Oh, Disney.

Via The Chicago Tribune:

Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert and columnist Richard Roeper are cutting ties with the TV franchise that Disney-ABC Domestic Television has syndicated nationally for 22 years.

Each cited major changes they say Disney plans to make to the movie-review program that for three decades has forced filmmakers and studio executives on both coasts and beyond to pay heed to judgments of their work in Chicago, the heart of flyover country.

I never manage to remember when the show is on, and so I rarely watch it on purpose — but that isn’t the point. The point is that whatever Disney’s doing, it’s so unpleasant that both men are leaving. The other point is that while sometimes I’ve been utterly perplexed by Ebert, at others — and especially recently — I’ve found his gentle touch and strong personality completely absorbing. (You just have to read him online, not in the seemingly chopped up versions that appear in some print outlets.)

Ebert’s statement is here; Roeper is quoted at length here. I don’t even like Roeper, not one whit, and I’m still sad.

And ineloquent, too. Why does it have to be a Tuesday today?

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