Free Republic

January 6, 2006 - Hollywood has a richly-deserved reputation as an extremely liberal town populated by celebrities who rarely hesitate to assail their audiences with their political opinions. Between bluffing that they'd leave the United States if Bush was elected (Alec Baldwin), demanding that he be impeached (Barbra Streisand), hosting Air America radio shows (Janeane Garofalo, Al Franken), consorting with Fidel Castro (Danny Glover) and making romantic movies about Stalinist mass-murderer and t-shirt icon Che Guevara (The Motorcycle Diaries), Hollywood has gotten quite fat suckling at the liberal teat. But just as there may be a few Britney Spears fans...

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...

Girls just wanna have fun - even the President's daughter. Barbara Bush put on quite a show when she stepped out Wednesday night with her "very good friend" Fabian Basabe, a preppy party-hopper dubbed one of the city's most eligible bachelors. They hit the dance floor at a swank soiree for fashion designer Jennifer Nicholson (daughter of Jack) at the Chelsea hot spots Sette and Viscaya. First Daughter Barbara wore a flouncy, cleavage-baring slip dress over jeans and high heels, while Basabe, son of an Ecuadoran businessman, had on a sweater and polo shirt. The 21-year-old Yale senior - who...

Vincent Gallo, actor, director and conservative, sounded like he’d just won something."I want to thank you guys for inviting me here today. It’s a big honor," he told the crowd of pearl- and pinstripe-wearing Young Republicans who had gathered to hear him speak at their monthly meeting on Jan. 15. With his shaggy hair, blue jeans, military-cut overcoat and stubbled face, Mr. Gallo looked about as natural in the ballroom of the Women’s National Republican Club on West 51st Street as a Beat poet at a 1950’s cocktail party in Cleveland.And yet he gushed: "In my whole life, no one’s...

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...

Hating Vincent Gallo A Right-Wing Ideologue in Bohemian Clothing By Bruce Benderson Photography by Vincent Gallo from SHOUT June/July 2002 I really want to hate you, Vincent Gallo. You're an uncontrolled ranter who spits out right-wing ideology. You use words like spic, dyke, Jew and commie in interviews. As a matter of fact, a journalist told me not to talk to you in person. He claimed you'd once punched an interviewer. Rumor has it that Anjelica Huston, your co-star in Buffalo 66, isn't even speaking to you. Still, I can't stop thinking about that scene in Buffalo 66, where you...