Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote:
Dear Patrick Goldstein, Staff Writer for the Los Angeles Times,
My name is Rob Schneider and I am responding to your January 26th front page cover story in the LA Times, where you used my upcoming sequel to Deuce Bigalow as an example of why Hollywood studios are lagging behind the independents in Academy nominations. According to your logic, Hollywood Studios are too busy making sequels like Deuce Bigalow instead of making movies that you would like to see.
Well, Mr. Goldstein, as far as your snide comments about me and my film not being nominated for an Academy Award, I decided to do some research to find what awards you have won.
I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind. Disappointed, I went to the Pulitzer Prize database of past winners and nominees. I thought, surely, there must be an omission. I typed in the name Patrick Goldstein and again, zippo—nada. No Pulitzer Prizes or nominations for a “Mr. Patrick Goldstein.” There was, however, a nomination for an Amy Goldstein. I contacted Ms. Goldstein in Rhode Island; she assured me she was not an alias of yours and in fact like most of the world had no idea of your existence.
Frankly, I am surprised the LA Times would hire someone like you with so few or, actually, no accolades to work on their front page. Surely there must be a larger talent pool for the LA Times to draw from. Perhaps, someone who has at least won a Cable Ace Award.
Maybe, Mr. Goldstein, you didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven’t invented a category for “Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter, Who’s Never Been Acknowledged By His Peers”!
Patrick, I can honestly say that if I sat with your colleagues at a luncheon, afterwards, they’d say, “You know, that Rob Schneider is a pretty intelligent guy, I hope we can do that again.” Whereas, if you sat with my colleagues, after lunch, you would just be beaten beyond recognition.
For the record, Patrick, your research is shabby as well. My next film is not Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo 2. It’s Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, in theaters EVERYWHERE August 12th, 2005.
All my best,
Rob Schneider
Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out, but he can’t take it. Then I found he’s not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Head-liner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists’ Guild award for lifetime achievement.
Schneider was nominated for a 2000 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor, but lost to Jar-Jar Binks. But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo while passing on the opportunity to participate in Million Dollar Baby, Ray, The Aviator, Sideways, and Finding Neverland. As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.
Chaos
(DIRECTED BY DAVID DEFALCO; STARRING KEVIN GAGE, STEPHEN WOZNIAK; 2005)
Chaos is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel—a film I regret having seen. I urge you to avoid it. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s “only” a horror film or a slasher film. It is an exercise in heartless cruelty and it ends with careless brutality. The movie denies not only the value of life, but the possibility of hope.
The movie premiered in late July at Flashback Weekend, a Chicago convention devoted to horror and exploitation films. As I write, it remains unreviewed in Variety, unlisted on Rotten Tomatoes. As an unabashed retread of The Last House on the Left (itself inspired by Bergman’s The Virgin Spring), it may develop a certain notoriety, but you don’t judge a book by its cover or a remake by its inspiration. A few Web writers have seen it, and try to deal with their feelings:
“What is inflicted upon these women is degrading, humiliating and terrible on every level.” —CAPONE, AIN’T IT COOL NEWS
“Disgusting, shocking, and laced with humiliation, nudity, profanity, and limit-shoving tastelessness.” —JOHN GRAY, PITOFHORROR.COM
“What’s the point of this s——t anyway?”
—ED GONZALEZ, SLANTMAGAZINE.COM.
But Capone finds the film “highly effective if painful and difficult to watch.” And Gray looks on the bright side: DeFalco “manages to shock and disturb as well as give fans a glimpse of hope that some people are still trying to make good, sleazy, exploitation films.” Gonzalez finds no redeeming features, adding, “DeFalco directs the whole thing with all the finesse of someone who has been hit on the head one too many times (is this a good time to say he was a wrestler?).”
I quote these reviews because I’m fascinated by their strategies for dealing with a film that transcends all barriers of decency. There are two scenes so gruesome I cannot describe them in a newspaper, no matter what words I use. Having seen it, I cannot ignore it, nor can I deny that it affected me strongly: I recoiled during some of the most cruel moments, and when the film was over I was filled with sadness and disquiet.
The plot: Angelica and Emily (Chantal Degroat and Maya Barovich) are UCLA students, visiting the country cabin of Emily’s parents, an interracial couple. They hear about a rave in the woods, drive off to party, meet a lout named Swan (Sage Stallone), and ask him where they can find some ecstasy. He leads them to a cabin occupied by Chaos (Kevin Gage), already wanted for serial killing, Frankie (Stephen Wozniak), and Sadie (Kelly K. C. Quann). They’re a Manson family in microcosm. By the end of the film, they will have raped and murdered the girls, not always in that order. Nor does the bloodshed stop there. The violence is sadistic, graphic, savage, and heartless. Much of the action involves the girls weeping and pleading for their lives. When the film pauses for dialogue, it is often racist.
So that’s it. DeFalco directs with a crude, efficient gusto, as a man with an ax makes short work of firewood. Kevin Gage makes Chaos repulsive and cruel, Quann is effective as a pathetic, dimwitted sex slave, and the young victims are played with relentless sincerity; to the degree that we are repelled by the killers and feel pity for the victims, the movie “works.” It works, all right, but I’m with Ed Gonzalez: Why do we need this s——t?
In response to this review, the following letter from the director and producer to me ran as an ad in the Chicago Sun-Times:
August 15, 2005
Dear Mr. Ebert:
Thank you for reviewing our film, Chaos, and for your thoughtful comments. However, there are some issues you raised that we strongly feel we need to address. First, it is obvious that our film greatly upset you. In your own words, “it affected [you] strongly,” and filled you “with sadness and disquiet.” You admitted that the film “works.” Nevertheless, you urged the public “to avoid it, and you went so far as to resort to expletives: “Why do we need this s——t?”, you asked.