Shawn Edwards loses crown as whoriest movie critic

By Justin Kendall in Media

Mon., Jan. 5 2009 @ 3:03PM

Sadly, Shawn Edwards has fallen from the heights of 2007's Whore of the Year. Criticwatch has named a new whore and it isn't Fox 4's hyperbolic man at the movies. It's some tool named Mark S. Allen.

Edwards finished a stunning fourth, placing in the top five for a magnificent sixth consecutive year, with an eye-popping 23 review quotes in movie ads in 2008.

"He is the proverbial cockroach that seemingly can't be stopped," writes Critcwatch's Erik Childress. "He shrugs us off in interviews, continues to play a racial bias no matter how ordinary or downright awful a film is and is simply downright shameless."

Fact-check note to Childress: Edwards' great defender is Hearne Christopher, not "Christopher Hearne." And the spiky-haired skeletor isn't with The Kansas City Star anymore. He's a blogger -- if he ever launches the thing.

Anyway, Edwards' status as a whore -- amazingly analyzed in this instant classic by the outrageous and hilarious Alan Schersthul -- may be facing a new challenge. A week ago, The Los Angeles Times wondered if up-and-coming quote whore Ben Lyons is America's most hated critic.

In the LA Times piece, Childress lashes Lyons -- son of film critic Jeffrey Lyons and the new co-host of "At the Movies" (see Siskel & Ebert) -- much in the same way Edwards gets scrutinized: lacking knowledge of movies, kissing celebrities' asses and shilling for films so the movie companies quote him on posters.

I e-mailed Edwards to get his genuine take on Lyons, but he never responded. Maybe he was at the movies. -- Justin Kendall