Leaving Ben Lyons
By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com SHARE
Monday, April 6, 2009
E! Entertainment Television film critic Ben Lyons (right), with actress Michelle Monaghan
and actor Shia LaBeouf on the set of the film "Eagle Eye", in Santa Anita, California in 2007.
(Photo: E! Networks)
With actor Nicolas Cage's latest film "Knowing" hitting the top of the box office charts in the U.S. and Canada recently, I couldn't help thinking about Mr. Cage's character Ben in Mike Figgis' film "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995). Mr. Cage won an Academy Award for playing Ben, the alcoholic who can't say no to shopping for every 38 proof drink on the planet. It's interesting that Mr. Cage has gone from that Oscar triumph as Best Actor in 1996 to being perpetually tethered to action films, achieving mixed results. ("Con Air", "Ghost Rider", "Next", "Bangkok Dangerous" and the "National Treasure" series.)
It's more perplexing that I next thought of another Ben -- this time a real-life Ben -- Ben Lyons, the much-maligned film critic of E! Entertainment Television who shares the spotlight with fellow Chicago-based film critic Ben Mankiewicz 0n the weekly television show "At The Movies", which replaced the popular long-running movie review television show pioneered by pre-eminent film critics Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel. Over the last few months Mr. Lyons has come in for some harsh criticism, being accused of writing reviews solely to get quoted in ads for films (how many film critics in the world haven't done that?) to hob-nobbing with celebrities (how many film critics have done that?) Doesn't anyone remember that infamous scandal a few years back about the fake film reviewer whose quotes showed up for ads of some Sony Pictures film releases?
Hey, I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but this Ben Lyons-is-a-lousy-film-critic bandwagon sure sounds and smells like jealousy to me. Uh-huh.
Ah, the scent of jealousy. I'm sure it will be a perfume or cologne or whatever very soon, if it hasn't already.
Jealousy. That all-too human but destructive emotion that eats its inhabitants alive, festering into resentment and disdain. Meet the twins jealousy and envy, often covers and facilitators projecting one's own flaws and inadequacies onto others instead of looking introspectively to work on one's own personal insecurities and issues of low self-esteem, etc. And aside from what might be some justified outrage at Mr. Lyons, the fact is that jealousy and resentment reign supreme in and amongst some who wished they occupied the mantle Mr. Lyons now does. Many of those may have infinitely more experience and expertise in film and/or writing about it and being published than the young, fresh-faced whipper-snapper Ben Lyons does. And again, one can understand their ire -- to an extent.
But why waste negative energy on Ben Lyons? Will that get you where you want to be? Leaving Ben Lyons alone might be a better idea, no?
As for me, I'm a film critic. I'm not the best. I'm not the worst. I don't profess to know everything about film. (About 20 years ago I happened to be in a room with American filmmaker Spike Lee when he said that the legendary director Akira Kurosawa once mentioned that at close to 80 years of age he didn't know half of what there was to know about cinema.)
I've never met Ben Lyons. I know of him, and his weekly show with Mr. Mankiewicz actually isn't the worst that American television has to offer. Have I seen quotes bearing Ben Lyons' name in movie ads? Yes. Does he review films and have a functional knowledge of them? In my humble opinion I believe he does. Is socializing with celebrities a bad thing? Hardly. Although it depends on which celebrity. (Don't worry -- I can already hear cries of "conflict of interest".)
At least Mr. Lyons apparently has a life of some sort -- and at least he appears sociable.
Did Mr. Lyons get the position he now occupies in part because he knows someone or has family who used to be in the film or media business or in film criticism? Yes. He's not the first film critic or person in any vocation or discipline to have done so due to nepotism or other connections. He won't be the last, either. On planet Earth, politics is everywhere. And who you know helps in many different facets of life.
Some will say it isn't fair. Some will say life isn't fair, either.
As we have seen all too often lately in the news in recent days and months, life is too short -- far too short -- and its end awfully, cruelly sudden.
So for all those who wish Ben Lyons would just disappear: take stock and confidence in your own skills and abilities and let your own light shine. Investing negative energy on someone else just keeps one upset, angry, hostile and limited in scope.
I say let Ben Lyons rise or fall on his own petard. Time will tell if Mr. Lyons has what it takes. The clock is ticking.
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