Fan Fare

“At the Movies” goes dark

The latest movies from Sylvester Stallone, Julia Roberts and Michael Cera will forever be remembered by film buffs as the last to be reviewed on the weekly TV show “At the Movies,” which ended its influential 35-year run this past weekend. Syndicator Disney announced in March that it was canceling the show because it no longer made financial sense to produce.

The show, originated by rival Chicago newspapermen Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, brought film criticism to mainstream America. The two scribes passionately debated each other on the merits of Hollywood blockbusters and small art-house releases, making or breaking movies with their trademarked (literally) thumbs-up and thumbs-down recommendations.

The swan song episode replayed some of those moments: Siskel lavishing praise on the documentary “Hoop Dreams,” and the duo almost coming to blows over such long-forgotten films as the Burt Reynolds comedy “Cop and a Half.” In one notable sequence, Siskel changed his thumbs-up on “Broken Arrow” to a thumbs-down, after being swayed by Ebert’s distaste for the John Travolta thriller.

Siskel and Ebert jumped from local public television to national syndication in 1986. Siskel died in 1999 and was eventually replaced by columnist Richard Roeper. An ailing Ebert stepped down in 2006, and Roeper reviewed movies with a succession of guests for two years. Two of them, A.O. (Tony) Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune (at left in picture with Scott), rescued the show in 2009 after an ill-fated restructuring with a pair of lightweight critics sent ratings into a freefall.

Phillips recalled working in a factory in 1980 with people who saw their first subtitled films because of the show. “It mainstreamed film criticism and it brought up a different audience into all kinds of specialty and arthouse and foreign-language (movies) they would not have otherwise seen,” he said.

“It democratized it,” added Scott. “It opened it up, to the point that now you have the noise and argumentation of the Internet where you have a hundred flowers blooming in angry contention.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, Scott noted. “It’s about everybody getting together and having a focal point for an argument.”

Theoretical “thumbs up” for relaunch of “At the Movies”

Many of the movies entering theaters in the next few weeks may be forgettable afterthoughts unfurled on the post-summer masses, but at least some of the reviews promise to be memorable now that a pair of veteran critics are back at the helm of the influential TV show “At the Movies.”

The series, a descendant of the longtime vehicle for Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel, relaunched at the weekend with familiar faces Michael Phillips (right) of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. (Tony) Scott of the New York Times.

While comfortable on the screen, their mild-mannered personalities tended to cancel each other out. Politeness and consensus ruled as the cerebral duo joined every other critic on the planet in trashing Sandra Bullock’s “All About Steve,” and then heaped praise on Mike Judge’s “Extract.” Even when they offered differing recommendations, on the Patton Oswalt drama “Big Fan,” it turned out that they were more or less on the same page anyway. Perhaps the contents of the untouched coffee cups separating them on the austere set need a little spiking.

Speaking of recommendations, the “see it,” “rent it” and “skip it” designations remain. The show is unable to use the famous “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” assessments, which are controlled by Ebert and the Siskel estate.

“At the Movies” slid into irrelevance in the past year after syndicator Disney installed a pair of fresh-faced critics quickly branded as lightweights. The studio had taken the dramatic step after failing to reach a new contract with Ebert, who has not appeared on air since leaving in 2006 to undergo thyroid surgery that has since robbed him of his voice.

In his absence Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper, who came aboard after Siskel died of a brain tumor in 1999, kept the flag flying with a series of guest co-hosts, including Phillips and Scott. The revolving door kept things fresh, and tensions occasionally surfaced when the opinionated Roeper shut down his less-polished guests: Perhaps an edgier third critic, such as Roeper or former guest host Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer, would restore a gladiatorial tone to the show.