Reader’s Choice

I’m looking at the blog stats and apparently, I get enough hits every day that I feel I can safely whip this one out without looking like a complete jerk.

Or, this could potentially backfire and I could look like…a complete jerk. If this works and you, o’ reader of mine, enjoy this, I can continue to do it on a consistent basis. If you don’t like it, all you have to do is tell me in the comments.

I’ve updated my Netflix queue and I’m giving anyone the chance to decide the next movie I review. Here’s how it works: I’m going to post the top ten movies in my queue, and all you have to do is clicky-click the little comment button below and tell me which one you want to see next. I’ve tried to select ten movies from a variety of genres so that there’s something for anyone in the list.

If you want. Or you could just point, laugh, and say, “Haha, jerk!”

The movie with the most people voting in the “Yay! That one!” column gets delivered to me next. I’ll give it until Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., Central Standard Time for anyone out there to comment.

Without further delay, here are the ten movies, in no particular order:

• Bloodsport
• Willow
• The Darjeeling Limited
• I Spit On Your Grave
• Cool Hand Luke
• Jawbreaker
• Shinjuku Triad Society
• Prom Night
• The Dreamers
• In The Name Of The Father

I tried to make it pretty diverse, I promise.

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Flashback: House of the Dead (And A Small Rant About Uwe Boll)

I should preface this by saying that I hate Uwe Boll’s movies. (This is probably not an unpopular opinion among movie buffs.) I’ve sat through at least four of his movies, trying desperately to find something redeeming in the hot messes he makes, but so far, I haven’t found much.

In the comments in an earlier post there was a small discussion between me and The Best Haiku Writer Ever, also known as andrew, about Uwe Boll’s movies wherein it occurred to me via another commenter that not everyone was aware of the horrific nature of this man’s movies.

Uwe Boll is a German filmmaker/producer who uses German tax shelters in order to make his movie. From The All-Knowing Wikipedia:

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.

Germany, your contributions to cinema have been duly noted.

Boll usually prefers to make adaptations of video games, like the movie I have just watched. In short, I’m not sure that Boll actually puts anything but half-assed effort into his movies. I’m not sure how in the world he keeps on doing what he’s doing, but he manages. His movies have terrible acting, horrific directions, plots and scripts so shoddy they just should have been reworked about eighty times before anyone decided to put them to celluloid; what disturbs me most is that the man takes something that could be theoretically decent and somehow screws it up. I never get the feeling Uwe Boll loves movies or even thinks he should have to work hard at making a decent film. In short, his movies piss me off because they’re mediocre pieces of crap that he is content to continue to unleash upon the public. None of his movies have improved; in fact, House of the Dead is probably one of the better movies I’ve seen that he’s done — sadly.

So here we go, through House of the Dead.

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