This show has come a long way in six months. After I watched their best of the year show tonight, I looked on their site and watched a few clips from early episodes. The chemistry between the two hosts has grown so much and the show as a whole no longer feels awkward.
Was good to see Ignatiy bring up FILM SOCIALISME again and have fun with it, but all the love for TREE OF LIFE got repetitive.
That Jackson Murphy kid has got to go.
Oh my gosh, that Jackson Murphy kid is horrendous. It's not his fault - he's probably just smarming it up like some lame-o adult/parent/producer told him - but my goodness, I can't hit the fast-forward button fast enough.
Generally, I think the "guest contributor" segments are poor. IMO, they work best when it's one person talking about one classic/underrated/etc. movie. Otherwise, I would drop the segments and let the hosts/Roger find some obscure auteur film to give 2 minutes to. Do we really need a montage of Kubrick scenes to sell some new videodiscs? Why not give that segment to some limited run festival film, or a new release in Europe/Asia?
"Generally, I think the "guest contributor" segments are poor. IMO, they work best when it's one person talking about one classic/underrated/etc. movie."
And even then they don't always work. I think the gold standards are the segments done so far by Matt Singer and Jeff Greenfield. They know how to be engaging in a short span of time.
That Kubrick segment was really terrible.
I can't believe they have Jackson Murphy on the show. Yes he is terrible. He is clearly not a movie lover but a little creepy, trained dog robot with a plethora of disturbing affectations for whom movie reviewing has been chosen as his official outlet. It would be fine if he were just a kid who loved talking about movies like a kid, but that's the last thing he is. I still love Ebert, but him endorsing this kind of nonsense is disgusting. The Kubrick segment was awful indeed, as will be probably any segment with David Poland. He is pretty much the pits. I like the idea of nixing the guest segments all together and having Ebert wax briefly on a "Great Movie" or some obscure gem or something.
Overall I agree that the show has made miles of progress over these six months, they are doing a fantastic job with it.
Haven't seen Best of Year So Far show, but the Worst of the Year So Far was pretty funny.
share... but all the love for TREE OF LIFE got repetitive.