The most scandalous thing to come out of TIFF (so far, anyway; Lindsay Lohan is throwing a party tonight, after all) didn't have anything to do with a Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston or celebutantes snorting lines off of various Canadian landmarks.

The world gave a collective thumbs-down when the New York Daily News reported that Roger Ebert was thwacked with a festival program by another critic, causing a commotion in the middle of a screening.

Ebert has since taken to his Chicago Sun-Times column to weigh in on the matter. Yes, he confirms that he was indeed whacked "with a rolled-up program or a festival binder or something" at the Slumdog Millionaire screening, but the critic also says that the whole scenario has been blown up like an oil tanker in a Bruckheimer flick.

Ebert, who is battling thyroid and salivary gland cancer, is unable to speak. When he found himself sitting behind the New York Post's film critic, Lou Lumenick -- who, Ebert says, "is not short" -- he was unable to make out the film's subtitles. "Because of neck and shoulder surgery I could not look around him," Ebert writes.

"In my medical condition I cannot speak, I tapped him lightly on the shoulder and gestured him to move over a little. He said, 'Don't touch me!' and remained in position. I tapped him lightly again. "I said--don't touch me!" He leaned further into the aisle, as if making a point of it. I tapped him a third time, and he jumped up and whacked me on the knee with whatever it was. He sat down, and I defiantly tapped him again, not as lightly, but not too heavily, just to show I wasn't intimidated.”

Our favourite reaction to the whole incident came from Ebert's wife. According to the critic, she wasn't at the screening, but she offered to "get a no-neck guy from the West Side to break [Lumenick's] knees when she heard the news." Nice.

Apparently, the whole mess was taken care of when Lumenick swapped seats with another person in the theatre.

"I think the guy was wrong. A film critic of all people should be respectful of the sight-lines of fellow audience members," writes Ebert. "But in one way I feel sorry for him. He had no idea who was behind him when he smacked me. Now it looked like he was picking on poor me. I have had my problems, but I promise you I am plenty hearty enough to withstand a smack, and quite happy, after the smack, to tap him again. I had to see those subtitles. There was no pain. The incident is over. Peace."

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