25 years and now the sequel. Margaret & David are back for 2012.

Margaret Pomeranz is struggling to come to terms with the outpouring of emotion for her years, all 25 of them, of reviewing cinema with David Stratton.

In the special that was recorded last week she even gets a bit teary at the end. When you’re being handed a bunch of flowers from Geoffrey Rush and there’s a standing ovation from an audience of industry peers, who wouldn’t?

“I did get a bit teary at the end and I was hoping it wouldn’t show. But I was overcome, I mean it’s such a big deal. There’s so much generosity from people and that always brings me undone,” she admits.

“It felt overwhelming. It’s hard to grasp what 25 years means –a quarter of a century! Recording the show did impact on me in a very strange and powerful way.

“But it was fun. Geoffrey and Cate (Blanchett) were such good sports about it and the audience seemed to enjoy it. It was a great night. I just hope audiences will enjoy it as much.”

Audience and Art are two of the driving forces in the reviews of Pomeranz and Stratton. She was his original producer at SBS until she was coaxed into joining him on screen. The pair had a whopping 18 years of The Movie Show until they left to join the ABC in 2005.

In tonight’s all too brief special, Blanchett and Rush “review” Margaret and David. There are some very funny bloopers and outtakes and they select their favourite Aussie and International films. Early footage from The Movie Show is also included.

“It was lovely of SBS to be so generous. Some of that stuff from the early days is truly embarrassing! The look, the hairstyles –one cringes!,” she laughs, in her trademark chortle.

Adding to the emotion of the night, two of her sons were in attendance.

“Felix is working on The Great Gatsby and they insisted he go, so I didn’t think he would be able to turn up on the night,” she explains.

“But it was lovely having them there. At least they didn’t think I embarrassed them. You know what children are like!”

But with all the affection it’s surprising the ABC didn’t offer up a sixty minute Sunday night slot. It’s not everyday you chalk up 25 years of television, and veteran presenters are even harder to come by. There’s not enough time to reminisce about some of their finest disagreements, such as Pomeranz giving Dancer in the Dark 5 stars and David Stratton zero stars.

But Pomeranz has no complaints, seemingly keen to end all the fuss.

“When it was over I thought ‘We’ve run way too short.’ I couldn’t believe that we’d done 29 minutes on the night,” she says.

“I’m slightly overwhelmed by the focus on us. Really, we’re just two people in front of the camera doing our job and it sort of seems a bit unfair to me that the people who work really hard behind the scenes don’t get that acknowledgement. We’ve had such great teams over the years and I said after the event that it’s like an accumulation of families.

“We’ve had such great kids come in who’ve been 21, keen as mustard, really love film and they’ve worked their butts off and achieved and now I look around and they’re wonderful producers in their own right. It’s just been the most exciting journey for a lot of people and for me, I’m like this mother who has seen her kids go through and become wonderful achievers in television.”

When she’s not on screen she’s happily ensconced down the front rows of a darkened cinema at another preview invite.

“I love early morning screenings because I’m used to it from the film festivals. The screenings there are always 8:30, 9:00. I love that you’re fresh and not carrying any baggage from the day,” she says.

“I like sitting down the front. I like being overwhelmed by the big screen. David likes to have a seat vacant next to him and I respect that. But we sit together and there are a group of critics that we all get along with and chat before the screening.”

She’s also been known to appear in the odd cameo (Priscilla: Queen of the Desert: “Blink and you’ll miss me”) and is a favourite of the gay community. “I don’t know why, it’s a mystery to me. Maybe it’s the earrings?”

She’s also been known to campaign against censorship, famously in 2003 when she was briefly detained by police at an attempted screening of the banned film Ken Park.

Pomeranz remains passionate about the Australian industry, or as she terms it, our ‘cottage industry.’

“There are so many talented people in the industry that can’t be sustained because of the lack of production. I don’t know how filmmakers eat,” she says.

“It’s years from the first to the second film. It’s no wonder that after their first film they head to Hollywood because the amount of time it takes to get another project up here is extraordinarily long. It would be great to see production happen on a much more regular basis because by the time they make their next film they’ve forgotten all the mistake they made on their first one.

“It’s like Television. You hone your act because you get to do it often. I noticed when I was producing that people who were on on a regular basis improved markedly rather than people who were on once a week or a fortnight. You need that practice to hone your craft.

“Television is now a highly-respected art form itself. You only have to look at The Slap to see that. The television series being produced in the States are a very high quality. No wonder significant directors are working in Television. Here a lot of directors are doing it because they want to put food in their mouths.”

In addition to the TV special, ACMI in Melbourne also has an exhibition acknowledging their 25 years together. With such a milestone achieved, it would be easy to think this duo might be ready to call it quits.

Not so.

“ABC want us to do another year and that’s lovely of them. We just go ‘You still want us?’ and they go ‘Yes we still want you.’ (ABC Managing Director) Mark Scott was extremely lovely the other night,” she says.

“I thought David might (want to quit) but he’s up for it and so am I.”

At the Movies: 25 Years of Margaret & David airs 10pm Wednesday on ABC1.