Review of Ebert & Roeper

Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have co-hosted their syndicated movie review show Ebert & Roeper since Ebert’s previous partner Gene Siskel passed away in 1999. In one name or another, the show has aired on television since 1976, but now you can forget your TV and get all the ticket buying advice you need online. Archived clips date back to September 2006 and new shows are added each week. Any film buff will tell you that these guys know their stuff – Roger Ebert has been watching movies for a living since 1967 – and it’s about time we were fed their valuable opinions in shorter, more accessible and easy–to-digest Internet-video form.     

Ebert and Roeper have never been movie snobs, thank goodness, and you will find reviews here on everything from Pan’s Labyrinth to the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While Ebert has sadly been out of commission for some time due to his battle with cancer, Roeper has been rotating a slew of intriguing co-hosts, including The New York Times resident film critic A.O. Scott and actor/director Kevin Smith. The latest reviews can be found on the site’s homepage, but the archived collection is easy to navigate to find all the box office hits and misses since Fall of 2006. There’s also a section covering what’s new on DVD. The Online Exclusives portion of the site includes a special Oscars video entitled “If We Picked the Winners” (INSERT HYPERLINK) – you can pretty much guess the theme here. The videos run about 5 minutes, just enough time to show a few clips from the actual movie and for each co-host to give the requisite explanation behind his thumbs up/thumbs down vote. And, after all this, if you’re still dying for a shot of film critic goodness in traditional form, use the handy Station Finder to enter your zip and find out when and where you can catch the show full screen, on television.

Where do I begin? Thank you, Ebert & Roeper, for encouraging me to see The Lookout – I always knew that cute kid from 3^rd Rock would make it big one day. And thank you again for confirming my suspicion that Premonition would indeed receive two big thumbs down. But perhaps one of the best bits is an online exclusive, featuring a solo Roeper discussing both the Borat lawsuits and the awesomeness of Daniel Craig as James Bond.  The only thing that would make this website better is a giant vat of buttered popcorn.