Last week, Disney-ABC Domestic TV formally announced the cancellation of “At the Movies,” the final iteration of the long-running syndicated TV show that began as a showcase for the dialogue between Chicago film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. Disney’s announcement ran as follows:
After 24 seasons with us in national syndication, the highly regarded movie review show “At the Movies” (formerly known as “Siskel & Ebert” and “Ebert & Roeper”) will air its last original broadcast the weekend of August 14, 2010. This was a very difficult decision, especially considering the program’s rich history and iconic status within the entertainment industry, but from a business perspective it became clear this weekly, half-hour, broadcast syndication series was no longer sustainable. We gratefully acknowledge the outstanding work of the program’s current co-hosts, A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, and top-notch production staff, and it is with heartfelt appreciation that we extend very special thanks to the two brilliant, visionary and incomparable critics that started it all, Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel.
In the wake of this announcement, Roger Ebert has revealed that he plans to resurrect the show in a new format, to be called “Roger Ebert presents At The Movies.” The show will be produced by Ebert and his wife Chaz.
Ebert does not plan to make regular appearances on the show himself. He lost the use of his voice as a result of surgery for thyroid cancer, and now, rather like Stephen Hawking, is able to communicate vocally only through the use of a laptop computer, which converts his keystrokes into electronically generated spoken words.
Until recently, Ebert, like Hawking, was forced to relay on a generic, artificially-generated voice that sounded a bit like an android whine in an old sci-fi film. Fortunately, a recent software advance, which synthesizes word sounds based on recordings of Ebert’s own voice, now allows him to sound much like his old self. He recently demonstrated this device on Oprah Winfrey’s syndicated TV show.
“At the Movies” had suffered a decline both in popularity and prestige in recent years. The initial slip occurred with the death of Gene Siskel, who died of brain cancer in 1999. The show stumbled through a long selection process to find a replacement, eventually settling on another Chicago critic, Richard Roeper. This pairing seemed to stabilize the show’s fortunes, even as the growth of the internet made a multiplicity of film reviews easily accessible to mainstream audiences.
In 2002, Roger Ebert first began treatment for tumors on his thyroid and salivary glands. He was able to continue working until 2006, when additional complications necessitated emergency surgery which cost him the use of his voice. He retired from appearing on the show at that time.
A number of long-term guest hosts filled in for Ebert, until 2008 when Richard Roeper left the show. At that time, Disney brought in a fresh team, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. This team never caught on with the public, and they were replaced by A. O. Scott and Michael Phillips in 2009. This final pairing lasted barely a year before Disney decided to pull the plug on the whole franchise.
In starting his new venture, Ebert plans to do more than simply fashion a reasonable copy of the original show. He plans to focus more on smaller indie films than before, and he plans to modernize the show by exploiting new media as much as possible.
On his website, Ebert recently elaborated on his plans for the new show:
We’ll…go New Cinema. Not just the One Weekend Wonders, although you gotta have ‘em, but indie films, foreign films, documentaries, restored classics, the new Herzog, the new Bahrani, the new Almodovar. What’s new on Instant Streaming. What great movies should everyone see? Hey, Paramount just announced $1 million for ten $100,000 movies. Those kinds of films. What kind of a real movie lover cares who has the “exclusive” first trailer in the newest extrusion of the “Transformer” franchise? It’s time to smarten up.
One of the most appealing elements of the original Siskel & Ebert show was the ability of the two hosts to create an amalgam of critical intelligence and mainstream enthusiasm in their appreciation of cinema. They were serious without being pretentious, and their dialogues often seemed like a cross between one of Pauline Kael’s New Yorker reviews and a Laurel & Hardy comedy routine. In fact, it was the latter element that led some of the more blue-nosed critics to dismiss them, but the favor they lost with academic types was more than compensated for by approval with the general public.
Ultimately, it was their natural enthusiasm that viewers were attracted to, and one hopes that Roger Ebert will be able to capture the same lightening in a different bottle with the new show. Ebert will announce the identity of the new host soon.
