A strange story about movie etiquette — or lack thereof

September 11th, 2008 at 04:25pm Will Pfeifer

Apparently, things got a little heated in the audience during a screening of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE at the Toronto Film Festival. According to the New York Daily News…

“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.”

Here’s the twist: The guy swinging the “big festival binder” was New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick, and the guy getting hit was none other than Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Ebert.

Reports say that Ebert, who can no longer speak due to throat cancer, was trying to tap Lumenick on the shoulder to ask him to move because Ebert couldn’t see. According to the Daily News, Lumenick didn’t realize who he’d whacked until the deed had been done, but didn’t apologize afterwards.

Entry Filed under: Just plain weird, Controversy, Moviegoing