alansmithee

I think Schneider made his remarks solely for publicity's sake. He saw a reviewer causually mention his movie, and decided to ride that to more press. Honestly, the people going to see his movies probably aren't all that concerned about the Oscars anyways, but would find more humour in Schneider's comeback.

Even though I think that more and more personal attacks are becomming the norm for any kind of interaction, I don't think this is a good example since there was probably a direct gain to be made from the comments (in this case, publicity).

And as for film critics, I can't remember who said it, but I remember reading that film critics are often overly-critical simply because other forms of entertainment often require some form of effort/intellectualism (such as books) whereas any 17 year old idiot with $8 can go watch a movie. Although I personally think Ebert is different than this, he generally seems to review movies not in terms of some abstract artistic merit, but in relation to how the intended audience will recieve them.