Don’t Blame it on the Boll
The folks at SlashFilm point us to an interview at Fearnet.com asking fanboy scourge Uwe Boll if he’s aware of the online petition signed by 18,000 people asking him to stop making movies. It turns out the much-maligned director of such critically pummeled videogame-to-big-screen adaptations as BloodRayne and Postal is well aware of the campaign against him, but the petition is about 982,000 signatures shy of convincing him to pursue a new line of work. He says he’s going to need a million.
I’m guessing a good number of those 18,000 signatures actually paid money to see one of Boll’s movies and at least some of them thought a movie based on their favorite videogame was a good idea. Blame these people for Uwe Boll, not the filmmaker himself. Seriously, what were you thinking? You got exactly what you deserved.
Show me the petition banning morons from movie theaters (including but not limited to people who bring infants and children to R rated movies) and I’ll sign it. Until then, I’ve got plenty of good movies to watch.
Filed under: Opinion
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You know, I like that Uwe Boll is out there. As awful as his movies are, the idea of Boll is pretty damn endearing- a crazy cut-rate auteur who’s convinced his movies are awesome and will take on anyone who says otherwise. He’s like our very own Teutonic Ed Wood, only with boxing gloves instead of angora.
Besides, it’s not like his movies ever hurt anybody. So they suck- big deal. Should we petition every filmmaker we don’t like to hang up the skates? Think of how many people felt ripped off by the end of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I’d lay even money that you could get plenty of signatures for a petition to make the Coens retire simply by asking the NO COUNTRY haters. And do we really want that?
Just because Boll makes himself such an easy target doesn’t make the idea of censuring him any easier to swallow. On top of that, I will defend his latest, IN THE NAME OF THE KING, which has just about everything ingredient I would have wanted in a movie when I was 10 years old. It’s not very good, but it’s sort of awesome.
“it’s not very good, but it’s sort of awesome.” Sometimes that’s exactly what the world needs.
Though we come at it from different directions and put a different spin on it, I think we have much the same attitude about Boll. The guy is what he is and everyone knows what he is and if you don’t like it, there’s no point in crying about it.
Dude- have you seen this?
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/04/09/uwe-boll-i-am-the-only-f-king-genius-in-the-whole-business.aspx
This, my friends, is why we need to keep Boll around and making movies.
Yeah, I caught that. Pretty funny. The fact that Roth and Bay felt compelled to respond was even funnier.
I signed the petition, mostly because I wanted to offer a vote in the hopes it would lead to something like Paul’s post above. But in my comment, I mentioned that I don’t really care if he continues making movies or not. He does me no harm and I have to admire the spectacular ignorance he shows in his filmmaking. Plus, there’s always a good Uwe Boll joke out there each time he releases another another of his films.
This is the guy that cast Tara Reid as a scientist and he did it with a straight face. That is either sheer genius or a brand of sociopathic casting mania that must be encouraged, people.
But if I can somehow collectively gode him into kick-boxing Joel Seigel or pronouncing his supremacy on YouTube, well then the world will be a richer place.
I posted more extensive thoughts on the recent Boll-related events over at the Screengrab today:
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/04/11/yes-i-m-serious-paul-clark-defends-uwe-boll.aspx
Surprisingly, I haven’t received any comments calling for me to be sacked. Guess the Boll-haters don’t read Screengrab.
I’ve not seen a Boll film and quite possibly never will. But like you Paul I like the idea of him. I take a perverse delight in people like Boll and the genuinely talented Haneke provoking vehement reactions in film buffs.
Any Michael Bay film is more harmful to society than every Boll film put together.