There’s no beating around the bush: I’m tired of Uwe Boll. For the past few weeks the filmmaker (and we use that term loosely) has been talking nonstop, mostly justified by discussing his upcoming film Postal. Like always however, there’s nothing to back up Boll’s words, and I, for one, am getting tired of the endless running of his mouth.
The nonstop gibber-gabber isn’t a new thing for Boll. Ever since his first film tanked the director has gotten into the trend of opening his mouth several months before his pictures are released and not closing it until the last excuse has been made for its suckiness, usually some time after the DVD release. Boll talks about how much potential the franchise he’s raping has, then how brilliant his movie-making skills are, which is (of course) supported by the quality of the cast members he’s finagled into appearing in the picture. Typically there are some threats thrown out at real filmmakers, who Boll considers himself on par with (if not superior to) as well as online critics and the media, (who, of course, have judged his film before they’ve seen it). Then, once the movie is released, he bashes on distributors and Hollywood in general because his movie didn’t get the release he was promised, or was buried under a different movie, or was delayed for the umpteenth time, all of which are the “real” reasons his picture bombed. A little more positioning as a brilliant filmmaker comes, and finally the verbal vomiting is done.
Every release has shown that Boll is a consistent filmmaker, but his consistency is shit. I guess that makes sense. After all, he spouts so much shit when he talks that it only makes sense that the same thing winds up in his movies. Although his filmmaking hasn’t really improved over the course of the five movies he’s released domestically, his PR approach has. He’s started talking bigger to compensate for the size of the pile of excrement that serves as his career. On top of that, his spin-doctoring has gotten so bad that the excuses for the quality of his movies start coming months (sometimes even years) before the movies come out.
If you haven’t seen the latest diatribes from the director it’s because we’ve gotten so sick of Boll we’re not running stories on them. He’s vomiting up hype on a weekly basis for his upcoming Postal, which opens against Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Boll claims he chose to take on Indy, but I think his distributor was just looking for the biggest hole they could bury it in and thought even an archeologist couldn’t find Boll’s picture on that weekend. Meanwhile, Boll has publicly attacked Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two filmmakers the German isn’t worthy to watch the movies of, let alone share an industry career with. Even with low points like Jar-Jar Binks and the CG-shell people of THX 1138, Lucas has proven himself a better filmmaker than Boll. Not content to just target the creators of Indy (or, perhaps, because they aren’t giving him the satisfaction he craves), Boll has even issued statements against Michael Bay, offering to climb in the boxing ring against Bay the same way he took on film critics when filming Postal.
I have news for you Dr. Boll (yes, don’t forget he’s a doctor – especially if you are considering working on a PhD yourself): we didn’t want to see you box against film critics and we don’t want to see you box against a competent film director/producer. The trouncing that he’d give you at the box office – the real boxing ring of a commercial filmmaker - is pleasure enough. We don’t want to hear you bash competent filmmakers who have shown their skill and talent behind the camera. You haven’t proven you have any skills in filmmaking, other than draining promising opportunities of any potential. We want you to shut the hell up. If you’re going to be a filmmaker, then make movies. Make good movies. Make movies people actually want to see. If you just want to talk big without having to support what you say, go join a high school debate team or something. Frankly, they’d probably kick your ass too though.
Let’s be honest. All we want as moviegoers is a decent movie. Boll has been given access to some of the most promising and story rich franchises the video game industry has, but put out nothing but crap. Now the director is putting out original work and it’s being buried both by Indiana Jones and the pile of shit he’s spewing in an effort to build hype. Forget hype. Put out one product that can stand without all the talking, or something that at least justifies the career opportunities this guy has been given, and then we can talk. Until then, I’m done listening to Boll weasel around, attempting to talk big but bringing nothing to back up a word he says.
(The author realizes there’s an irony in giving Boll publicity by writing a tirade against the filmmaker. He’s okay with that. Consider this the last hurrah of Boll news you’ll see written by this guy… at least until the hype machine builds us into such a fervor again.)
