CHAMPAIGN – In movie parlance, Chuck and Eileen Kuenneth of Chicago "met cute" in one of Roger Ebert's continuing-education film classes at the University of Chicago back in the 1980s.

Now they're married and in their third year of attending Roger Ebert's Film Festival at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign.

"We just kind of kick ourselves for not coming down earlier," Chuck Kuenneth said Thursday outside the theater. "We just love it. It's a reflection of Roger, and he's just great."

Chuck Kuenneth started taking Ebert's class in 1972, and Eileen joined it in 1980. "I just saw her in class and didn't know her and didn't start talking to her until 1985," Chuck said.

Both were film buffs and perennial students of Ebert, taking the class year after year. Their first date came in 1987. At the time, both were single; neither had ever been married.

"When we got married, we realized we both had two boxes of duplicate film books," Eileen Kuenneth said.

They tied the knot on April 28, 1991, with Ebert present. In turn, the Kuenneths attended Ebert and Chaz Hammelsmith's wedding in 1992.

Chuck Kuenneth said he and his wife would continue to take Ebert's class if the critic were able to teach. After complications resulting from salivary-gland cancer surgery last year, Ebert lost his ability to speak. He is now in Chicago recuperating from surgery following a hip fracture.

"Roger loves teaching that class and gets back as much as we do from him," Chuck Kuenneth said. "And I got a beautiful wife."