What has two thumbs, can’t speak, and doesn’t enjoy being smacked with a binder? Roger Ebert!
A cancer stricken Roger Ebert was attacked yesterday during a press screening of Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” at the Toronto Film Festival. I bet you’re wondering how a violent mugger made his way into a press screening. It in fact was not a mugger. No, it wasn’t Vincent Gallo either, but it was New York Post film critic, Lou Lumenick.
We unfortunately weren’t at this specific screening for the film, but we did see it and it is our favorite film so far this year.
Soon after the lights went down, a source tells us, “a man in the audience started yelling, ‘Don’t touch me!’ People looked around and shrugged. Ten minutes later, the voice yells again, ‘I said don’t touch me!'” Again, people shrugged off the disturbance. But a few minutes later, says our source, “the guy stands up in the darkness and thwacks the guy behind him with a big festival binder. He hit him so hard everybody could hear it. Everyone freaked out and turned around.”
It turns out that Ebert was tapping Lumenick on the shoulder because he couldn’t see the screen, but he is unable to talk, so he couldn’t vocally tell Lou that he was blocking his vision.
Interestingly enough, Lumenick’s binder bashing didn’t hinder the two thumbed legend from enjoying the film, because after the screening, Ebert slid Boyle a note saying he deserves an Oscar. [New York Daily News]