Directors are a rare breed, possessing a unique combination of artistic talents, man management and people-person skills, as well as being a lover of all things cinema. At least, this is usually the case, certainly with the best directors out there, but not so with a certain Mr Uwe Boll. The famed director of such cinematic classics as Alone In The Dark and BloodRayne II: The Deliverance, the German helmer has found himself the unwanted focus of an online competition to stop him making movies. In an interview he conducted several weeks ago, he was asked whether he would stop making movies if enough people signed a petition. Replying that it would take a million people to get him to stop, said petition immediately went up and with only a couple of weeks under its belt, it is already halfway there.
So what did the self-aggrandising director do by way of reply? Well, rather than heeding the advice (not to mention the pleads, and violent threats in some cases) the petition threw his way and sticking to his words, he released a video urging people to start up a pro-Boll petition. Why? Because, and we quote the great man’s own words here, he is “not a f***ing retard like Michael Bay or other people running around in the business.” A scathing attack on Eli Roth followed this anti-Bay nugget, which we can at least understand, after which Boll went on to claim thus: “If you look at my movies, you will see my real genius!”
Anyone who has seen the director’s work is surely only all too aware of his ‘genius’, but in an industry that is fuelled by sycophantic wannabes, we need more Uwe Bolls. From his video post, and his journo-bludgering prior behaviour, the man is clearly quite eccentric, that much is granted, but Hollywood is all the better for it. He’s like a cross between Ed Wood and Arnold Schwarzenegger, ready and willing to fight for his ‘unique vision’ and to bring it to the screen. We pity, though, the poor individual whose job it’ll be to inform him when the 1 millionth signature has been added. And it will be added.
