Uwe Boll

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The only genius in the whole fucking business.

Uwe Boll is a German-Canadian film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Wermelskirchen, he attended the Universities of Cologne and Siegen, achieving a doctorate in literature. He decided to go into the movie business when he was ten, upon watching a film adaptation of Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando. His career began in 1991, making small German films for the first ten years before releasing his first major films, the English-language Blackwoods and Heart of America in 2002. Boll directed and co-wrote both.

Since then, his work has primarily consisted of adaptations of video games. Due to the rather low production value compared to Hollywood blockbusters, the movies haven't exactly done well at all, either at the box-office or critically. In fact, four of his movies are part of IMDB’s top 100 worst movies of all-time. This has served to piss off those games' respective fan bases and has combined to make Boll one of the most hated filmmakers of all time. Exacerbating things is his usage of a rule in the German tax law that, until recently, allowed investors in German-made films to receive a 50% tax rebate. This has led to charges of Boll intentionally making bad movies so his investors can exploit this, though Boll’s intent on this matter has never been proven.

Also compounding his issues with fans is his perceived arrogance. As part of the marketing campaign for his Postal adaptation, Boll claimed he was “the only genius in the whole fucking business.” After Wired gave Postal an unfavorable review, Boll himself e-mailed the reviewer and attacked him, claiming that he is "a untalented wanna bee (sic) filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is." In perhaps his most audacious move, he challenged a group of his critics to boxing matches in 2006 without telling said critics that he himself was a skilled amateur boxer. The results were predictable.

To his credit, he’s otherwise taken his Hatedom in stride, saying he’d rather “make fun with it” instead of “being depressed, sitting at home, slowly crying.” Boll himself responded to a then-18,000 strong Internet petition to get him to stop making movies with a boast that, if it were to receive a million signatures, he actually would (it never did) and is scheduled to appear as himself in Postal III. He also had kind words to say about the critics that he did fight, complimenting them for actually having the guts to stand in the ring with them instead of hiding behind their laptops. Finally, Boll has shown himself to be able to make decent movies, either of the So Bad It's Good variety, such as Postal, or legitimately good, such as Blackwoods and Rampage.

To put it simply: Your Mileage May Vary.

Filmography
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