GOOD-BYE TO A CLASSIC.

By now, any of you who needed to know already do know: At the Movies is officially at the end.  Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have left the show that Ebert started so many years ago with fellow Chicago film critic Gene Siskel.   While Ebert himself hasn’t even been on screen in some months, I always clung to the hope that he would come back any day now.  Then again, a part of me still clings to the same hope about Gene Siskel, and he died in 1999.  (Read here, Ebert’s memorial to his late friend.)

Ebert vows that he and Roeper will return to television elsewhere, and I look forward to that day.  For now, we can all  click here and read Ebert’s own poignant salute to the iconic show he helped create.  I am happy to say that Ebert continues to write with trademark eloquence and wit, but of course, why wouldn’t he?   I encourage everyone to take a look at the article.  It’s worth reading more than once.  Also recommended are all the comments below Ebert’s writing, where so many of his fans give him and At the Movies a much-deserved salute. 

In addition, at the end of the article, there’s some outstanding Grade A video footage of Ebert and Siskel sniping at each other while cutting promos together.  Required viewing.  It says volumes about Roger Ebert that he posted these videos, where you can see Gene Siskel utter a true gem: “… that’s this week on Siskel.  And Ebert.  And the movies.  And the asshole.  And that’s Roger.”    And then later, they are laughing.

I really miss that show.

From Ebert’s goodbye to At the Movies:  One thing we never did, apart from an occasional special show, was depart from the format: Two critics debating the week’s new movies. No “advance looks” at trailers for movies we hadn’t even seen. No celebrity interviews. No red carpet sound bites. Just two guys talking about the movies. At one point, our show and two clones were on the air simultaneously. Then we were left alone again: The only show on TV that would actually tell you if we thought a movie was bad. There was one improvement; we retired Spot (and his successor, Aroma the Educated Skunk) to free up a segment for another review. I remember when we jumped to commercial syndication at Tribune Entertainment, and our new producer Joe Antelo, backed us in reviewing movies by Fassbinder, Truffaut, Herzog–”those guys. Where else they gonna hear about them?”

Did Gene and I hate each other? Yes. Did we love each other? Yes. Somehow an outtake from a promo session has found its way on YouTube, where in a single take you can see us bitterly sniping at one another and then happily joking together. It was like that. “You have the entire staff in terror of you,” I told him. “That’s funny,” he said. “That’s what they tell me about you.” We were both terrible to work with. And great to work with.

~ by Aaron Saylor on July 26, 2008.