Recently Roger Ebert gave the movie Tru Loved a one-star review in the Chicago Sun-Times. That in itself is not so unusual, although it’s more unusual than it used to be; on the “still playing” sidebar on Ebert’s main page, the only other movie to receive one star is Hell Ride. As far as I can tell, however, Ebert watched all of Hell Ride. He only watched eight minutes of Tru Loved.
After listing the gay indie’s faults – including complaints about the line readings, body language and a cameo from Bruce Vilanch – Ebrt’s original version of the review concludes thusly: “Full disclosure. I lifted the words ‘San Francisco to conservative suburbia with her lesbian mothers’ straight from the plot summary on IMDb.com, because I stopped watching the movie at the 00:08.05 point. IMDb is also where I found out about Bruce Vilanch's dual role. I never did see the lesbian mothers or my friend Bruce. For Tru Loved, the handwriting was on the wall. The returns were in. The case was closed. You know I'm right. Or tell me I'm wrong.”
Ebert has been reviewing movies for four decades now, and it’s a little hard to believe that he managed to resist the urge to pull this stunt for all that time. Think of all the movies he’s actually managed to sit through. He made it all the way to the end of BAPS, Boat Trip, Corky Romano and Ghost Dad, but it took Tru Loved to break him?
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