Free Republic

In May of 2003 I walked out of the press screening of Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" at the Cannes Film Festival and was asked by a camera crew what I thought of the film. I said I thought it was the worst film in the history of the festival. That was hyperbole -- I hadn't seen every film in the history of the festival -- but I was still vibrating from one of the most disastrous screenings I had ever attended. The audience was loud and scornful in its dislike for the movie; hundreds walked out, and many of...

CANNES, France--The Affair of the Brown Bunny, one of the most astonishing episodes in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, took another turn Friday when director Vincent Gallo apologized for his film and said, "It is a disaster and a waste of time." Gallo's "Brown Bunny," which screened as one of three American entries in the official competition, was the lowest-rated film in the history of Screen International, the British trade paper that tabulates votes of a panel of critics. It was booed and laughed at during its screenings, there were countless walkouts, and its inclusion as an official...

Actor-director Vincent Gallo has denied apologising for his derided road movie The Brown Bunny - and dismissed US film critic Roger Ebert as a "fat pig" for saying that he did. On its recent unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was a contender for the Palme d'Or, Gallo's film was greeted by hoots of derision. The Brown Bunny stars Gallo as a brooding biker on a cross-country odyssey through the US, who finds himself haunted by memories of an ex-girlfriend (Chloe Sevigny). Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw labelled it "the most hysterical event in Cannes history", and said...