“Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies,” a weekly half-hour film review program, was announced today by its producers, Chaz and Roger Ebert. The program continues the 35-year-old run of a reviewing format first introduced by Gene Siskel and Ebert and later by Ebert and Richard Roeper.

It will return to its birthplace, launching nationally on public television with presenting station WTTW Chicago, where it began in 1975 as “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You” and then in 1976 as “Sneak Previews,” became the highest rated entertainment show in PBS history. The original format moved into syndication as “At the Movies” in 1982 with Tribune Entertainment and a quarter-century with Buena Vista Television.

The Eberts said the new program will air in January 2011, and in addition to reviewing new movies will expand into coverage of New Media, special segments on classics, on-demand viewing and genres, and an extended website. It will use the copyrighted “Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down”® format made famous by Siskel & Ebert.

The program’s principal co-hosts will be Christy Lemire, film critic of The Associated Press, and Elvis Mitchell of National Public Radio. Lemire began reviewing for AP in 1999 and was named its first full-time film critic in 2004. She is a Los Angeles native with a mother who loved Fellini and a father who loved Bogart. Mitchell is a former film critic for The New York Times and a contributor to NPR. He hosted the highly-regarded “Black List” series on TCM, a series of living portraits with prominent African Americans of many backgrounds.

OMG! CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT? (Head falls off. Body buries itself in the ground. Someone needs a nap.)