Editorials > Uwe Boll Lashes Out Against Anti-Uwe Boll Petition

Perhaps you've heard that an online petition has been going around demanding an immediate halt to German director Uwe Boll's filmmaking activities. Perhaps you've also heard that upon learning of the petition (then signed by 18,000 individuals) Uwe Boll stated that "18,000 is not enough to convince me. [It will take] one million. Now we have a goal."

Since that interview a mere six days ago, the number of signatures on the petition has gone up to (at the time of this writing) an astonishing 155,074 people! That's a little more than a seventh of the way there.

Yesterday, Boll posted a video on MovieSet.com/Postal, seemingly the home page for Dr. Boll's next picture, "Postal." In the video he called for a pro-Boll petition to be started and signed immediately, though he failed to mention what the consequences of this petition might be. He did however refer to himself as "the only genius in the whole fucking business," and assured us that he wasn't "a fucking retard like Michael Bay" and that he doesn't "make the same shitty movie over and over again" like Eli Roth, and that what he produces is "way better than that social-critic-George-Clooney-bullshit you get every fucking weekend." As of this writing, the pro-Boll petition has 731 signatures. For those of you who like ratios, the anti-Boll crowd outnumbers the pro-Boll roughly 212:1.

For his part, Eli Roth called Boll's statement, "the best compliment ever." Michael Bay took a slightly more loquacious approach to the matter and said on his message board:

I find people who rant like that - calling shit about both me, and George Clooney - comes from someone screaming because he is not being heard. He is obviously a sad being. When you ask ‘do I care?’ Not in the slightest.

Now, fanboy feuds (perhaps the most trivial of all) are breaking out on a number of film news sites. Peter Sciretta over at SlashFilm has been one of the most vocal anti-Boll crusaders, while Ray DeRousse of Obsessed With Film has chastised Sciretta and his ilk for trying to force someone, even a lousy filmmaker like Boll, to give up his profession and stop doing what he loves. We've been keeping out of it, perhaps thanks (?) to our relative low profile. But at the risk of joining the fray, I will say this: Forcing Boll's retirement is like killing the golden goose. The eggs aren't edible, but it's important that they keep being made. Young filmmakers need to see why certain things just don't work, no matter how emphatically the director insists that they do. Also, Mr. Sciretta, calling Boll a "cinematic cancer" is misleading. By the numbers, cancer is actually much more popular. If nothing else, I hope Dr. Boll sticks around to entertain us with his off-set antics and (possibly satirical?) public statements, which so far have gone unparalleled by any other contemporary filmmaker. Boll is a showman, a throwback to P.T. Barnum. Both bring/brought the freak shows to town, but it's not their fault if someone is sucker enough to come see.

-David Morgan