Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were among my first real teachers.

Week in and week out, the owners of Chicago’s favorite thumbs educated me on how to direct my burgeoning love of film, providing me with a blueprint of how to not only quickly critically analyze the movies I might decide to soon see, but also apply another’s professional opinion to my own tastes and preferences.

They got their start on the local PBS affiliate in 1975, the film critics at the city’s two major newspapers squaring off on "Coming Soon to a Theater Near You." The show morphed into "Sneak Previews," and the rest of the nation began to get a taste of what those in the Windy City held dear when other PBS outlets picked up "Previews."

Contractual issues led to their departure from PBS in 1981, and the self-produced "At the Movies" was born, followed by "Siskel & Ebert & The Movies." After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued on with "Roger Ebert & The Movies," bringing in guests such as Pauline Kael, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich and fellow Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper, who would eventually move into Siskel’s chair for "Ebert & Roeper."

Now, with Ebert fighting health problems that have left him unable to speak, Roeper is the one hosting seat-warmers each week, with New York Times critic A.O. Scott, the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Wilmington and The Associated Press’ Christy Lemire among the most frequent visitors.

Still, Ebert - a Pulitzer Prize winner and the screenwriter of the campy 1970 Russ Meyer sexploitation romp "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" - is a vital presence on the program, and today, he’s unveiling an undeniably kind gift on the "Ebert & Roeper" Web site, offering a recently digitized archive of most of the reviews from the various incarnations of the show for free.

Unfortunately, little footage from the first decade of their television work still exists, as many masters of the early episodes were taped over or literally thrown in the trash. But from ’85 on, the famous rows and rare moments of mutual affirmation are there for all to see.

"For years this was a dream," Ebert wrote in a recent statement. "Now, I am exhilarated that it is a reality. … It is always fascinating to go back and see what was being said about a film before it opened. The disagreements, between me and Siskel and Roeper, will be fun to revisit, and even more exciting will be our sense of discovery when we find something like ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ ‘Fargo,’ ‘Hoop Dreams’ or ‘Monster.’ "

When I initially came to Columbia for school and returned a couple of years after graduation, one of my first priorities was finding out if and when I could fire up "Siskel & Ebert," which was perhaps my biggest comfort of home. The fact that I had to wake up at 6:30 a.m. every Saturday to catch it on KMIZ or set my VCR was hardly a hindrance.

These days, we can watch "Ebert & Roeper" here twice every weekend on KZOU - 5 p.m. Saturday and 10:30 a.m. Sunday. And with DVRs, Slingboxes and the availability of reviews on the Web, time slots really aren’t an issue anymore.

At 7 tonight at www.AtTheMoviesTV.com, Ebert will be conducting a live chat to usher in a new era on the Web.

Make sure to grab an aisle seat.

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