8 Filmmakers Who Were Pissed Off By Movie Critics
3. Vincent Gallo Versus Roger Ebert
Vincent Gallo is famous for one movie, and one movie only: The Brown Bunny.
Released in 2003, the film achieved instant notoriety because of its unsimulated oral sex scene between actors Gallo (who also assumed writing, producing, editing and directing duties) and Chloë Sevigny. This moment sparked tons of heated ethical discussions that still persist to this day, but even if you put this controversy to one side, most critics agreed that the film, as a whole, just wasn't any good.
In fact, legendary critic Roger Ebert once called The Brown Bunny the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, and it was Ebert's criticism of the movie that sparked a bitter, long-running feud between him and Gallo.
Responding to Ebert's "worst film ever" criticism, Gallo called the critic "a fat pig with the physique of a slave trader", while also adding that he hoped Ebert would get cancer and die. For good measure, Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert's friend Gene Siskel, who had passed away in 1999.
Ebert then retorted that a colonoscopy video would be more entertaining to watch than The Brown Bunny, which Gallo did eventually admit was a funny response.
Even though the pair did ultimately make peace, Gallo recently started attacking Ebert once again, long after the critic's death in 2013. In 2018, Gallo claimed that Ebert was a highly disruptive presence at The Brown Bunny's initial press screening, and that Ebert should've been banned from all subsequent Cannes screenings as a result.
Hey Mr. Gallo: 17 years later, it's probably a good time to let this one go.