After its scandalous screening at the 2004 Cannes film festival, Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" was cut from 118 to 92 minutes, and that made all the difference. The film that critic and long-time Cannes attendee Roger Ebert originally called "the worst film in the history of the festival" was transformed, by Gallo's judicious editing, into a perfectly acceptable if not universally respected art-house curio, widely criticized yet ripe for cult status, able to stand beside Gallo's "Buffalo 66" as the work of a genuine artist with a singular vision. Yes, that vision is self-indulgent, narcissistic, and likely to turn off a majority of viewers with its glacial pace and endless shots of Gallo driving, driving, and driving some more. But in portraying a melancholy motorcycle racer who drives cross-country while mourning a private loss that remains secret until the final scenes, Gallo gives us a character, and a film, that feels spiritually akin to such early '70s classics as "Five Easy Pieces" and "Two-Lane Blacktop". It's a flawed yet ultimately moving example of maverick, unconventional cinema, and while Chloe Sevigny's explicit oral sex scene with Gallo is completely unnecessary, it's just one more element that places "The Brown Bunny" firmly, and refreshingly, out of the mainstream. "--Jeff Shannon"