Richard Crouse

Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper are officially finito with their At The Movies gig.  So long guys – hello Ben and Ben… for now.

Truth is, young bucks Mankiewicz and Lyon are not going to be able to save the Disney/ABC venture, either.

Folks turn to the web anytime they want for their film reviews and trailers, rather than wait for a pre-determined time slot on the weekend.

The Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic influence brings attention to quick consensus rather than lingering individual analysis.  Film Comment will cover the details a few months down the road but the week before a film gets released, (many) movie goers want to know what a number of critics think the cake tastes like and not what any one of them may feel about the breakdown of the ingredients.

Heavens sake, this is an age where guys like Jeffrey Wells are giving their impressions of the first draft of scripts, let alone pontificating about the final product.

But as much as the Roger-Gene (then Roper) personality clashes and bitch sessions are about to become a memory, a more serious loss in the demise of Real To Reel, hosted for the past several years in Canada by Richard Crouse and Geoff Pevere.

For myself and others, their gift was in providing a terrific array of reviews and other information throughout so many years of the Toronto International Film Festival.  Sadly, Bell Globemedia shut Rogers Communications out of the TIFF press coverage material by flexing their sponsorship muscles and, by 2007, Richard and Geoff were unable to provide any real reports.

Addressing each other (rather than the camera) helped give the viewer a sense that they were ease-dropping on an intelligent but relaxed discussion rather that a glib observation or two delivered in a robotic monotone.

For those of you outside of Canada, this is an example of what will soon be missed.

Maybe they’ll come back in a few years on the web as the Canadian Film Geezers.