Ah yes, Uwe Boll, the video-game-loving movie director that critics love to hate, and the feeling is always mutual. A 2017 Vanity Fair profile proclaimed that the routinely-derided German filmmaker is, “the Donald Trump of directors…brutish bully [and] inclined to lash out against his detractors.” One can understand VF’s argument especially when you take into account the man’s filmography and universally-loathed pictures like “Postal,” Bluberella,” BloodRayne.” Boll, the Ed Wood of 21st-century cinema, retired from filmmaking more than a year ago proclaiming “the market is dead.” He then went on to embark on a venture in the food industry, opened the fine-dining operation “Bauhaus” and seems to now be, in his own words, a “successful” restaurateur. Good for him, but if you think any bitterness from a stalled cinematic career has left his soul, think again.
Boll’s latest target is an ambitious one: Paul Thomas Anderson, whom, by all accounts, is the current American master as far as directors are concerned. Boll tweeted accusing PTA of having a grudge against him – a grudge so epic which he says led PTA to secretly scold him for the marketing of his latest classic-in-the-making, “Phantom Thread” (lol).
Boll is accusing Anderson of stealing the poster design for his 2005 bomb “BloodRayne,” which many consider the worst film of the last 25 years. Why would PTA have such a personal disdain for Boll? Well, according to the director-turned-restauranteur, Anderson must have been filled with anger after Boll criticized his oeuvre during a recent podcast, which begs us to ask the question: Why in the living hell would Anderson even be listening to an Uwe Boll podcast?
And so, with all that being said, the gist of it is that Boll is accusing Paul Thomas Anderson of putting an Easter Egg “fuck you” to “BloodRayne” in his poster for Phantom Thread which might be the best laugh of 2018 so far, at least in terms of cinematic inside baseball.
However, I will say this; the poster designs do look eerily similar:
https://twitter.com/UweBollRaw/status/962101759907831808
https://twitter.com/UweBollRaw/status/962334731009323009
So, is Boll going to challenge PTA to a boxing match, the former director’s preferred method of settling a score? Coincidence or not, it’s safe to say that Anderson likely won’t be responding. That might be for the best, though the thought of Boll coming back into the spotlight only to be scolded by the best director in the world would be rather amusing. Although he recently tweeted that he pitched “Postal 2” to Netflix (God help us all), Boll does seem to be done with filmmaking, for now. Desperately Seeking Uwe? You Boll-heads out there will have to head to Vancouver to eat at “Bauhaus” if you want any sign of the man himself.
https://twitter.com/UweBollRaw/status/962406791479836672
