The Hot Blog

Wow. This thread is gonna do 200 comments. Easily.

Is it just me or does the Grand Jury Prize winner of the International Shorts Competition sound like a "Tropic Thunder"-esque parody of a foreign film?

I know why no one cares. Because Ben Lyons was on the jury.

http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=festivals&Id=2222

Wow... I would have quite abusive to my friends at AFI had I known. I will have to make sure to be abusive soon.

You would have been? Good. FilmThreat must have an exclusive on the list -- I'm serious about that.

BEN LYONS FUCKING OWNS.

Lex, grow a pair of real ones. He's cheesy and he's celebrity. AFI is sucking up to cheesy celebrity. Rant all you want, this computer is going to sleep.

Nah, I was at a ton of AFI shit the last two weekends, and Lyons was hanging around and seemed like a really nice guy.

Obviously he's not Sarris or Kael but maybe he's just a cool guy? What's wrong with that?

Anyone I threw him a thumbs up and told him he fucking OWNED.

We all know you want something from the cheesy celebrity, unqualified, untalented film critic, Ben Lyons. Shame on AFI. They, and all festivals, are on notice to treat composition of juries like public info, post it on their website and put it in press releases.

You got me all confused with commas. The unqualified, untalented film critic Ben Lyons. That's his official name now.

No, T Holly... list was on the press release to everyone... I just didn't see a need to post the whole thing on here... and frankly, didn't look. The idea that AFI has a jury is always a surprise to me.

It's funny, because we saw QU Ben Lyons at some AFI thing and laughed, since he clearly had no business attending a film fest, much less judging one. We thought he was there for the red carpet, actually.

You kind of make the point Dave. They shouldn't be playing hide the jury. It's still not on the website and it's not here:

http://blog.afi.com/afifest/index.php/2008/11/09/afi-fest-award-winners-announced/

And please, why wouldn't it have a jury? You don't want prizes and a festival narrative? Plus, what's QU?

I kept thinking GQ Ben Lyons, but then it dawned on me: Quote Unquote Ben Lyons a/k/a the unqualified, untalented film critic.

LexG, you should approach him to speech write for him.

No one is trying to "hide" the jury. Traditionally, I include the jury members' names in the final press release for a film festival (AFI FEST, AFI DALLAS, IFFLA, etc.) because it is is rare that anyone really considers it "news" until that time (when the winners are announced). And, the truth is - even then, that information is rarely (if ever) actually included in any coverage of festival awards.

And the press release will be posted on the website (as they all are) - we're just a little behind since the festival just ended last night.

Don't bust a gut. It's not like you picked him, you're just the PR guy. And I have news for you, unless they're sequestered, the composition of juries is news the minute they're set. Festivals have guidelines about how jury members behave and it's easy to imagine what they are.

Hope that clears up my argument for transparency in jury composition. It's honorable to serve and should be open to scrutiny to ensure it's inscrutable.

I don't know that he ever has or ever will read The Hot Blog (or reads at all), but I have a very strong sense that Ben Lyons would be a LexG fan.

Hey, I wonder if Lyons has a blog!!! If so, I should OWN UP over there.

I'm certain that if you made crib notes for him he'd sound smarter.

What's that site that does Critic Watch and disses Lyons every week?

They missed one of his finer moments, when he reviewed that Stuart Townsend/Charlize Theron movie about the WTO protests in '99 (Battle in Seattle, I think?). Lyons' review was pretty glowing, which is fine, but he amusingly kept talking about the movie as being educational, and the event itself as being this obscure, important, epic, long-ago passage in our nation's history, like it was about the Battle of 1812 or something, instead of like, oh, eight-nine years ago.

You really could ghost write better for him than he can do speak for himself. It's too bad he's not more handsome, because then he could drop the whole criticism thing and just do appearances and hostess jobs.

Past my do bed time.

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