TV's all-thumbs film critics featured on Web site: More than 5,000 movie reviews by Siskel, Ebert are available

CHICAGO - Thanks to the Web, the balcony will never close.

Clips of movie reviews from the TV show that made the thumb themost prestigious of digits are being posted online. More than 20years of televised reviews by newspaper film critics Roger Ebert andthe late Gene Siskel and columnist Richard Roeper will be availablebeginning Thursday at the Web site www.AtTheMoviesTV.com.

The site is touted as the largest collection of video-based moviereviews online. Searchable by movie title, director or actor, itfeatures about 5,000 lively - sometimes very lively - discussions ofmovies that always end with the reviewers'"thumbs up" or "thumbsdown" evaluation.

"For years, this was a dream," Ebert said in a statement.

"Now I am exhilarated that it is a reality, thanks to the enormouseffort of digitizing something like 1,000 programs."

Visitors to the Web site can see just how often Siskel, theChicago Tribune's film critic, and Ebert, his counterpart at theChicago Sun-Times, disagreed and how passionately they did so on"Siskel & Ebert at the Movies."

They also can watch "Ebert & Roeper," the show Ebert and the Sun-Times columnist have taped since 2000, the year after Siskel's death.

The site includes recent shows featuring Roeper and guestreviewers, such as Jay Leno and New York Times film critic A.O.Scott, who have appeared while Ebert recovers from serious healthproblems.

"It is always fascinating to go back and see what was being saidabout a film before it opened," Ebert said.

The 65-year-old Ebert has had a series of surgeries in recentyears, including a tracheostomy, which left him unable to speak.

He has written that he is waiting for another operation that hehopes will restore his speech.

Since last summer, Ebert has not appeared on "Ebert & Roeper."

But he has written some reviews in the Sun-Times, where he hasbeen the film critic since 1967 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.