In most professions, employees are required to sit through their entire shifts, no matter how bored they are. A soldier cannot walk away from the battlefield before the bullets stop flying and a white-collar employee working in an office cannot call it a day at 2 pm. However, the rules can be different when you are a Pulitzer Prize winner who happens to be the best in your job in the whole wide world. No one will care what time you clock in. Just deliver. And Roger Ebert did just that.
The famous critic admitted to walking out on a few movies, not because of an emergency, and not because he was tired. He simply felt these movies were too bad, hence they weren’t worth his time. We agree, Ebert. Time is precious and when a filmmaker doesn’t use their hours to create something good, why should you pay attention?
Are the movies as bad as Ebert thought? Be the judge.
6
‘Caligula’ (1979)
Release Date
August 14, 1979
Runtime
156 Minutes
Director
Tinto Brass
Gaius Caesar “Caligula” Augustus Germanicus was as despicable as dictators come. His rise and fall story is told beautifully (or rather shamelessly) in Caligulla, a film by avant-garde genius, Tinto Brass. Everything, from his unholy lust for his sister to his marriage to Rome’s most infamous escort, gets covered.
Belongs to Pornhub?
Like the Roman Emperor’s legendary parties, Caligula has lots of sex and nudity, so Roger Ebert, who had the moral compass of the typical American dad, was understandably disgusted. Despite the great performances of Peter O’Toole and Helen Mirren, he gave it zero stars, calling it “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash.”
Still, he persevered long enough. He confessed to walking out 120 minutes into its 170-minute length after feeling “disgusted and unspeakably depressed.” Well, the hate wasn’t widespread. Some famous figures enjoyed it. Leonardo DiCaprio recently cited the film as an influence on his performance as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
5
‘Tru Loved’ (2008)
Release Date
February 27, 2008
Runtime
99
Director
Stewart Wade
Writers
Stewart Wade
Tru Loved concerns Tru, a teenage girl from San Fransisco who has been raised by two lesbian mothers. Things become chaotic when her two mothers relocate to a more conservative suburb in Southern California. There, she befriends a closeted football player who asks her to pretend to be his lover to avoid suspicion.
Tru Hated
Admitting that you walked out of an LGBT-themed movie after eight minutes is not a good look, so Roger Ebert’s comments were very controversial. The backlash was so huge that Ebert watched the movie again. Interestingly, he still wasn’t impressed, awarding it one star out of four. He claimed that “the actors all have to deal with roles that are under- or over-written, and with characters that are one-dimensional stereotypes (the coach, the grandmother, both gay dad parents).”
4
‘The Statue’ (1971)
The Statue
Release Date
January 27, 1971
Runtime
84 minutes
Director
Rod Amateau
Writers
Denis Norden
Producers
Anis Nohra
Cast
-
Robert Vaughn
Ray Whiteley
What’s the best gift from a wife to a husband when he wins the Nobel Prize? Well, Alex Bolt (David Niven), a linguistics professor, is presented with a statue of himself by his wife, Rhonda (Virna Lisi). Except, the genitals don’t look like his. So he concludes that she probably modeled them after another man who she might be cheating with. Infidelity investigations thus commence in The Statue.
Who Knew Statues Could Cause So Many Problems?
Ebert couldn’t just understand what in the Nobel-winning madness was going on with The Statue. He felt the premise was silly, noting: “David Niven looking so uncomfortable you wish, for his sake, he were in another movie, or even unemployed. Anywhere except under those pigeons.” The Chicago Sun-Times columnist also felt that there was a better comedy movie hidden somewhere in the mess and if the director had tried hard enough, he would have found it. You’ll still laugh if you’re in the mood for comedy that’s lewd, rudimentary, and unabashedly infantile.
3
‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ (1973)
Release Date
October 23, 1973
Runtime
99 minutes
Director
Hall Bartlett
-
James Franciscus
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (voice)
-
Juliet Mills
Marina (voice)
-
David Ladd
Fletcher Lynd Seagull (voice)
Based on Richard Bach’s 1970 novella of the same name Jonathan Livingston Seagull follows a young seabird who gets cast out by his stern flock and goes on a mission to test the limits of his flying speed. The live-action drama film was made by filming actual seagulls and superimposing human dialogue on the scenes.
No Fun in Watching Birds Fly
Movies with anthropomorphic characters can be fun, but not Jonathan Livingston Seagull, according to Roger Ebert. The critic awarded it only one out of four stars, confessing that he had walked out of the theater after 45 minutes. He had harsh words too: “This has got to be the biggest pseudocultural, would-be metaphysical ripoff of the year.” It appears Ebert didn’t miss out on much since many critics also hated the movie, hence it only has an 8% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Interestingly, award show voters were at least partially impressed. The film was nominated for two Oscars: Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, while the soundtrack album earned Neil Diamond a Grammy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
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2
‘The Brown Bunny’ (2003)
The Brown Bunny is directed by Vincent Gallo, who also stars as a professional motorcycle racer riding from New Hampshire to California to compete again. He meets several women who he fornicates with, but memories of one former lover keep haunting him. Will he get her back in his life?
Beef Season
Ebert felt that Gallo just made pornography in the guise of cinema and that he should have just gone to the adult film industry instead of pretending to be an auteur. He claimed that “watching a colonoscopy video was more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny,” comments that didn’t go down well with the director, who clapped back, calling the critic “a fat pig with the physique of a slave trader.” Ebert then threw another diss, saying: “It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny.” Ouch! More entertaining than Kendrick Lamar Vs Drake.
1
‘Mediterraneo’ (1991)
Set during World War II, Mediterraneo concerns a small group of misfit Italian soldiers who are sent to an island of the Italian Dodecanese in the Aegean Sea on lookout duty, only to become stranded. Accepting their circumstances, they assimilate themselves with the locals.
Propaganda Movie?
Mediterraneo has memorable character interactions and outstanding cinematography. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Interestingly, Ebert felt it was “utterly without redeeming merit.” He vowed to never rewatch it, despite the critical acclaim. Well, what would he possible hate? Many of the movie’s critics have claimed it pushes the Italiani brava gente myth — the popular Italian belief that Italian soldiers were not as evil as their German counterparts in the Axis alliance during World War II.
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