Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I've heard all of the common complaints: "Uwe Boll is the worst film director since Edward D. Wood Jr.""Uwe Boll ass-raped my dead grandmother.""Uwe Boll is the prophetic fulfillment of the wild beast from the book of Revelation." And, of course: "Uwe Boll has an unsightly gap between his two front teeth." Look, people ... tell me something I don't already know.
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Internet fanboys like to jump on bandwagons faster than a greenlight for a Will Ferrell sports comedy. Their favorite chew-toy is the much-maligned Boll, whose filmography primarily consists of video game adaptations like House Of The Dead and In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Seige Tale. Drop Boll into a casual conversation with a fanboy, and it usually degenerates into uncontrollable spitting, hissing, and vomiting. The latest round of Boll hatred involves a stupid website that is petitioning Boll to stop making movies. This online petition now has over 127,000 signatures, thanks in large part to the curious involvement of fanboy websites like SlashFilm. Of course, I find it odd that nobody involved with the creation and promotion of this petition fails to see how moronic and overindulgent such a petition is - precisely the type of behavior credited to Boll himself. Boll has responded to this outright attack on his creative and civil liberties with his usual sarcasm. He released this video in response to his online critics:
"I am the only genius in the whole fucking business." I LOVE IT!!! I have no doubt that, thanks to these statements by Boll, all of the fanboys worldwide are stewing in their reclining office chairs right now. They totally miss the point of Boll's statement, which is designed to stir the pot. Boll has been playing this sarcastic angle for years, genially playing the egomanical nutcase while the fanboy community stews in its own frothy drool. Isn't that great?!? It's hard to believe that an entire legion of film fans cannot see the brilliant humor of Boll stepping into a ring and beating down a critic like a whiny little bitch. Do you really think Michael F. Bay would do the same thing and endanger his perfectly-coiffed hair? Or what about Eli Roth? Of course not! I mean, Boll makes money with NAZI GOLD! Shouldn't that count somewhere on the "Coolest Fucking Shit On The Face Of The Earth" meter??? Here's the problem I have with all of the fanboy hatred: Uwe Boll is doing exactly what we wish we were all doing right now. While Peter Sciretta is sitting on his fat ass all day in his basement writing snide comments on the internet, Boll wakes up in the morning and MAKES MOVIES! His filmography, while not enviable, contains feature films released in theaters around the world ... and we've done NOTHING. If Boll played Asteroids on an old Atari game system and decided it would make a great movie, he could get it made; meanwhile, we play it, and all we can do is imagine what a Boll adaptation might look like. It's a simple case of the "have-nots" mocking the the "haves" for all of the stuff they lack. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me. And while anyone above the age of two can see that Boll has made some terrible films in the past, is it really true that he has not improved? We must remember that Boll did not go to school for film; he's been learning about film craft as he has continued to make them. Making fun of Boll as he learns film is akin to mocking a two year-old as it learns how to run. While Alone In The Dark probably received a fair degree of criticism, Boll's recent films are showing a much greater degree of sophistication and skill than the fanboys are willing to concede. In The Name Of The King received quite a few positive reviews. Most promising is Boll's upcoming Postal, which is his satirical take on world events. Take a look at the opening minutes of this film and tell me it doesn't look interesting:
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Instead of mocking Boll, we should be embracing him. He has managed to work in an industry that most of us would dearly love to join, all without compromising his vision. While no Spielberg, he is learning on the job and attempting to make films that people will enjoy. It is a failure of the bandwagon-hopping fanboy hordes that Boll has become an icon of evil when he should be a hero. He has the job we all wish we had, and he is doing his best. Give the guy a little slack. NOTE TO BOLL: I think I might set up that website you requested in your video. Keep up the good work!!!