The balcony is open once again for Roger Ebert, who will return to his reviewing duties this month at the Chicago Sun-Times. This means, among other things, that at least one film critic will continue to be employed by a major metropolitan newspaper, which is nice. As David Carr reported in the New York Times, “critics at more than a dozen daily newspapers (including those in Denver, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale) and several alternative weeklies who have been laid off, reassigned or bought out in the past few years, deemed expendable at a time when revenues at print publications are declining, under pressure from Web alternatives and a growing recession in media spending.” (Carr also notes that “movie blogs are strewn about the Web like popcorn on a theater floor.” Hey! We resemble that remark!)
In any case, Ebert is returning to his word processor, but presumably not to his TV gig. In a letter published on the Sun-Times site, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic writes, “Are you as bored with my health as I am? I underwent a third surgery in January, this one in Houston, and once again there were complications. I am sorry to say that my ability to speak was not restored. That would require another surgery.”
Ebert has understandably had just about enough of surgery. He first went under the knife in 2002 in order to have a malignant tumor on his thyroid gland removed; surgery on his salivary gland followed, resulting in the startling change in his appearance. “I ain’t a pretty boy no more,” Ebert writes, quoting Raging Bull. “I am still cancer-free, and not ready to think about more surgery at this time. I should be content with the abundance I have.”
Included in that abundance is Ebert’s annual film festival, which will open at the University of Illinois on April 23. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “This year's festival will kick off with Kenneth Branagh's 70mm Hamlet from 1996, the only uncut, full-length film of Shakespeare's masterpiece. As with past editions, Ebert will select 12-14 films representing a cross section of genres and styles. There is no submission process, but they are films Ebert has screened in the course of his reviewing.” Naturally, the festival concludes with the presentation of the Golden Thumb.