HOLLYWOOD — Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Roger Ebert declined to comment on film reviewer Ben Lyons. But he seemed to have had Lyons specifically in mind when he wrote a recent post on his Chicago Sun-Times blog titled “Roger’s Little Rule Book.”

It lays down Ebert’s “enduring ethical ground rules” governing movie criticism. Among them:

No posing for photos. Never ask a movie star to pose with you for a picture. You diminish yourself by asking for a snapshot.

A trailer is not a movie. (Lyons urged viewers to see the romantic thriller Twilight based on its trailer.)

Accept no favors. For example, if some “friends” throw you a birthday party at a Vegas joint they hope to fill with movie stars who are your “friends,” say thanks, but no thanks. That crosses the line, even if the “Britney Spears of Korea” truly is your close personal friend. (In October, Lyons celebrated his 27th birthday at Las Vegas nightclub Body English with a party attended by a number of C-grade celebrities including, you guessed it, BoA Kwon, who is sometimes identified as “the Britney Spears of Korea.”)

Keep track of your praise. If you call a movie “one of the greatest movies ever made,” you are honor-bound to include it in your annual Top 10 list. Likewise, if you describe a film as “the most unique [sic] movie-going experience of a generation,” and “one of the best films of 2007, and of the last 25 years,” it’s your duty to put it in the Top 10 of 2007. (The quotes come from Lyons’ appraisal of 300, which he then neglected to include on his year-end list.)

Ebert saves the best for next to last: Never allow the Internet Data Movie Base to describe your principal acting credit as “cohost of Siskel and Ebert” if you are neither Siskel nor Ebert. (The IMDB lists Lyons as cohost of the defunct show.)