Roger Ebert can't remember the last thing he ate. He can't remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn't happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory - it wasn't as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz's ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren't they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

I am at last returning to the movie beat. After my current stay at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, I'm looking forward to opening night of my annual film festival at the University of Illinois on April 23, and I will resume writing movie reviews shortly thereafter.

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.

But I still have all my other abilities, including the love of viewing movies and writing about them. And at my side I have my angelic wife, Chaz. The festival is shaping up well. Thanks to festival director Nate Kohn, the schedule, which is already released at ebertfest.com, includes appearances by filmmaker and U. of I. graduate Ang Lee; directors Paul Schrader, Sally Potter, Tom DiCillo, Bill Forsyth and others.

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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. So that's the latest. I have been so moved by the messages I've received from so many of you. Thank you. Now let's go to the movies.

Ebert, who is negotiating a new contract with the syndicated TV show's distributor, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, is a copyright holder on the signature "thumbs up-thumbs down" judgment that's part of each film review. He has "exercised his right to withhold use of the 'thumbs' until a new contract is signed," the Walt Disney Co.-owned company said in a statement released Friday to The Associated Press. Health problems have kept Ebert from appearing on the show for more than a year, with guest hosts filling in. In the new season starting this weekend, co-host Richard Roeper will be joined for the first few months by movie critic Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer.

Two episodes have been filmed so far without the catchy thumb assessment, which has become a staple of movie marketing and, in turn, a big part of the show's influence. Major releases including "Superbad" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" boast in newspaper ads published Friday of receiving "two big thumbs up" from the show, and at least five other films cite their favorable thumb treatment.

Ebert, 65, holds the copyright to the critique with the estate of Gene Siskel, his original co-host. Ebert, a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and Siskel, who was at the rival Chicago Tribune, launched the show in 1975. Siskel died in 1999.

I have always believed in full disclosure. When I announced that I had a recurrence of salivary cancer that required surgery, I had no idea when I went into the hospital on June 16 that I would still be here on August 16.

On June 16 they removed the cancer in my right jaw area, including a section of my jaw bone. It was successfully reconstructed. On July 1, I was packing to leave the hospital when my blood vessel ruptured. We have since learned that the rupture was caused by a break down of tissue surrounding the artery as a result of radiation treatments I had three years ago.

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I am happy to report that despite all, I am doing well. I started physical therapy, I communicate with friends on a daily basis, I play my iPod and listen to songs with Chaz and the doctors and nurses, and I write. Don Dupree, the Executive Producer of Ebert & Roeper installed a plasma TV and DVD player in my room. I am going to watch "Half Nelson" and I hope Kevin Smith was right. I also thank my good friend Jay Leno for sitting in my chair in my absence, and, of course, thanks to Richard Roeper.

I thank all of you for your prayers, your well-wishes, your gifts, cards, e-mails and flowers. I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't tell you when, but I sure look forward to being back on the movie beat.

Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert, who has battled cancer in recent years, will undergo cancer surgery again, according to a published report. In Thursday's Chicago Sun-Times, where Ebert has been the movie critic for nearly 40 years, columnist Robert Feder reported that Ebert will have surgery June 16 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland.

"It's not life threatening, and I expect to make a full recovery," the 63-year-old critic and host of the nationally syndicated movie review show, Ebert & Roeper, told Feder. "I'll continue to function as a film critic during this time." Ebert has undergone cancer surgery three times before -- once in 2002 to remove a malignant tumor on his thyroid gland and twice on his salivary gland the next year.

But Feder reported that Ebert is not expected to require radiation treatment as he did when he underwent the previous procedures. "This is known as a slow-growing and persistent cancer," Ebert said. "You live with it." Ebert recently returned from the Cannes Film Festival in France. He said he plans to tape enough shows with Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper that the program will continue to air during his recovery.

Ebert's honor not only recognizes his enormous contributions to the world of cinema but also toasts the 30th anniversary of his groundbreaking television show, which was launched as Siskel & Ebert and continues today as Ebert & Roeper," co-hosted with his Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper. Before the unveiling of his star to the hundreds of fans and members of the media gathered on Hollywood Boulevard, Ebert stepped to the podium and thanked his wife, Chaz, other family members and a legion of Chicago friends who had traveled to Los Angeles for the ceremony. He then quickly explained the core reason that he cherished films and the art of cinema.

"When we are born, we are placed into a specific box, in a certain space and time," Ebert said. In his opinion, film is the one art form that most easily enables people to escape their own reality, "imagining what it is to live somebody else's life -- to be a different gender, live in a different time, to live in a different economic class. It is a truly liberalizing experience and makes people broader-minded as film makes it possible for them not to be just stuck being [themselves] day after day."

"Roger has been so instrumental in helping the world of independent filmmakers find an audience," said Virginia Madsen. "Filmmakers from all over the world anxiously await to hear what Roger thinks of their films. When [her Oscar-nominated] Sideways was first shown in Toronto [at the annual film festival], he was immediately a big supporter -- and that helped build the momentum for that film."