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Dr. Uwe Boll (born June 22 , 1965 in Wermelskirchen , Germany ) is a German Film Director and Producer of Movies usually adapted from Video Games . His films often attract strong criticism, mainly from movie critics and fans of the material he adapts. Unlike most directors that receive funding from Hollywood studios, he finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. THE DIRECTOR In his youth, Boll produced short films on Super 8 Mm Film and Video . He studied film direction in Munich and Vienna , and later literature, then film and marketing and management in Cologne and Siegen. Boll earned a doctorate in Literature from the University Of Cologne in 1995 . Among his first public works are the films ''German Fried Movie'' ( 1991 ) and then ''Run Amok'' ( 1992 ) and ''Barschel'' ( 1993 ). Together with his friend and business partner Frank Lustig, he created the enterprise BOLU film production and rental business GmbH in 1991. Since 1998 , he has been the exclusive owner and Managing Director of the enterprise. From 1994 to 2000 , he was also a producer and director with TaunusFilm production GmbH and the Managing Director of TaunusFilm International GmbH in Wiesbaden. Since 1991, Boll has been professionally active as director and a producer. Besides productions of German advertising spots for e-plus, Lucky Strike, Porsche and Pall Mall, he makes motion picture films. Since 2000, he always directs and produces his films. Boll's films frequently utilize financial advantages found in Vancouver , Canada ; however, a large part of production takes place in Germany. Uwe's BOLL KG company slogan declares itself the "World Market Leader in Video Game Adaptations", and has produced such movies as '' House Of The Dead '', '' Alone In The Dark '', and '' BloodRayne ''. Boll is alleged to interact with fans by regularly posting on various internet {Link without Title} . Listening to the DVD commentary of ''Alone in the Dark'' reveals that Boll has at least read the IMDb forums. Boll is also HSX's TT current touchstone for bad directing. FINANCING Boll continues to secure investors for the rights to future videogame-to-movie adaptations, despite the controversy surrounding his products. His investors are mostly German. He carefully secures the rights for potential future adaptations, afterwards doing all of the actual production himself, and finishes the product. Movies directed by Boll have not achieved the kind of Box Office returns one expects from a typical Hollywood film. ''The House of the Dead'' broke $5.73 million on opening weekend, ''Alone in the Dark'' made over $5.1 million, and ''BloodRayne'' topped $2.42 million. A Boll film is usually made on a relatively tight budget in places like Vancouver, Canada. In the DVD commentary of ''Alone in the Dark'', Boll explains how he funds his films: ''"Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the Government."'' Whereas most directors would no longer be able to acquire the funding to continue such projects after box office failures such as ''Alone in the Dark'', Boll is able to acquire funding thanks to German tax laws that reward investments in film. The law allows investors in German-owned films to write off 100% of their investment as a tax deduction; it also allows them to invest borrowed money and write off any fees associated with the loan. The investor is then only required to pay taxes on the profits made by the movie; if the movie loses money, the investor gets a tax writeoff. While Boll has received a lot of negative publicity regarding this funding method, he was actually one of the few directors to use the tax shelter as intended. His films were financed, produced, and directed by a German company, which was the initial intention behind the tax shelter: to provide incentive for German companies to invest in entertainment properties. Regardless of the law's intention, most of these German film funds ended up funneling money to American studios to finance American blockbusters. The law merely required that the movie's copyright be owned by a German company; thus studios would "sell" a movie's rights to a German company, then immediately lease the movie back for a small fee, while the German owners would agree to very limited control. Essentially, the German company would own the movie on paper, but have no say over its production. [http://www.slate.com/id/2117309] Because of this, in January 2006 , as had been expected for several months, the German legislature changed the country's tax laws to eliminate the tax shelter. [http://movies.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1064327.php/Germany_closes_tax_loophole_for_Hollywood] It is not known if this will have any effect on Boll's funding as the new laws only seek to punish investors who are abusing the law for tax purposes; Boll's activities appear to be well within the legitimate usage of the tax shelter. WRITINGS Boll has written two Book s, ''Wie man in Deutschland einen Film drehen muss'' (''How to Make a Movie in Germany'') and ''Die Gattung Serie und ihre Genres'' (''Serials and Their Genres''), on themes of serial TV , which, according to Dr. Boll's description, "endeavors to sketch a conceptual horizon of the 'fictitious' TV serial through a generic description, derived by film-historical and statistical methods, as well as by a bibliographical evaluation. Thereby, comprehensive materials and literary bases were made available for the purpose of this research, so that they may properly describe and distinguish the series as such from other kinds, and allow for typogolocial categorization and verification of the computational matrixes which form the basis of the various singular episodes." CRITICISM When adapting a video game into a movie, Boll will change the plot, environment, and anything else that he deems necessary. For example, ''Alone in the Dark'' was criticized for departing from the video game's survival-horror style (the original game was set in New England in the beginning of the 20th century and featured a detective trapped in a haunted Victorian house) to a more action-oriented one (the movie is set in a modern/sci-fi megalopolis, and features a detective with assault rifles). These deviations from the source material tend to irritate fans of the original video game the movie is based on.
House of the Dead Fans of the series sometimes claim that Boll strayed too much from the source material, as not much in the movie could be connected easily to the actual game series (to the extent of being called "shack of the dead") despite the movie being a prequel to the events in the game (except for a subtle game reference in the end of the movie). Also, many fans think that a lot of the Gimmick imagery used made the movie more comical than it was intended to be. Alone in the Dark Blair Erickson, a writer of a treatment for ''Alone in the Dark'', has written a critical account of his experience working with Boll. It includes allegations that Boll retrieved ideas from prior movies, and requests to add elements to the story that were not to the tone of the source material and, as quoted by many fans "would have had a more positive impact on more people". Blair's script was not chosen (in fact he refused to let Boll use it), so Uwe went with another script. {Link without Title} BloodRayne The movie makes many departures from the original plot and characters. Billed as a Prequel , the events that happen in the movie contradict the events of the game. Specifically:
Allegedly, Boll attempted to have the in-game character model for Rayne altered so that in future games she would more closely resemble Kristanna Loken , the Actress who plays her in Boll's movie. The movie was shipped to numerous theaters for play in January 2006 that had not even booked it, making it appear that Boll was desperate for additional screens. Cult Following Despite their negative criticism, his movies attract a sizeable cult following, similar to other infamous directors such as Ed Wood , to whom Boll is frequently compared. Viewers who have little exposure to the source materials, and thus judge the movies entirely on their own, sometimes find them as enjoyable as other low-budget science fiction movies. In some cases, Boll has made use of old or unusual directing tricks, such as inserting clips from the actual video game into ''House of the Dead'', which simply turned out not to have the positive impact they were intended to have. On HSX's TT boards Boll has a cult of a different type, there he is the touchstone for bad directing. Response to Criticism Boll has responded to his critics in a number of ways:
QUOTATIONS "They were better than actors. We looked for local Romanian actresses, but there they are all from the theater and act very broadly. For 150 euros a piece the whores would be naked and do as they were told. It was better.” - Uwe Boll (in an interview for Bloodrayne: The Movie talking about why he chose to use Prostitutes instead of actual actresses). "Postal will be so politically incorrect and harsh, it's like a mirror to American society, and I don't think the movie will be well received by everybody. For example, Osama Bin Laden will be one of the lead characters - I think that shows the mood of the movie." {Link without Title} "I have more respect for B-movie king Ed Wood than I do for all the guys writing all the Internet bullshit about me and sitting in their houses where mommy pays for everything." UPCOMING PROJECTS Boll is at the helm of the forthcoming projects:
Boll said that French scriptwriters approached him with the screenplay for '' Metal Gear Solid ''; however, ''Metal Gear'' creator Hideo Kojima was unwilling to sell him the rights to the game. {Link without Title} FILMOGRAPHY
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