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Uwe Boll's World: Where Has-Been Actors Go To Die

I've been having a great time the past few days at the expense of Uwe Boll.

Who is Uwe Boll, some of you ask? He's a crazy German director that makes a living bringing video games to life. Sort of. I mean, he tries. but did you see House of the Dead? I had more fun playing the game itself. In a hot dog restaurant/arcade. That smelled like dirty diapers. With a broken gun. While killer bees made hives in my ears. Well, you get the idea. House of the Dead, the movie, was one of the worst cinematic experiences I've ever had. And I'm not alone in that feeling, because it is number 28 on the IMDB bottom 100.

I've acquired most of my recent Boll reading material from Joel, who seems to hold Mr. Boll in as high regard as I do. Joel pointed me to Nathan, who led me to this awesome review of Boll's latest effort, Alone in the Dark.

A horror movie about a video game. Sounds like something that was made just for me, right? Having been burnt by Uwe before, I greeted the news that he was directing this effort with skepticism. And when they announced Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff as the stars, I just shook my head in dismay. I knew where this was headed.

That's not really to disparage Dorff. I always liked the guy, though my interest in him may have more of an eye-candy angle than anything else. SFW, Judgment Night, Blade, Space Truckers...he made some great movies. Who could forget his turn as Glen in The Gate? How far his career has fallen, though, to appear in a video game-to-movie film directed by Boll. Didn't anyone in this movie see House of the Dead?

Well, we can forgive Tara Reid. I mean, where does someone go after becoming the poster girl for drunken wardrobe malfunctions? If you're going to kill what little career you already had, you may as well go down with a Boll bomb and really fuck yourself in a grand way.

As for Christian Slater (and the rest of the cast, really), the first panel here says it all:


Penny Arcade

Back to that Slant review that so many people have linked already:

Saying Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead--possibly the worst horror film of the past decade--is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV.

Beautiful. But there's more. So much more. And you can find all the gems on this review page for Alone in the Dark at movies.com.

  • Chicago Tribune (1 star): [Reid's] performance as curator Aline Cedrac is horrific, with the diction of a moron, the expressiveness of a block of wood and the wardrobe of Streetwalker Barbie.
  • L.A. Daily News (1 1/2 stars): Painfully miscast as someone whose job requires intelligence, Reid plays museum curator Aline Cedrac..
  • San Francisco Chronicle: more of a drinking game than a movie, with scenes that are not only laughably bad but also repeat themselves
  • Variety: Uwe Boll should put down his joystick — quickly, before anyone else gets hurt.

Yet Boll keeps getting work - in the same genre. He's currently working on making a mockery of Bloodrayne, Hunter: The Reckoning and Far Cry.

That's three video game movies he's directing after destroying two already. What does this say about the movie industry when a man can make a career out of abject failure, where a guy whose skills are mocked by those he's supposed to be entertaining gets more work?

What, you ask, will Bloodrayne be like? Why, let's ask Boll himself!

The whole beginning of the movie, BloodRayne is like a freak in the circus, and people want to rape her, and she's like the attraction of the evening, and everybody in the arena of the circus is drunk and they throw her arms into water so the skin burns and then she must drink the blood of a goat [so] that she recovers… It's a big miracle that she recovers…


Penny Arcade

Is there anyone out there who admires Boll? I did a search for articles on him and came up with:

I do not doubt that director Uwe Boll is an excellent person with unique gifts, like making bird calls or some shit. But the stuff he does with movie cameras is a Goddamn war crime.

And this:
You're also working on 'BloodRayne,' another film with a great cast. How is that coming along? Very good. It is very dark, brutal and disturbing and not at all like a new superhero over the top piece like CATWOMAN or ELEKTRA.

This is where you instert the "polishing a turd" cliche.

Joel also pointed me to this unintenionally hilarious interview with Boll. Though my favorite part doesn't even contain a quote from Uwe:

TF: All the recent video game movies seem to be based on games currently popular. Since 1980's retro have become fashionable of late, how come nobody has yet to do any films based on some of the classic arcade games like Sinistar, Congo Bongo, Dig Dug, or Burgertime? I'm thinking there is a major kick ass, Die Hard-like kung fu film just waiting to be made out of Elevator Action. What do you think? (Foy: Boll left this particular question unanswered. Possibly because he realized it was a joke question or perhaps because he's already thinking the very same thing and was worried if he tipped us off then somebody out there might beat him to movie rights for Gorf.)

Which is what I was thinking all along, anyhow. What happens when Boll runs out of horror games to turn into inept movies? What if he moves on to, say, Animal Crossing? Or Super Monkey Ball? I can see it now - Crispin Glover. Paris Hilton. Primates gone wild!

I would start a petition or a grass movement or something, anything, to let the world know that Uwe Boll must be stopped, but apparently he's a deranged juggernaut that will just keep going and going and going because idiots keep handing him money hand over fist to make these pieces of crap. And you. Yea, you, who paid to see House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. You should be ashamed of yourself. Just stop feeding Uwe Boll. Please, for the love of all that is good in the world of video game movies, stop making this man think he is good at what he does.

Oh, hell. It's too late. I'm just going to buy all these movies and play the Uwe Boll drinking game.


...for the love of all that is good in the world of video game movies
? Did I just say that? Is there really any such thing as good in that genre?

I smell a list in the making.

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Uwe Boll's World: Where Has-Been Actors Go To Die:

» "Headfirst into the asshole of cinema" from Pearly Gates
Michele on Uwe Boll, a man guilty on several counts of raping my childhood. [Read More]

» Alone in the theatre.. from IgwanaRob
My boss actually paid to see Alone in the Dark this weekend because his youngest son picked it. I started laughing at him before he could get his disgust out! At least his oldest joined him in the ... [Read More]

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The 1970's were the heyday of the disaster genre and Inferno - even though it wasn't the first of its kind -paved the way for all other movies like it because of its critical success. [Read More]

Comments

You're being too hard on Tara Reid. She was good in The Big Lebowski. I mean, who else could have rendered the line, "I'll suck your cock for $1000." with such panache?

The first Tomb Raider was pretty good. Second, not so much.

Final Fantasy should have been good, but it looked more like an animated zombie movie with Keannu Reeves as the main inspiration for the facial expressions.

First Resident Evil was good, but if you didn't see it (or like it) and never played the games, then you had no business seeing the second one (which wasn't too bad, but reminded me more of something that should have been straight to video)

Mortal Kombat/Street FIghter/Mario Bros, etc - not even worth mentioning

I shall await the Metal Gear Solid movies... perhaps starring Gary Sinise as Snake?

The second Resident Evil was grist for the heckling mill. But now that you mention it, the first one was pretty good.

Mortal Kombat/Street FIghter/Mario Bros, etc - not even worth mentioning

But the soundtrack to both MK movies rocked.

Mortal Kombat/Street FIghter/Mario Bros, etc - not even worth mentioning

The Mortal Kombat movies did, indeed, suck (although the soundtracks were great, as Michele points out). But I will still watch them, because Robin Shou is hot.

I don't know, I kind of admire Boll simply for the fact that he can keep coming up with financing for these godawful movies. I mean, that takes a certain talent, right? And based on that interview with him, I don't think we can attribute it to some sort of sly mastery of the English language.

I can't believe you left out Stephen Dorff's brilliant work as Becky's boyfriend on "Roseanne." The original Becky, not Scrubs-chick Becky.

I second the call for a MGS movie, but screw it if this pyshcopath with a budget gets the license.

Ed Wood made some truly horrible films, yet he went on to make even more horrible films. And eventually they made a film about his horrible career. - I didn't see it but I expect that even with Johnny Depp, it was horrible too.

Actually, the movie was pretty damn entertaining, Zendo. Watching somebody be inspirationally bad can be quite fun.

The other day I was reading the Houston Chronicle's review of Hide and Seek. Before getting to the plot, the reviewer tells us that it was a good psychological thriller for the first half, but the last half kinda went all to hell, because nowadays the audience demands surprise endings.

So he gets to the plot: a man's wife commits suicide, and his little girl finds him finding the body, and is traumatized. So he takes her away from everything she knows and stashes her away in a big ol' house in the country, blah blah blah. Elizabeth Shue plays a woman...

...continued on page E7...flip...flip...flip...

...hunting supernatural foes, a female archaeologist has a bare midriff and an itchy trigger finger, and a hothead commando controls zillions of dollars in federal weaponry.

Damn, I think. That sure did go to hell.

Then I realize I'm reading the continuation of the review for Alone in the Dark.

So, does this Boll person have a taste for pink cashmere sweaters?

Christian Slater really did have a decent career going when he was younger...anybody remember True Romance?

Funny thing about referencing all those old games... I actually wrote a ten-page treatment of a movie based upon the game Arkanoid.

I love that game.

It was actually based more on Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh, which was in the arcade I played games in when I was ten. For about two weeks. It was AWESOME. The power-ups were kickin' -- metal balls that go through anything, disruptors that shattered your ball into as many as 30 other balls, random power-ups, illusion tails, etc etc.

If I ever have about $5000 to spend on a stand-up arcade game, you can damn well bet I'm going to Taito and asking for one of those. I would play it forever.

One other thing...

Everyone needs to stop dissing Super Mario Brothers. I mean, maybe I'm the only person who enjoyed it -- and STILL enjoys it to this day, to the point that I spent $7.99 at a videostore to buy the VHS. But really, it wasn't THAT bad.

Sure, the whole mushroom kingdom thing was a little strange. The alternate New York. The lack of red and green costumes until the end. Some of the sillier humor. Dennis Hopper gritting his teeth as he realized the kind of movie he was making. Fiona Shaw -- Harry Potter's Aunt Petunia -- made up to be some sort of grand vizier/arm candy character. Yoshi not being cute in any way. Goombas being taller than Mario. No Koopas or Paratroopa Koopas.

But if you remember that back in those days there weren't that many video game movies. There was SMB. There was TMNT (which, honestly, was pretty decent). That's all I can remember.

For what they had, they did a good job.

So stop dissin' it! No one could've played Mario better than Bob Hoskins.

Hey, I liked the first two TMNT movies (mostly the first one, but the second was good as well).

John

TMNT was not a video game movie - they were graphic and violent and damn good comics long before they were bastardizedd as cartoons, which was before they were turned into a video game.

My boss actually payed to see Alone in the Dark this weekend. I started laughing hysterically before he could even finish saying 'it sucked'

:-p

If Uwe Boll ever touches Animal Crossing, I will personally flog him with a fishing pole and a shovel.

I was originally interested in Alone in the Dark because of its apparent references -- tenuous, from what I've heard -- to the Cthulhu Mythos that inspired the video game. After all, the more we can learn about the Elder Gods, the more informed we will be when they are finally unleashed on an unsuspecting world and we are all summarily eaten. The fact that it's so universally reviled by critics makes me want to see it even more, but I may have to resist. As the Necronomicon teaches us, some doors were never meant to be opened.

For alone in the dark listen to the commentary. Dear god listen to it! Ten minutes on German tax shelters and a speil on how Tara wouldnt take off her bra in the unecessary sex scene. It's hilarious. Lets not even go into the fact that he says that he hopes this catapoults Slater and Dorf's career. Oh God! I almost chocked on a freezy pop! Tons of fun.