Uwe Boll

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Uwe Boll

Born:	June 22, 1965 Wermelskirchen, Germany
Occupation:	Director, Executive Producer, Producer, Screenwriter
Website:	http://www.boll-kg.de/

Uwe Boll (pronounced [ˈuːvə bɔl]), born June 22, 1965 in Wermelskirchen, Germany) is a director and producer of movies usually adapted from video games. Unlike most directors in the United States, who receive funding from Hollywood studios, he finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. Boll studied at the University of Cologne and the University of Siegen, and holds a doctorate in literature.

Contents 1 Films 2 Criticism 3 Response to criticism 4 Critic boxing matches 5 Writings 6 Quotations 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Films

Boll's first two major releases were the horror movie Blackwoods, and the drama Heart of America, both of which he directed and co-wrote. Boll also has a horror film Seed in production.

However, Boll is most well known for adapting videogames into movies. He has directed and produced a number of such adaptations, among them House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and BloodRayne. He has announced plans to produce adaptations of Dungeon Siege, Postal, and Far Cry. Boll also intends to produce a sequel to Alone in the Dark, and BloodRayne II: Deliverance, as well as a third movie based on the BloodRayne franchise.^[1]

As of 2006, he has been nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards.

[edit] Criticism

Boll’s movies are critically panned.^[2][3][4][5] As of October 25, 2006, all three of Boll's video game adaptations appeared on the Internet Movie Database's Bottom 100 films list. In a review of Alone in the Dark, Rob Vaux states that the movie should make all other "bad" movie directors feel better in comparison: "It's okay," they'll tell themselves, "I didn't make Alone in the Dark."^[6] Another reviewer wrote that Alone in the Dark, was "so poorly built, so horribly acted and so sloppily stitched together that it's not even at the straight-to-DVD level."^[7]

When rumors appeared that Uwe Boll expressed interest in a Metal Gear Solid movie, and claimed to have been given a script to read, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima responded in his audioblog HIDECHAN, "Absolutely not! I don't know why Uwe Boll is even talking about this kind of thing. We've never talked to him. It's impossible that we'd ever do a movie with him."^[8]

Blair Erickson, a writer of a treatment for Alone in the Dark, has written a critical account of his experience working with Boll. It includes allegations that Boll stole ideas from prior movies and wanted to add elements to the story that were not to the tone of the source material. Uwe chose to not use Erickson's script, citing reasons such as it having "not enough car chases."^[9]

Boll blames the poor commercial performance of his videogame adaptations on his distribution company, Romar, and has filed a lawsuit against them.^[10]

Boll's films prior to the release of House of the Dead received better reception. The New York Times for instance, gave Blackwoods a positive review, although overall reactions to the film have been negative. Boll's film Heart of America was based on the Columbine High School massacre and was praised as having the most mature subject matter of any of Boll's films.

[edit] Response to criticism

Boll does not shy away from his critics. In the Alone in the Dark commentary, he responds to criticism that his adaptations make significant changes to the plot and style of the source material: "Fans are always totally flipping out and I understand that the fan of a video game has his own agenda in his head and has his ideas about what is a good movie and what is a bad movie." Referring to House of the Dead, Boll said: "I think I made a perfect House of the Dead movie, because it really shows how the game is. It's a lot of fun, it's over-the-top action."^[11] Boll is especially critical of his internet detractors. Referring to two Ain't It Cool News critics who negatively reviewed his work, Boll said, "Harry and Quint are retards."^[12]

Boll also criticizes the game companies themselves for providing zero support once the movie license is sold. He cites the cross-promotion and support comic-book-based properties adapted for the screen receive, whereas video game companies often "sell off the license and then forget about it."^[11] He argues that this is the reason video game adaptations are not well received by critics and audiences.

[edit] Critic boxing matches

Boll made headlines by challenging his critics to "put up or shut up". In June 2006, his production company issued a press release stating that Boll would challenge his five harshest critics each to a 10 round boxing match. Invitations were also open to film directors Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. To be eligible, the critic must have written two extremely negative reviews of Boll, in print or on the Web, in 2005. Footage from the fights will be included on the DVD of his upcoming film Postal.^[13] On June 20, 2006, Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka stated on Something Awful that he has been invited by Boll to be the first contestant. Only after that Kyanka reviewed Alone in the Dark.^[14] The online gambling site GoldenPalace.com decided to sponsor this event, dubbing it "Raging Boll". The list of five critics to step into the ring with Boll was drawn up in late August 2006, and featured Kyanka, Rue Morgue magazine writer Chris Alexander, webmaster of Cinecutre Carlos Palencia Jimenez-Arguello, Ain't it Cool News writer Jeff Sneider and Chance Minter, amateur boxer and website critic.^[15][16] Boll fought and won against all five participants. The first took place on September 5, 2006 in Málaga, Spain against Carlos Palencia ^[17]with the rest on September 23, 2006 at the Plaza of Nations in Vancouver. ^[18]

After Kyanka lost his match he claimed that Boll refused to fight against Chance Minter, an amateur boxer, because he was an experienced boxer, Boll misled them by claiming it was a PR stunt but actually intended to fight them, Boll claimed that the participants would get training before the match which no one did and Boll had seriously wounded Sneider who had also believed Boll.^[19] Boll actually fought Minter as his third opponent.^[20]

Kyanka added in a post-match interview that, "Half of us (the contenders) hadn't even seen his movies." Sneider shared similar sentiments, stating "I think he's a jerk. This might be PR but I don't want to keep getting punched in the head."^[21] Boll has denied these claims in an interview, stating that he gave his opponents three months to prepare. He also denied ever saying it was a PR stunt and claims that it was going to be a real fight. [2]

Some of the other contestants, however, have not been as negative. Alexander, in a Toronto Star article, recounts being invited to Boll's beach house on the following day, where Boll asked him about the reasons for his unilaterally negative reviews. Alexander bluntly told Boll that his movies were "bloated, expensive and incoherent attempts at aping American genre pictures and sport some of the most boneheaded casting choices in filmdom" but that Boll was an " insane, two-fisted rogue, and a shockingly HONEST one at that, someone who absolutely adores film, knows its history and truly lives for what he does."^[22]

Alexander referred to the event as "the weirdest pop culture bizarre journalism stunt I've ever been involved in."^[21] Minter also praised what he'd seen so far of Boll's upcoming production Seed.^[23] Boll praised the contestants in a post fight press conference, stating "I like now the critics... Everybody who was in the ring showed (guts). Nobody dived."^[21]

Ron Sparks offered to fight Boll in Vancouver as part of the Postal publicity stunt, but Boll declined, citing Sparks's age and size advantage. Sparks himself defended Boll's decision in his MySpace blog, however, saying that because Boll was fighting several boxers back to back, and putting them in his movie, he had the right to choose any opponents willing to fight him.

Also, printed in Electronic Gaming Monthly's November 2006 edition of the section "The Rest of the Crap", written by critic Seanbaby, described Seanbaby's own involvement. Apparently Uwe was going to appear on G4's Attack of the Show! and promote this fight by sparring with one of the hosts. He claims that, "Again, he's [Uwe Boll] a matchmaking genius, because everyone on TV's 3-feet tall. If you were watching [AotS] during the time I co-hosted, you might have noticed that I could have leaned over and eaten host Kevin Pereira." A producer of the show then asked if Seanbaby would come and spar in the host's place for the event. Seanbaby says that he trains in Muay Thai and jujutsu, and that, "Boxing is to Fighting what Hungry Hungry Hippos is to fighting..." When Uwe heard of this, he wanted to know Seanbaby's age, height, weight and fighting experience since he "learned he wasn't fighting a midget". After receiving said information, Boll chose not to appear on the program.

[edit] Writings

Boll has written two books, Wie man in Deutschland einen Film drehen muss (How to Make a Movie in Germany) and Die Gattung Serie und ihre Genres (Series and Their Genres), on themes of serial TV, which, according to Boll's description, "endeavors to sketch a conceptual horizon of the 'fictitious' TV serial through a generic description, derived by film-historical and statistical methods, as well as by a bibliographical evaluation. Thereby, comprehensive materials and literary bases were made available for the purpose of this research, so that they may properly describe and distinguish the series as such from other kinds, and allow for typological categorization and verification of the computational matrixes which form the basis of the various singular episodes."

[edit] Quotations

• "They were better than actors. We looked for local Romanian actresses, but there they are all from the theater and act very broadly. For 150 euros a piece the whores would be naked and do as they were told. It was better." (in an interview for Bloodrayne: The Movie talking about why he chose to use real prostitutes instead of actresses) [3]
• "Postal will be so politically incorrect and harsh, it's like a mirror to American society, and I don't think the movie will be well received by anybody. For example, Osama Bin Laden will be one of the lead characters—I think that shows the mood of the movie."^[11]
• "House of the Dead 2 I gave away. Alone in the Dark 2 I will also not do; even if the DVD movie made money. BloodRayne 2 in the Wild West is what I really want to do."^[24]
• Referring to the non-stop television airing of the September 11, 2001 attacks: "This day showed us that we are all completely voyeurs greedy for thrilling entertainment no matter if this is real or not." [4]
• Recently, he has expressed interest in an Alone In The Dark 2 starring Christian Slater despite earlier reports.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Website of Boll's Production Company, BOLL KG
• Uwe Boll at the Internet Movie Database
• Uwe Boll at Rotten Tomatoes
• Golden Palace Events - Photos, video, and details of Uwe's September 2006 boxing match with his critics
• Boll Bashers A comprehensive website on Boll
• Interview with Uwe Boll at Creature Corner
• Dinner With Uwe - IGN's four-part video interview
• Interview with Uwe Boll at The Globe & Mail
• Boll to brawl critics onscreen in Postal movie? at GameSpot News
• Interview - Now Playing magazine