Ebert brings back new version of 'At the Movies'

Producers Roger and Chaz Ebert announced Friday that the cutting-edge movie review TV show "At the Movies" will be resurrected in January on WTTW as "Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies."

Associated Press critic Christy Lemire and Elvis Mitchell of National Public Radio will take over as dueling critics bending their thumbs while reviewing newly released motion pictures.

Mitchell is the former film critic of The New York Times. Lemire works out of Los Angeles.

Except for a long and disastrous year when "At the Movies" employed The Two Bens - Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz - the TV show has always provided a Chicago perspective on the most popular art form in the world.

Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips was teamed with New York Times critic A.O. Scott when "At the Movies" finally died last month as a syndicated series under ABC.

In addition to Mitchell and Lemire, "Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies" will employ Los Angeles blogger Kim Morgan and San Francisco blogger Omar Moore as contributors to the program.

Like Ebert's original WTTW series "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You" with the late Gene Siskel in 1975, the new show will be a half-hour program produced by WTTW.

Ebert himself, who lost his voice after cancer surgery, will not participate in the on-camera debates.

He will, with help from a computerized voice program, contribute a segment called "Roger's Office" in which he will comment on classic, overlooked and new movies.

A pilot of the new program was shot in early summer at the new Tribeca Flashpoint Academy in Chicago.