over! But what will now become of the "Stop Ben Lyons" blog?

"One recent afternoon I was sitting at my computer studying old clips of Gene [Siskel] and Roger [Ebert]. After a while my daughter sat down next to me. We watched in silence for a while, and then she said: 'These guys are always fighting. Even when they both like a movie, they have to fight about why it's good.' That may not be an exhaustive definition of criticism as a discipline or a mode of thought, but it strikes me as a pretty good summary." —April 13, 2008

"On Christmas, my annual busman's holiday, I took my daughter to see Enchanted, a just-right movie for her if ever there was one. Its blend of satire and sweetness, princessy romance and feminist pluck was expertly calibrated to satisfy a third-grade girl. Which was just the problem. At the end, as is my custom (I have to get my insights from somewhere), I asked her what she thought. 'It was good,' she said. 'But I felt like I knew what was going to happen the whole time.'" —Jan. 11, 2008 ...

"Shrek the Third, directed by Chris Miller and Raman Hui from a script with a half-dozen credited begetters, already feels less like a children's movie than either of its predecessors. (This may be why I liked it better than the others. But then again, so did my kids.)" —May 18, 2007

So on and so forth, going all the way back to the early days of 2002 — hence the evolving critical voice apparently informed by sassy youngsters who know better. It's a savvy move from Scott, who clearly saw the writing on the wall and anticipated a hostile media future in which the family that gets poster blurbs together stays together. Or at least stays employed. Even Pinch Sulzberger wouldn't shit-can a third-grader.

• Family Guy [Looker]

One of the Times movie reviewers (who shall remain nameless, but who happened to review The Life Aquatic and Royal Tenenbaums), has a summer timeshare with Wes Anderson.

For one, typically this would be old news, but given the Times' near-hysteria lately about conflicts of interests (cf. Lola Ogunnaike's suspension over her appearance on The View), we decided it might be fair game. Another caveat, and one which makes us more suspicious than usual about this tip: Wes Anderson has a summer timeshare? Surely at this point he can afford his own summer house, no?

Oh, and the reviewer? None other than A.O. Scott, who said of Life Aquatic:

As someone who was more annoyed than charmed by "Tenenbaums," I should have been completely exasperated with "The Life Aquatic," with its wispy story and wonder-cabinet production design, but to my surprise I found it mostly delightful.

Update: A.O. Scott has e-mailed to indicate that he does not have a summer share anywhere, and has never met Wes Anderson.