Roger Ebert may be late to the party – I posted about them more than two years ago – but I’m always happy to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain get some love. I’m still hoping they’ll do a US tour some time soon.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfK-UzQ48JE
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KZjnFZvCNc
With the demise of the syndicated, Disney-owned “At The Movies,” Roger Ebert is taking back the title to produce a new movie review series for public television, where Siskel & Ebert started with “Sneak Previews” many, many years ago.
This clip package, with excerpts from a dummy pilot episode, looks extremely promising. As an employee of an AP member newspaper, I’ve enjoyed reading Christy Lemire’s work for years, and I’ve heard Elvis Mitchell on NPR and seen him as a guest on various TV shows. They’re both top-flight film critics. And it’s great to have Roger Ebert presenting and contributing a segment to the program, even if that means a computer-synthesized voice. Roger is such a strong writer – and he’s only gotten better since his illness — that he can overcome the lack of inflection.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOKAhkrcZag
Still, I was sort of hoping for something with Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott, who hosted the syndicated program up until a few weeks ago and who, for me, were beginning to seem a lot like Roger and the late Gene Siskel in their heyday. And I still think Phillips and Scott might find their own berth somewhere, which would give everyone even more options and more reason to celebrate.
I did not realize that Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons had been replaced as hosts of “At The Movies,” the show formerly known as “Siskel & Ebert” and “Ebert & Roeper” before Roger Ebert’s thyroid cancer surgery left him unable to speak.
I like Ben Mankiewicz as a host on Turner Classic Movies, and I used to enjoy Ben Lyons’ father Jeffrey when he hosted a similar movie review show on public TV. But the Mankiewicz / Lyons version of “At The Movies” just didn’t seem to carry the same weight as Ebert & Roeper, much less Siskel & Ebert. The younger, hipper critics seemed to be performing as much as reviewing.
New hosts Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times took over (I now find out) in September, and from the episode I saw tonight they have much the same tone and outlook that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert brought to the program. They don’t seem to be trying to impress the viewer with how clever they are; they’re just passionate about movies and like talking about them in an intelligent way.
In addition to their regular movie reviews, they’ve apparently spent the past few weeks counting down their top 10 movies of the decade, and they revealed their top picks tonight. Scott’s, much to my delight, was “WALL-E.”
I’ll have to set “At The Movies” up on the DVR.
At Roger Ebert’s web site, over a review of “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″:
“Pardon me boys, is this the hijacked subway boo-boo?”
I nearly fell out of the chair laughing.