Posted by chicagomedia.org on April 24, 2009 at 14:47:18:
Ebert provides tiny sneak preview of new movies show
Phil Rosenthal | Chicago Tribune Media
April 24, 2009
Roger Ebert, who knows a thing or two about drama, has managed to build up a little suspense.
The esteemed Chicago Sun-Times film critic dropped a tantalizing teaser into an e-mail interview posted this week on Time.com.
"I'm pleased that Richard Roeper and I will be presenting a new movie review program, to be announced in the near future," Ebert said. "It will involve Richard, of the Chicago Sun-Times, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and Christy Lemire of The Associated Press."
The near-future apparently is not today, however. There's nothing to announce yet, they say.
But the prospect alone is welcome news for everyone who has come to the inevitable realization that Ben Lyons' opinions -- and Walt Disney Co.'s revamped "At the Movies," which showcases them on TV -- are utterly useless for anyone who expects more from movies than simply an opportunity to down a supersize box of Milk Duds in the dark.
Ebert and Roeper -- along with Phillips, a regular TV fill-in for Ebert, who has been sidelined since health issues robbed him of his voice in 2006 -- were divorced last year from Disney. For 22 years the company had syndicated the latest version of the movie review program Ebert launched with the Tribune's Gene Siskel back at WTTW-Ch. 11 in the 1970s.
Bob Iger's Disney brain trust apparently liked the way Lyons looked opposite Ben Mankiewicz, because that was the replacement duo, which made the absence of intelligent movie talk on TV in a weekly format only more deeply felt. That's what makes the potential of "Two Thumbs Up" returning to the air in some form such a relief.
It's been a big week for Ebert. His 11th annual film festival is under way in Champaign. Neighboring Urbana commemorated his childhood home with a bronze plaque. And he and his wife, Chaz, made a gift of $1 million toward creation of the Roger Ebert Program for Film Studies Fund at the University of Illinois, his alma mater.