`EBERT AND ROEPER' SETTLING IN ON TV.(TV & RADIO)

Byline: STEVE JOHNSON Knight-Ridder News Service

The fuss in film-criticism circles over the elevation of non-critic Richard Roeper to one of the most influential jobs in the field has died down.

``Ebert & Roeper and the Movies'' has been on the air more than two months now, settled into its small portion of the TV landscape. Movie ads now talk about those famous ``two thumbs up'' coming from ``Ebert and Roeper,'' as if the moviegoing public has always wondered which way Richard Roeper's thumb might swing.

And the show is still a respectable half-hour of TV and still valuable, one of the very few programs about Hollywood that dares to challenge …