MemeMachineGo!

LA Times writer Patrick Goldstein slighted Rob Schneider.

It’s a funny thing, but today’s movie studios are no longer in the Oscar business. If there’s one common thread among this year’s five best picture nominees, it’s that they were largely financed by outside investors. The most money any studio put into one of the nominees was the $21 million that Miramax anted up for “Finding Neverland.” The other nominated films were orphans — ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that eagerly remake dozens of old TV series (aren’t you looking forward to a bigger, dumber version of “The Dukes of Hazzard”?) or bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,” a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic.

Schneider responded in a full-page ad in Variety.

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 though, 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.’ […] 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!” […]

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.’ [Note that Goldstein didn’t attempt to give the follow-up’s name — Zed]

From Roger Ebert’s 0-stars review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo:

Reading [Schneider’s tirade], 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 Headliner 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. […] 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.