Patrick Goldstein

Patrick Goldstein is a film critic and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, writing about movies in a column titled The Big Picture. Colleague Tom O'Neill describes him as the newspaper's "chief Oscarologist" as his column focuses largely on the doings of the Academy Awards.

Rob Schneider conflict

In his January 2005 Oscar preview, Goldstein commented that that year's Best Picture nominees were "ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that ... 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 retaliated by placing an ad in the LA Times two weeks later, commenting that Goldstein was unqualified to opine this because he had never won the Pulitzer Prize, or any other journalistic award, because, he remarked, "they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times intervened by pointing out on his site that Goldstein won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists' Guild award for lifetime achievement.

Ebert continued in his review: "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."