MOVIES: ‘Sneak Previews’ sneaks into the sunset

  Once upon a time — 1975, to be exact — there were two movie critics in that toddlin' newspaper town, Chicago. Gene Siskel wrote for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. To put it mildly, they didn't always get along. (I know — I witnessed more than a few of their squabbles in person during my college  years in the Chicago area.) But their differences were always edifying — and entertaining.
    That's how Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert became TV stars as well as movie critics. Chicago's PBS station teamed them  for a show that went national under the title "Sneak Previews." The show switched to Tribune Co. syndication in 1982 and Disney Television took over syndication in 1986.
  During that time, Gene and Roger made the phrases "Two thumbs up!" and "Two thumbs down!" (sometimes accompanied by the enthusiastic modifier "way up!" or "way down!") critical shorthand for a movie's inherent worth. Not exactly in-depth, of course, but listening to Gene and Roger debate a movie's relative merits (or demerits) provided a crash course in critical thinking — along with an essential dramatic tension that made for must-see TV.
  Sadly, Gene (who had been my mentor since I first met him in 1971, while I was still a high school student) died of a brain tumor, too young, in 1999, and while the show has never left the airwaves (it still airs locally on KVBC-TV, Channel 3), it's never been the same. Not when Ebert's Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper became his on-air partner, and certainly not when Ebert himself had to bow out following a  brave battle with cancer that has rendered him unable to speak.
  At long last, however, it's official: "At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper" (or whatever they're calling it these days) is finally ending its run. When Disney officials announced that they were taking the show "in a new direction," Ebert announced the end of his involvement; Roeper also has bailed on the nationally syndicated show, citing plans to host another movie review show. (Given Roeper's critical acumen, or lack thereof, we use the term "review" loosely.) His final appearance will be in mid-August.
  But don't count the thumbs out just yet — Roger and Gene's widow, Marlene Iglitzen, still hold the trademark to the phrase "Two thumbs up." And Roger promises the thumbs will return. So two thumbs up to that ...