June 16th, 2006
To: Dr. Uwe Boll
Re: A Gauntlet Thrown Down In Response To Your Own.
Dear Uwe ... can I call you Uwe? For some reason referring to you as 'Doctor' just makes me feel silly, so unless you object I'd like to keep things casual. When I think of a doctor I think of someone who prods my nether regions and I'm afraid I simply cannot think of you that way. But I digress ...
Uwe, I am writing you this letter in response to your recent critic boxing challenge, a move I feel is - quite frankly - one of the finest PR stunts of recent times. Please consider this my official application to be one of your esteemed opponents.
You say you are looking for critics who have said unkind words about your films in the past. Well consider this selection of quotes, all written by yours truly:
"Boll clearly has no idea how to shoot them"
"the world's busiest incompetent film maker"
"The trailer [BloodRayne] is four minutes of pain. I can't imagine anyone willingly watching more."
Further, Uwe, I would like to take this opportunity to confirm what you surmised while issuing your challenge: I have, in fact, written all of these things without ever once having sat through the entirety of any one of your films. Much as I find that a quick glimpse of the mangled wreckage of a highway car crash is enough to satisfy the more morbid elements of my curiosity with no need to stop and poke around in the entrails to confirm that I have just witnessed something truly ghastly I have held - and continue to hold - the opinion that a fleeting glimpse of one of your films in trailer form is horrific and scarring enough with no need for exposure to the full onslaught.
And so I believe that I meet with the criteria to qualify for your pugilistic endeavor. And being Canadian born and raised I believe that I also have an advantage over many others in that I possess the generally non-agressive demeanor of my folk and thus am unlikely to cause you any significant damage. Please, Uwe, pick me.
Humbly yours,
Todd Brown
Twitch.
Good luck, man. Something needs to beat some sense into this man, and if not the low box office returns and a critic's pen, then why not a critic's fist? A word of advice, though, if you do get chosen, please train or something cause Uwe is no doubt training his life out to be able to make such a cocky challenge. Hopefully, I'm wrong, but I can see his angle in all this...
I just have a feeling that critics that are anorexic 10 pound girls will be chosen to meet this guy in the ring.
Todd, that was great. Go for it.
He wanted to fight 5 critics rite? one on one or all at the same time? judging from all those grays hairs and that retarded smirk he has on his mug he would do himself a service by keeping his mouth shut.
Goodluck Todd. I sure as hell hope you get picked. I'd love to see Boll get the shit knocked out of him. So if you do end up selected, train hard!
Ironically, you'd end up in Boll's latest shitfest too. So either way I suppose, Boll wins.
i read your myspace a couple of days ago and recall that you are 6'5.
do us justice todd.
You know this might actually make one of his films worth sitting through...
I can actually hear the Rocky theme tumbling in the wind from all the way across here in Edinburgh...Seriously, I would train to within an inch of my life and then KO him in the first round.
"There, make a movie out of that Doctor."
If there is any justice left in this world, someone will get to inflict equal amounts of pain on this man - why not Todd? After all, Uwe (which is such a fitting name for him. Kind of like the sound you make when you watch one of his films) has inflicted so much of it on audiences everywhere. Karma and such dictates some sort of comeuppance... Hopefully, Todd will be picked and given the opportunity to kick the living crap out of this cocky SOB and thus, right the balances of justice. Just like Superman (or Wonder Woman)! :)
Good lord, to have to resort to such PR stunts to sell your film - that's just so utterly pathetic in so many ways. But if Todd manages to kick the snot out of him, I *might* just pay to see that. But somehow, I think Boll will just sort of 'fake' the fight. Smoke and mirrors, after all, is the M.O. of the film biz. But even the thought of Todd's big meat hooks connecting with this smug bastard's kisser and drawing blood - well, it just makes me all kinds of warm and fuzzy inside.
That....is....awesome...go for it dude!
Hit him below the belt!!!
Uwe Boll always said that he would be killed in the film, gunned down by haters, but I think this stunt is the best PR stunt I've ever seen. It will sertanly give the film, and him, some notoriority (sp?) It's like celebrety death match come to live only Uwe isn't a celebrety.
What if Michael Bay would do the same thing? I would pay to see Brett Rattner beat the living shit out of Harry Knowles, just to shut that fat hating ass up.
Nah, Harry would be better at wrasslin' then boxing.
Boll a boxer? Well, that finally explains it. He directs like someone who's been punched in the head too many times. Good luck, Todd!
Arcville, if you take the time to read the posts those comments were made in - they ARE linked to after all, it's not exactly difficult - you will find that the vast majority are targetted to specific things within the trailers and clips which I HAVE seen.
As for my opinion being no good, well Boll's films have "achieved" ratings (in chronological order) of 13, 6, 1 and 5 on Rotten Tomatoes and 30, 15, 9 and 18 and Metacritic. In the face of that it's abundantly clear that the VAST majority of people agree with me that it's Boll's skills as a film maker that are no good.
Like I say in the letter, when the trailers induce that much pain there's no need to see the full film unless you're just some sort of vicious masochist. Which I'm not.
Yeah, Todd, you should try actually watching the films. I've seen them all, but I don't hate them enough to want to box Uwe.
^^^^
Well hell, there were people who thought "You Got Served" was good too, it doesn't make them right...
And on the topic of not seeing the films, you don't have to stick your hand in water to know it's wet, and you don't have to smell crap to know it stinks.
"And on the topic of not seeing the films, you don't have to stick your hand in water to know it's wet, and you don't have to smell crap to know it stinks."
Yeah ok, whatever. I though that people here were a little more opend minded and more knowledgeable of the whole movie thing.
Ciao!
First of all, I wish you good luck in your endeavors. You have my vote as the champion of us movie goers who aren't gonna take any more crap from Uwe Boll. Seriously, this guy is like the reverse King Midas. He takes solid gold like House of the Dead and turns it into pure unadulterated crap.
Believe me, I like a good zombie movie as much as the next guy, but that's just it. This is not a good zombie movie. It's not even close to being a good zombie movie. The fact remains that Uwe Boll couldn't direct traffic. In all fairness, however, the writer probably deserves his part of the blame. How can you take dialog like this serious:
Rudy: You did all this to become immortal. Why?
Castillo: To live forever!
And how can you take it serious when a bunch of teenagers are suddenly able to handle firearms like seasoned soldiers even though most of them just picked up a gun and fired it for the first time?
And while we're playing the blame game, let's take a look at the acting. The only people in this movie able to act were Jürgen Prochnow and Clint "Yes, I'm Ron's brother" Howard. The rest of them were pretty, no doubt about that, but a pretty face alone does not an actor make.
And whose idea was it to intercut scenes from the original game, to which, chronologically speaking, this movie is a prequel? I know it's probably meant as an homage to the game, but frankly, it's just annoying.
I know, I could have turned off the movie at any given time, but that option was hypothetical. I have a kind of morbid curiosity when it comes to bad movies. I usually keep watching in the hope that it gets better, but it rarely does. I've suffered my way through a lot of turkeys this way, but National Lampoon's Men in White can't hold a candle to House of the Dead, when it comes to crappiness. Still in all I have to to admit that I would rather watch House of the Dead again than subject myself to the horrors of Freddy Got Fingered and Miss Castaway and the Island Girls. One can only take so much punishment.