Some writers get interviews. I get yelled at.

I wouldn't call it an interview. An interview is usually something of a question an answer session. There are notepads and tape recorders and canned, well-rehearsed answers involved. No, this was something different. This was getting chewed out. But better. I wasn't getting chewed out by just anybody. This wasn't like that time I was told there was no "saving seats" for other film critics by a very angry woman swinging a purse larger than my head who really liked the seats I'd been sitting in for half an hour. This was way better. This was Uwe Boll. And he was pissed.

No, not at me, per se. But at a few of the guys I work with at another site. You see, they've said some nasty things about him in the past, nasty things that Boll has since spun into a massive mythos surrounding him and his films. He has been routinely called the worst director working today, and occasionally even called the worst ever. And he has seized upon that image and turned himself into the cinematic equivalent of a wrestling heel. He howls and spits and yells and makes a fortune doing it as we in the press continue to write about him. So a few of my friends just shrugged and said "Maybe we shouldn't write about him anymore." So, they don't. And I was told I could skip Postal.

Oscar Wilde once said "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," and with Dr. Boll's (no matter how unlikely it may seem) PhD in Literature, I'm doubting that quote has escaped him. Which brings me to my 10 minutes out in front of the Alamo Drafthouse with Dr. Boll. It was an odd moment as he was speaking with a few folks after an epic hour and six minute Q&A with himself and the film's highly intoxicated star Zack Ward. While the film both was reportedly terrible but better than expected (something I would discover to be true later) the Q&A was something of a hoot and a holler. And the crowd was energized. So too was a smiling Uwe Boll.

He glanced down at my badge and saw who I worked for and immediately smiled. "Oh you are a film writer, and you just saw my movie?"

"No sir, I didn't. I had to see something else. I'm seeing it at the next screening."

"Oh? You're seeing it Monday? And you will write about it?"

I shook my head. He didn't like my answer. What followed was a ten minute tirade about that website that I write for, its editors and ultimately my lack of a spine for not immediately resigning because I could not write about his film. Not being talked about, it would seem, was far worse than the worst things I could say about him.

Read Part Two Here

C. Robert Cargill - - - Email Me
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Austin-based Cargill, who not only loves but owns The Cutting Edge, writes on movies and DVD five times a week.

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