According to the Internet Movie Database:
Some 5,000 movie reviews by film critics Roger Ebert, Richard Roeper and the late Gene Siskel will be available on the Internet beginning Thursday at http://www.AtTheMoviesTV.com. Ebert, who is currently unable to speak following a tracheostomy two years ago, issued a statement on Tuesday saying, “For years, this was a dream. … Now I am exhilarated that it is a reality, thanks to the enormous effort of digitizing something like 1,000 programs.” The site will also feature recent reviews from guest critics who have filled in for Ebert since his recent operations.
Long before the Web made criticism more (small-d) democratic and back when there was a movie industry that consistently made product worth watching, Siskel & Ebert did a pretty good job at putting their politics on hold and pumping out middlebrow and middle-of-the-road review after review each week. Scrolling through the archives online here, it’s been very interesting to see what films they both panned (two thumbs down for The Color of Money? With that terrific Oscar-winning performance by Paul Newman?) or one of them panned (Ebert gave a thumbs down to Full Metal Jacket). Which also points out the limitations of a binary thumbs up/thumbs down approach, as opposed to say ratings films from one to four stars.
I’m quite happy that there are now review sites such as Libertas, Blogcritics, and hundreds of other sites offering opinions for every ideology, but since the world didn’t begin in 2002, it’s great to see Siskel & Ebert’s legacy archives online as well.
(And hopefully as the site moves forward they’ll attract more sponsors than American Express. Hearing Amanda Congdon
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