TV Reviewers Assignment

(4 points)

There is a weekly movie review show called At The Movies that airs on KABC (channel 7) at 9:30 pm on Saturdays and 6:30 pm on Sundays in our area. It was started 30 years ago by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, both of whom wrote reviews for Chicago newspapers. After Siskel's death he was joined by Richard Roeper. Then Ebert was incapacitated by cancer and Roeper made do with guest partners for the last couple of years. Roger owns the old "thumbs up/thumbs down" trade mark and took it with him when he left. In 2008 Ben Lyon and Ben Mankiewicz took over the hosting duties because ABC wanted "to go in a different direction"--which is code for "they were looking for a younger audience."

Your assignment is to analyze one entire program (usually consisting of five reviews). Go to my Lecture #6, Critics & Criticism, and re-read the section entitled Reviews Today. Briefly identify a part of the program where each of the following elements of a review as described in the lecture are discussed. I left out the evaluative component since that is so obvious: "see it, rent it, skip it."

1. Descriptive

2. Interpretive

Give any one example of this component

3. Corrective

a) Pointing out weakness or flaws
b) Suggestion for improvement

4. Other

a) Evidence of ethical standards
b) How do Lyons and Mankiewicz differ as reviewers?

All you need to do is identify who is speaking, what movie they are discussing, and what they are talking about which illustrates each of the items above. (You can include any of the guest critics that appear

Example:

d) Character - Lyons said that the two title characters in Dumb and Dumber were poorly written stereotypes, but made him laugh anyway.

Be sure to review the lecture so you know what each of the items is referring to. It is possible that not all items may be covered in one program, but nearly all should be. Do your best. One or two sentences to identify each example should suffice. You only need one example for each item, not one example for each item from every film. Click here to see a sample paper.

You may review the program one of two ways. The first, and best, is to watch on Sunday or record it. The second is to go to their Web site, www.atthemoviestv.com, and listen to a recent week's program if it is archived on their home page. Be sure to listen to all the reviews from any given date, not just one. If it is not archived as an entire program, pick five movies they both have reviewed and listen to them. Avoid special shows such as "Best of" or Worst of."

Try to include something about each of the films they reviewed in your work. Put the date of the program at the top of your work, and indicate whether you watched on TV or on the Web. Be sure to answer all parts, and label each answer with its number and letter as in the example above. If you couldn't find an example, write "no answer" after the letter of the question--but too many "no answers" will lower your grade. Check your spelling and grammar, and send the assignment to me by the due date.

Tip: A student suggested that taping the show on TV allows you to repeat parts and use Closed Captioning to check spelling of unfamiliar names and words!

Note that when submitting the answer start the subject line with:

TH101DE -- YourFirst&LastName -- H-TV Reviewers