“At The Movies” canceled after this season

Well, it has finally happened. Disney recently announced that the syndicated movie review program “At The Movies” will not be renewed after the current season ends. To be honest, I don’t see how it managed to hold on as long as it did.

Launched in the 1970′s by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, the weekly show featured the two film critics squaring off about their likes and dislikes among new movie releases. The opinions they offered for each movie was easy to understand – either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, and the pair often gave different opinions. The critics staffing the show have changed over the years, but the format has remained basically the same.

The problem with the critics on “At The Movies” has always been their inclination to give reviews that didn’t jive with the success or failure the films would ultimately find in the marketplace. Films that receive two thumbs down often turn out to be blockbusters while the ones the critics rave about often turn out to be flops. But with only a handful of people reviewing movies, those who paid attention to them had little choice but to watch the show even if it meant taking the opinions rendered with a grain of salt.

As with so many other media industries, the undoing of “At The Movies” came courtesy of the Internet. Nowadays all one has to do to find out how good a movie is is visit a couple of blogs where real people – lots of them – post reviews of their own. No longer are we stuck with the opinions of just two opinionated critics who make their living telling others what they will or won’t enjoy. Now, in a matter of minutes we can read a couple of dozen reviews by real people just like you and me. I ask you, which reviews are likely to be the most relevant?

And so it goes. “At The Movies” certainly had a good run, but in all the years that it has been on the air I have never watched more than a few minutes of any particular show. Why? I always found it hard to find any common ground between what I liked and what the critics liked. And apparently I wasn’t alone.