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by Lani

The balcony is open! I've felt a void in my life since the cancellation of At the Movies with Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott last August, so I am happy to report that Roger Ebert has resurrected the movie review TV show that made him famous - including the Thumbs! Due to his recent health problems which have left him unable to speak, Ebert will serve as a producer rather than co-host. The critics giving thumbs up or down each week are Christy Lemire, Associated Press, and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, mubi.com. Other critics, including Ebert, will also provide weekly segments about classic movies, the entertainment industry, and indie films. You can check for showtimes in your area on the Ebert Presents website.

One of the new releases reviewed on the first episode of Roger Ebert presents At the Movies is No Strings Attached, a romantic-comedy starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher as friends who attempt to have a relationship based on emotion-free sex (the essence of romance, no?). Portman's character is a doctor, one of the eight career options for modern rom-com heroines identified in this amusing slideshow by New York Magazine.

Also, amusing? Kevin Costner's array of cinematic accents, from "Massachusetts on steroids" to "just woke up from a nap twang," also courtesy of New York Magazine.

And finally, the 20/20 Awards are back! This Seattle-based revisionist awards ceremony looks back at the films released twenty years ago and decides, with the benefit of hindsight, whether the Academy got it right when awarding that year's Oscars. Looking over the list of Oscar nominees from 1991, it is a bit shocking to see how many nominations were given to Ghost and The Godfather III. Dances with Wolves won best picture and best director for Kevin Costner (though not best actor, maybe it was the accent?). However, I suspect that the 20/20 voters may reward infamous also-rans Goodfellas and its director Martin Scorsese.