“Roger Ebert presents At The Movies”
Per Cinematical, this is terrific news:
When it was time to erase the mess that was Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz in At the Movies, Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott were brought on as replacements. While it was, indeed, a better critical mix, it was once again two white dudes who could deliver the same sort of vibe as Siskel and Ebert. Nothing new. No female critics; no racial diversity.
Well, as we shared last March, Roger Ebert took the final cancellation of At the Movies as a sign to make his own review program, Roger Ebert presents At the Movies. Ebert’s Sun Times journal has now offered up the details on the weekly review program scheduled to kick off in January of 2011 on PBS. The principal co-hosts of the show will be Christy Lemire (AP) and Elvis Mitchell (NPR). They’ll be joined by “regular contributors and occasional co-hosts” Kim Morgan of MSN and Huffington Post (who a few of our readers picked as a female alternative to Phillips and Scott last year), and Omar Moore, a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. Now Ebert’s the only white dude in sight. And yes, that means he’s returning to the screen.
These are the faces of the new At the Movies, and I’m very impressed with the selection.
Me, too. Been listening to Elvis Mitchell for years on KCRW’s excellent series “The Treatment”. Kim Morgan is great on HuffPo. But the main thing is Roger Ebert. I finished grad school in 1978, the same year that the Siskel & Ebert show “Sneak Preview” went national on PBS, so given all my post-academic free time, I got into the habit of watching “Sneak” every week and then their syndicated “At the Movies with Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert.”
Of the two, I liked Ebert better. It seemed to me that Ebert went into a movie genuinely wanting to like it, which is where I come from, as opposed to Siskel who felt more like a dilettante and was often dismissive of commercially successful movies. Of course, my views might be slightly affected by the fact that Ebert gave both K-9 and Alaska thumbs-up, while Siskel gave them both a thumbs-down.
Here is a demo of the upcoming, relaunched “At The Movies”:
How about you? Were you fans of Siskel & Ebert? Which was your favorite? And while we’re speaking of film critics, who’s your current favorite? I’ll go with A.O. Scott of the New York Times. How about you?
UPDATE: Here is the official announcement from the Chicago Sun Times.
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