Roger and Chaz Ebert looking for other funding for their film reviews show.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/11/unless_we_find_an_angel.html

I'll repeat some of what I've said here in the past:
Yes, it's good that Roger Ebert put a film review show on television to take up the gap left when The Walt Disney Company guillotined AT THE MOVIES.

But, like the sad season of AT THE MOVIES when Ben Mankiewicz was shackled to shallow Ben (son of Jeffrey) Lyons, Ignatly the Intellect is handcuffed a la 39 STEPS to supersmiling-though-not-dumb Christy Lemire (essentially Richard "careerist" Roeper in drag).

And I don't understand why Roger and Chaz Ebert seem to have a weakness for too-eager-to-be-telegenic cardboard people like Lemire and Roeper.  Perhaps too much deference to TV execs who were likely in preschool when Roger won his Pulitzer Prize.

If the current Ebert show fails to find non-Ebert money to produce and dies a premature death, all one can say is to read Roger's very good autobiography LIFE ITSELF and seek out old clips of SISKEL AND EBERT in its various incarnations to see film criticism on television done right.

[UPDATE 11/11/11: Here's Chaz Ebert thanking viewers of EBERT PRESENTS for their support thus far: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/11/a_personal_message_from_chaz_e.html#more]

I've seen EBERT PRESENTS AT THE MOVIES. Here's my review.

http://www.ebertpresents.com/

Giving the show one thumb up for the Russian critic first-named Ignatly and one thumb down for the off-putting Christy Lemire of the Associated Press.  I don't know why Roger Ebert has a fatal attraction to aggressively telegenic personalities such as Lemire and Richard Roeper.  Unlike Roeper, Lemire at least doesn't give off the odor of "I don't really like movies but this is a boss career move."  But Lemire is yet another TV "personality" that has obviously been trained by image consultants to smile just about every time she delivers a line of copy on-camera.

Thumbs down for Roger's use of ubertraditional news broadcaster Bill Kurtis as his substitute speaking voice; I'd prefer someone a bit more brash-sounding like, say, Patton Oswalt or Michael Moore.

Thumbs up for using old SISKEL AND EBERT clips during the closing credits.

Final Verdict: Substitute either Lisa Schwarzbaum (ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) or Ben Mankiewicz (who survived the Ben-and-Ben AT THE MOVIES with professional dignity) for Lemire and Roger Ebert will have a more viable film-review series than what can now be seen on public television stations nationwide.

Roger and Chaz Ebert revive AT THE MOVIES with new hosts.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/pages-for-twitter/roger-ebert-presents-at-the-moe.html

It's good to read that Roger Ebert has resurrected AT THE MOVIES--to air on PBS in January.  As for the on-air talent: Christy Lemire of the Associated Press is less glib than Richard Roeper, but still mainstream-movie-friendly.  Elvis Mitchell (known both for his print career and NPR hosting) is a welcome idiosyncratic choice to fill the other chair.

At the very least, it will be a vast improvement on the Ben Lyons/Ben Mankiewicz version of AT THE MOVIES.  Hoping there will also be room for A.O. (Tony) Scott and Michael Phillips to revive their recently-canceled-by-Disney double act.

Roger Ebert on film criticism making way for more celeb gossip.

Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog for alerting me to the following blog entry from Roger Ebert about the latest blow to film criticism--the Associated Press wanting its film-related articles to be no longer than 500 words: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html

Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).

The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.