Reflecting on the lost critical acumen of one Ben Lyons:

“Over the years, Adam Sandler movies have grossed about 1.5 billion dollars at the box office and I expect this to be one of his biggest hits yet. See it.”

“Bryan Singer did a great job of balancing the intense scenes of dialogue with also moments where no one is speaking and that helped kind of build the tension at times.”

“I just love seeing a buddy film between two guys who you would never pair together.”

“The way in which they constructed Pitt’s facial expressions to match them to the bodies of smaller actors working with essentially giant blue socks on their heads worked seamlessly, brilliantly in fact and will be what the movie is most remembered for.” – his pick for the Best Movie of 2008, which will be remembered as the best for its use of short people wearing head socks.

This is a better-late-than-never move by ABC, as a mainstream weekly movie review show should still be viable with the right talent. Scott and Phillips are both respected, legitimate critical voices, if a tad too similar. But both are improvements on even longtime Siskel sub Richard Roeper, making this the best lineup the series has offered since the original, great S&E days. A Manohla Dargis / A.O. Scott show might have been more fun, but the Chicago-based production obviously felt the need to keep a Chi-town critic front and center.

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