Uwe Boll (left) with two of his "Postal" co-stars
(Credit: Chris Helecermanus/Event Film)
He specializes in video-game adaptations where the production values are as low as the camp quotient is high. It all started with 2003’s “House of the Dead,” but his list of cinematic atrocities (including “Alone in the Dark” and “BloodRayne”) has grown so long that a band of fed-up gamers drafted an online petition demanding Boll retire from filmmaking.
Never one to shy away from free publicity, Boll suggested he might comply if the form acquired a million signatures. That prompted Stride Gum to get on board as a sponsor and offer free gum to anyone who signs. But Boll’s not quitting…yet.
With his latest, “Postal,” Boll takes a crack at vulgar political satire, but it’s still (loosely) based on a game. The film follows a disenfranchised trailer-park resident known only as “Dude,” who gets caught up in an apocalyptic adventure alongside George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, a New Age cult, Verne “Mini-Me” Troyer, and Boll himself, who cameos as the pedophiliac curator of a Nazi-themed amusement park.
In person, Boll’s cheerfulness and good humor belie his status as Fanboy Enemy #1. He sat down with Metromix to discuss trashing his homeland, eating breakfast with Freddie Prinze Jr., why “Titanic” is overrated and how he plans to get people to vote pro-Boll.
Do you think the pure silliness of “Postal” will help it reach a bigger audience than more serious movies dealing with contemporary politics?
Absolutely. You can get people who like “Wedding Crashers,” or whatever. There’s a chance [for] the Will Ferrell kind of audience, but it could also be for [viewers] who want to see a satire about Bush and bin Laden. So you have a totally mixed-up audience. What I learned in various screenings is that a lot of, let’s say, real intellectual people think it’s too dirty, that they don’t like the sex gags…
…or shit jokes.
Yeah, this kind of stuff. They say, “you just destroyed a great satire with dirty jokes.” I said, “I don’t think the movie is dirtier than the politics around us.” I never planned to make a nice satire. I felt after the last two years—not only due to the political landscape, but also my career—that it was time to really pull the hammer out. Not go for lighthearted, kind of Roberto Benigni’s humor, or a genius Woody Allen thing, or whatever. I felt like, “I want to smash it all, and I want to really hit it so hard that everybody gets hit.”
You even go after the counterculture in your depiction of the New Age hippie cult.
This was also, for me, important that I trash all the tree-hugging, tai-chi, tea-drinking people doing five hours of yoga every day, and they think they change the world, and then in the end, they only fall in another trap. I felt like if I bashed the Muslims like crazy, I have to trash also this side. I can not stop making jokes about other people.
So every ideology is problematic in some way.
Yeah, and the Nazi theme park was my hit to Germany. [Germans] are all like, “look, the next Second World War thing got the Oscar for Best Foreign Movie.” [German filmmakers] are all trying to show that all Germans, of course, were good guys, and everybody tried to kill Hitler at one point. No one likes it if you say that Germans are still Nazis, and they still are sausage-eating, beer-drinking, lederhosen-wearing idiots. I felt like I have to do this, first of all, to hit Germany in the face, but also second, to make jokes about myself. I can portray myself as a pervert. I trash myself also. [Laughs]
Even though “Postal” is a comedy it has roughly the same amount of violence and nudity as your other films. Were you ever tempted to dial those things down?
No. I never compromised. I had so many people turn down the movie. My production designer from “In the Name of the King” passed on the movie. He said, “no, I can not do that. This is too much for me.” And other people also, that have worked with me for four or five movies, couldn’t do it. And I felt like, “pussies!” And when the script went to the agencies—William Morris, CAA—they all called me like, “what happened? Are you on the drugs? What the fuck? We can not give you any actors. It’s too harsh, and we don’t support it at all.” And then we did the casting, and the actors came out of the blue—J.K. Simmons, Seymour Cassel. They said, “our agents told us not to come, but we want to do the movie.”
What is it about a video game as the basis for a movie that appeals to you?
“House of the Dead” I got by accident and then it really made money. So [the investors] all said, “Why don’t you keep making movies out of video games?” I thought, “OK, it’s not a bad idea, because you have all genres, all kinds of stories,” and I went out to try to get the video games I like. I try to acquire games that I can make totally different movies out of.
Were you ever dissuaded by the amount of awful video-game-to-film adaptations out there? I mean, there’s “Double Dragon”…
…”Wing Commander.” [Laughs] I actually met Freddie Prinze Jr. for breakfast, and he said, “I really like your video-game-based movies, because I was in ‘Wing Commander,’ and it can’t get worse than ‘Wing Commander.’” But, no. The problem with the video game is, of course, the hardcore fans. They live in that video game, and now, they will be disappointed, because you can not fulfill the movie they want. You have to make a movie that everybody understands, even people that have no idea that this is a video-game-based movie. There’s a compromise, basically.
That compromise has led to this online petition trying to ban you from directing. Do you think it can realistically get up to a million signatures?
Now they have the chewing gum company sponsoring it. So it’s like, this is not fair anymore, because now they’re buying votes! I hope I get Budweiser sponsoring me now, and then you get a six-pack for free if you vote pro-Boll. Budweiser should do that. They should listen to what I say right now.
You came out with a videotaped response to the petition where you claimed to be a better director than Michael Bay, who you called a “fucking retard,” and “Hostel” helmer Eli Roth, who you accused of “making the same shitty movies over and over again.” So what genre filmmakers do you like?
I like John Carpenter. I like James Cameron, but with James Cameron, it’s tough to judge him. After “Titanic,” it’s a little up in the air; you never know what’s going on with him. But I think he is definitely a very good filmmaker, and I love all his movies before “Titanic.” I think “Titanic” is the most overrated movie maybe of all time.
Oh, c’mon. You gotta admire the sincerity of it.
When I saw it the first time, I said, “it’s a masterpiece!” But then, I could never stand it again. Let’s say it this way—it was not a movie you want to see a second time. Like, “Dances With Wolves,” I can see ten times [and still] really like it. So, it’s different.
What will you do if the anti-Boll petition gets to a million signatures?
Well, I think if they make the million votes, they have to check out if there were really a million different people, or maybe 100,000 that voted ten times. So there’s the thing—I would really have to check that. But I would definitely step away a little. I’d keep making movies, but not based on video games. So they’ll have that peace with me then.
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