HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS - The Beginning...

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS:

A YEAR-LONG MOVIE MISSION

by Gary Anderson

Mission Statement

  They’re unkillable, unstoppable, unflappable and irresistible. They’re the masters of the outrageous, racking up unfeasibly high body counts, smirking in the face of danger, always ready with a sly quip or a blistering pun, right before they blow the shit out of absolutely everything. Charismatic, stoic and determined, these Spartans never give up, overcoming unbelievable odds and despicable villains to save the day. They’re cinema’s greatest warriors, titans who walk among us, proving time and time again that no problem, however big or small, can’t be solved without a hearty fistful of dynamic, pulse-quickening, edge-of-your-seat violence.

They’re the Schwarzeneggers, the Van Dammes, the Stallones. They’re living legends. They’re Hollywood’s Hardest Bastards.

  But who is the hardest action hero of them all? Which of Hollywood’s toughest, most grizzled wisecracking bullet-dodgers is more insanely badass than all the rest? The Expendables brought many of the action greats together, but as a team. How much more fun would that movie have been if it was one big testosterone-filled battle royale that finally revealed which gung-ho He-Man is the mightiest of the bunch?  

  This will be my quest. Using my own dodgy, quasi-scientific criteria, from January 1^st 2013 I will be watching and analysing at least one film each day from the back catalogue of Hollywood’s ten toughest hombres in order to determine, once and for all, by the law of averages, who is the greatest living ass-kicker of them all. Never mind which star has made the most films, earned the most money or won the most awards. This isn’t about artful mise-en-scene or stirring cinematography. This is about determining, film-for-film, which rock-hard chiselled champion stands head and shoulders above the rest. Every morning for one whole year, I will pick one film at random from the Celebrations Tub of Death to chronicle and rate each Hard Bastard’s performance according to my own carefully considered set of criteria.

  This mission will not just involve watching the classics of the action genre, like Die Hard, Predator or First Blood, though I will be watching those too. That would be far too easy. No, in order to be completely fair, this undertaking must also encompass each star’s cinematic turkeys, their risible direct-to-video obscurities, and the early career oddities. The only material ruled out for selection will include TV shows, made-for-TV movies, cameos and uncredited appearances and the vast majority of appearances in children’s films. However, if the Hard Bastard has starred in a film where butt has been kicked or baddies have been blown to smithereens, you can rest assured it will be included here.

THE HARD BASTARDS 

So, who are our contenders? It was tough to decide (sorry Snipes), but after much careful deliberation, here, in no particular order, are the Toughest Ten, each of whom have accrued a significant body of legendary, bone-snapping action movie work:

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on July 30, 1947, near Graz, Austria. With an almost unpronounceable surname and a thick Austrian accent, who would have ever believed that a brash, quick talking bodybuilder from a small European village would become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, marry into the prestigious Kennedy family, amass a fortune via shrewd investments and one day become the Governor of California? A distinguished Hard Bastard.

MEL GIBSON

Born in Peekskill, NY on January 3, 1956, Mel Gibson moved to Australia during his youth and went on to pursue a film career. After appearing in the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, Gibson eventually directed and starred in the Academy Award-winning Braveheart and directed The Passion of the Christ. Outside of his work, Gibson has been accused of homophobia, anti-semitism, racism and misogyny. A mad Hard Bastard.

CLINT EASTWOOD

Born on May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, California, Clint Eastwood got his big break starring on the TV western Rawhide. He then became immensely popular as a tough guy via a string of Sergio Leone movie westerns and the Dirty Harry franchise. In recent years, Eastwood has directed many films, including the Academy Award-winning projects Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Changeling. An old school Hard Bastard.

BRUCE WILLIS

Born Walter Bruce Willison on March 19, 1955, in West Germany, Bruce Willis's career was launched when he played wisecracking David Addison on TV's Moonlighting opposite Cybill Shepherd. In the summer of 1988, Die Hard, an action-packed flick that cast Willis as the muscle-pumping hero, hit movie screens with a bang, and his status as a bona fide movie star was minted.  A cocky Hard Bastard.

JASON STATHAM

English born, Syndenham, London raised, Statham is the second son of a dancer and a lounge singer. Although he had artistic talent running through his veins, he instead focused on his athletic abilities at the high dive. His diving abilities were so impressive that he joined the British Olympic team in 1988 in Seoul, Korea. After 10 years in the National Diving Squad, a talent agent led him to the modeling industry. Broke into acting in such an unconventional way, Jason Statham has really found his path in the film industry through his work in action pictures like The Transporter and soared to be one of the most popular actors of the genre by the 21st century. The young upstart Hard Bastard.

STEVEN SEAGAL

He's an action superstar surrounded by controversy and crime. Steven Fredric Seagal was born on 10 April 1952 in Lansing, Michigan where he lived until he was five years old. Seagal started his martial arts training at the age of seven, travelling to Japan at the age of 17, where he taught English and perfected his martial arts skills, paving the way for him to work his way into the movie industry. He skyrocketed to fame in 1988 with an action-packed debut in Above the Law, but long before then, he was known to martial arts insiders as the first Caucasian to open his own aikido dojo in Japan. Also an accomplished and celebrated musician. A cultured Hard Bastard.

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME

Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, better known to movie audiences as JCVD, ‘The Muscles from Brussels,’ is a Belgian martial artist, actor, and director best known for his martial arts action films. After studying martial arts intensively from the age of ten, Van Damme achieved national success in Belgium as a martial artist and bodybuilder. He emigrated to the United States in 1982 to pursue a career in film, and achieved success with Bloodsport. His martial arts assets, highlighted by his ability to deliver a kick to an opponent's head during a leaping 360-degree turn, and his good looks led to starring roles in higher budgeted movies like Cyborg, A.W.O.L.: Absent Without Leave, and Universal Soldier. Most recently seen hamming it up in dodgy beer commercials. A roundhouse-kicking Hard Bastard.

DOLPH LUNDGREN

A graduate in chemistry from Washington State University, chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia in 1982, Lundgren holds a rank of 3rd dan black belt in Kyokushin Karate and was European champion in 1980 and 1981. While in Sydney, he became a bodyguard for Jamaican singer Grace Jones and began a relationship with her. They moved together to New York City, where after a short stint as a model and bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub The Limelight, Jones got him a small debut role in the James Bond film A View to a Kill. Lundgren's breakthrough came when he starred in Rocky IV in 1985 as the imposing Russian boxer Ivan Drago. Since then, he has starred in more than 40 movies, almost all of them in the action genre. So hard, masked burglars abandoned a robbery after discovering the home they had targeted was his. Smart thieves, and a smart Hard Bastard.

CHUCK NORRIS

Born on March 10, 1940, Chuck Norris started studying martial arts in Korea in the 1950s. He was serving in the U.S. Air Force at the time. When he returned home, Norris soon opened his karate studio. He switched to movies in the 1970s, appearing with Bruce Lee in Return of the Dragon. Norris became a popular action-film star in the 1980s, and starred in his own television series in the 1990s. Chuck Norris doesn’t call the wrong number. You answer the wrong phone. A legendary Hard Bastard.

SYLVESTER STALLONE

Born on July 6, 1946, in New York City, Sylvester Stallone is one of the most popular Hollywood action stars of all time, playing such iconic characters as John Rambo and Rocky Balboa. Stallone got his start writing and starring in Rocky, going on to become one of Hollywood's highest paid actors, usually playing monosyllabic, anti-society, underdog heroes and also known for his machismo. Stallone is an American actor, screenwriter, film director, filmmaker and occasional painter. While Stallone has attempted to extend his range into film comedies and drama, his real box office success continues in action films. The underdog Hard Bastard.

THE CRITERIA 

The big question is, how have these ten titans managed to endure? What qualities have ensured that these are the guys who immediately spring to mind when we think of bullet-riddled, high-octane, skull-cracking movie mayhem?

  Rated out of ten, the first of five criteria of judgement for considering a Hard Bastard’s kickass credentials will be INDESTRUCTIBILITY. A true hero dominates, consistently overcoming unbelievable odds. Men fear, respect and obey them and women want them, as they are so damn tough as to appear nigh-on unkillable, battling on, despite life-threatening injury, through storms of bullets, in the name of truth, justice or good old-fashioned survival. A real action star displays a superhuman, tenacious bouncebackability that sets him apart from the pack. Put simply, he cannot be stopped.

  Our heroes will also be judged on the impressiveness of their COMBAT SKILLS. Far from being simple bruisers, these hardmen dispatch their prey with grace confidence and a sleekness that turns killing into a gorgeous, balletic art-form. The Hard Bastard does everything with style and force, but when he’s on his game, there is nothing forced about it. Be it by kung fu, household implements or just a bloody big gun, extra points will be awarded for any bloodshed that involves a healthy dose of aesthetically pleasing, expertly choreographed imaginative creativity.

  Also important is a Hard Bastard’s ATTITUDE – his view on life and the set of values that he embodies. True heroes display courage, commitment and honour, cutting a swathe through red tape and bureaucratic bullshit to do what’s right, no matter how difficult it may be. More often than not these hardy hotshots do all this with a smile on their face and a killer wisecrack on the tip of their tongue, exuding an inner and outer strength that lets the bad guys know exactly who the baddest cat in the room is. Of course, there will be extra points for pitch-perfect puns and effortless success with the ladies.

  The fourth important quality for consideration in this battle of badassery is that which makes the hero truly memorable: his sheer OUTRAGEOUSNESS. These warriors stand out in history because, with a little movie magic, their actions often verge, quite brilliantly, on the sheer ridiculous. Whether they’re displaying a MacGuyver-like resourcefulness for getting themselves out of difficult scrapes, or pulling off insane, death-defying stunts, these guys consistently prove that they are capable of far more than mere mortals. From leaping from great heights to taking out helicopters with speeding automobiles, these Hard Bastards leave their mark, casually doing the sorts of things we can only dream of, the kind of insane, inspiring action that makes you leap from your seat and punch the air with a hearty ‘HELL YEAH!’ These guys blow stuff up in the most spectacular ways, assuring their immortality, and suffice to say, points will be awarded for inspired ludicrousness.

  Finally, each hard-boiled hero will be judged on the scale of their cinematic BODYCOUNT. Plain and simple, a true action star gains his stripes by offing a whole heap of bad guys and I will be counting each and every kill in every movie. Points will be awarded appropriately, determined by kills-per-minute in relation to the standard set by Stallone in Rambo (2008) with 87 kills in 92 minutes(!) It’s science, folks.

 So, there you have it. I am about to embark on what I hope will be an exciting, entertaining, enlightening and life-changing journey. It’s going to be one hell of a year and God knows how I am going to manage to squeeze in an action flick every single day (I just got engaged – uh oh!) but it’s going to be fun finding out! Of course much of my findings will be purely subjective, but by this time next year, I will hope to prove, once and for all, who is the toughest hardest bastard in the universe.

Yippie Ki Yay, movie-lovers!

MOVIEBOOZER

Check out these reviews I have contributed to Movieboozer.com!
Get some beers in and enjoy.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch:
http://movieboozer.com/2012/10/24/halloween-iii-season-witch-1982-2/
The Blair Witch Project:
http://movieboozer.com/2012/10/19/blair-witch-project-1999/
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2:
http://movieboozer.com/2012/10/19/book-shadows-blair-witch-2-2000/

SLANTED AND ENCHANTED - THE FAIRY TALE MOVIE RENAISSANCE

Once upon a time, in a faraway realm called Hollywoodland, there lived a powerful mogul. He had a wonderful looking-glass, and he stood in front of it and looked at himself in it, and said, “Looking-glass, looking-glass, on the wall, what’s a safe bet for a gigantic financial haul?”

  Magically flickering to life, the looking-glass answered, “Fairy Tale Movies, my king. The punters will love them.” And the king was satisfied, for he knew that the mirror spoke the truth.

“Oh, and get Kristen Stewart,” the looking-glass added, “She’s so hot right now.”

  2012 is fast becoming the Year of the Fairy Tale. Locked away in their castles, the movie men have been engaged in some kind of sorcery, with at least fifteen major big-screen adaptations of classic fables currently in production and a slew of others in development, after Tim Burton’s surprise billion-dollar box-office success with 2010’s vivid Alice in Wonderland opened the eyes of many a magnate to the commercial possibilities of these enduring, classic tales. This year, audiences have already been treated to two decidedly divergent versions of Snow White, in the shape of Tarsem Singh’s family-friendly Julia Roberts vehicle Mirror Mirror, and Rupert Sanders’ markedly morose Kristen Stewart starrer, Snow White and the Huntsman. Though Mirror…, with its jaunty musical numbers and mugging Nathan Lane faltered at the box office, the $300 million gross of the far more austere …Huntsman has proven that there remains something positively spellbinding about the fairy tale formula that is built to last.

  Already on the slate for this year is Usual Suspects helmer Bryan Singer’s big budget vision of Jack the Giant Killer, featuring X-Men: First Class star Nicholas Hoult battling Bill Nighy’s 22 foot tall CGI ogre. Hot on its enormous heels comes the ridiculously high concept Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, with Avengers’ Jeremy Renner and Prince of Persia’s Gemma Arterton as adult, bloodthirsty bounty-hunter versions of the eponymous duo, suggesting there’s plenty of mileage left in these age-old fables.

  Accounting for their bewitching popularity, Jack Zipes, one of the leading authorities on fairy tales, wrote in his book, What Dreams Come True, that these stories emanate from ‘specific struggles to humanise bestial and barbaric forces which have terrorised our minds and communities in concrete ways, threatening to destroy free will and human compassion. The fairy tale sets out to conquer this concrete terror through metaphors.’

    Deep stuff, but for many, Zipes’ words surely ring true. These are the tales we are told as children, imparting wisdom, fostering development and helping us work through confusion and anxiety in a sugar-coated ‘once upon a time’ way. Thanks to Walt Disney’s ‘safe’, technicolour animated interpretations, and the straightforward way they deal with common truths and feelings, stories like Cinderella and The Little Mermaid carry a comfortable predictability and will forever hold an important place in the collective subconscious, remaining ripe for artistic reinvention.

  By taking universally understood symbols, or archetypes – think ‘witch’, ‘prince’, ‘princess’, ‘magic beans/sword/whatever’ – these familiar yarns, in the hands of different storytellers, can be eternally recycled in strange new settings, yet can always be relied on to deliver certain fundamental, familiar features. Some symbols, like ‘Jack’s beanstalk’ will always be an integral component of their respective tales, and Dr Laura Martin, a senior lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow, and an expert on Grimm tales, has reflected on the significance of these enduring motifs: ‘There’s a huge growth going up into the sky…why is that? It’s connecting earth to the sky. It’s the realm of something beyond the human, so it’s that connection with something bigger…Psychologically, it’s brilliant. So, life is boring, life is dull, but what if I made it to that magical realm?’ Escapism is a huge part of our movie-going experience and with our ticket, we purchase more than just entertainment – these tales, when told well,  bring us that little bit closer to the kingdom of our dreams.

 The malleability of these stories, stemming from centuries of retellings, has recently seen filmmakers cook up all manner of curious interpretations. Last year, Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood attempted to distil the success of her yearning, sexually-charged, pretty young things Twilight template into the fairy tale mould, delivering a thoroughly ridiculous, yet straight-faced guilty pleasure. Likewise, Julia Leigh’s provocative Sleeping Beauty tapped into and drastically amplified the eroticism of the classic tale, ensuring audiences would never be able to look at Lemony Snicket’s Emily Browning in quite the same way again.

  These mouldable, magical tales have been around for as long as stories have been told, but it is surely a sign of the times that so many remarkable renditions are sailing into cinemas at once. In an industry currently banking the big money on sequels, franchises and remakes, the public’s fondness for fairy tales must seem like a license to print money. But what is it that compels us to return to them, time and time again?

 Martin argues that, in morally ambiguous times,  they teach us how to be upstanding citizens: ‘What we have now as fairy tales were probably once told round the fireside…people singing, telling tales, doing jokes, but they’re somehow making meaning. They’re learning how to behave and how not to behave. That’s a basic fairy tale message – do the right thing at the right time.’

 This relevance of fairy tales as moral parables could be vital in explaining the renaissance of all things fantastic. An important touchstone for Martin is the work of Carl Jung, who believed that a ‘collective consciousness,’ including values shared by all human beings, can be revealed through the peculiar symbols and archetypes found in our favourite fantasy tales. Referencing the stuttering economy, she explains, ‘everything’s falling apart and maybe it’s giving us this kind of core…that we all want the same thing and we magically hone in on the same sort of tale.’ In these uncertain times, perhaps we all need the solace of happy endings.

 It can be no coincidence that many of these retellings, particularly Sanders’ …Huntsman, with its gruesome visuals and Charlize Theron’s genuinely terrifying villainess, are returning these tales to decidedly darker territory than Uncle Walt ever envisioned. It’s easy to forget that before Disney gave it a facelift, the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White featured an evil queen who heartily devoured vital bodily organs and who got her comeuppance by being forced to dance in red-hot slippers until she fell down dead. Though Sanders’ picture isn’t quite so macabre, it is notable that the relatively austere …Huntsman, with its kingdom in turmoil offering gloomy parallels with riot strewn streets of contemporary ‘Broken Britain,’ fared far better than Singh’s whimsical Mirror Mirror. This gritty gloominess could well be the key to convincing audiences that these tales still have something to offer. Certainly, Chris Thor Hemsworth’s gruff, axe-swinging Huntsman offered more to tempt hesitant males into cinemas than Arnie Hammer’s doltish Prince, and Gemma Arterton’s assertion in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, that Hansel… will be ‘very dark and bloodthirsty,’ with a ‘Tarantino feel,’ cannot have harmed the film’s chances with the male demographic.

 The success of films, like …Huntsman, could also have much to do with the emergence of tougher, aspirational female leads.  Martin believes the ‘Disneyfied’ versions of these tales did women no favours, explaining that ‘with sweet little birds flying around, with Snow white helping the dwarves do their housework, basically, she’s a little housewife. So any sort of energy in her as a heroine is gone.’ The Girl Power, however, is strong with teen-icon Kristen Stewart, and this is perhaps another reason why …Huntsman’s assertive, armoured championess has caused such a stir with movie-goers. ‘There’s no copyright to telling stories,’ Martin continues, ‘but you can rightly talk about what gets lost in some versions.’  These are films about women claiming back the ‘energy’ that years of ‘Disneyfied’ retellings have drained from them.  These are tales of peasant revolt, about the little guy sticking a finger up at wicked rulers. The key to the fairy tale renaissance could be that in these troubled times, the grown-ups have decided it’s time to reclaim these fables that have long been censored and sanitised by market forces. By returning them to their roots as folk-tales shared by adults, the potential for action, adventure and thrills can be restored, with a satisfying dose of sticking-it-to-The-Man that keeps everyone happy. Seemingly, just the right witches’ brew of revolutionary escapism, nostalgia and cross-gender appeal can keep the studios laying golden goose eggs for a while yet.

  A list of impending releases longer than Rapunzel’s tangled locks, including Guillermo del Toro’s mooted take on Beauty and the Beast and Tim Burton’s gestating Pinocchio project, should be evidence enough that the cherished, infinitely adaptable fairy tale movie template continues to represent a suitably ‘safe bet’ for the studios. These were tales told round the campfire, never set in stone, but mutating, adapting and enduring as a sign of the times, and as long as we want to return to these enchanted kingdoms, Hollywood will happily keep conjuring new ways to grant our wishes.

LIKE CRAZY

Love can be a moment’s madness. In Drake Doremus’ melancholy drama, idealistic English college student Anna (Chalet Girl’s Felicity Jones) foolishly overstays her US visa after falling hard for charming Californian carpenter Jacob (Fright Night’s Anton Yelchin). When they’re separated, with Anna banned from entering America, what follows is an agonising study of a relationship in freefall.

  Their initial courtship adeptly captures those intoxicating, butterflies-in-the-tummy moments of first love, all intimate close-ups of reticent half-smiles and hopeful glances. Yet, just as giddy, giggly flirtation gives way to heart-wrenching transatlantic yearning, months, then years parted by red tape sees their wide-eyed romantic innocence slowly disintegrate into awkward, frustrated uncertainty.

  There are brief, blissful vacation reunions, but through all the stop-starting, the young lovers discover it’s difficult to simply press pause on life. Throughout, Doremus’ astute mise en scene gradually widens the literal space between the couple, sat separately on public transport, or strolling yards apart following a lover’s tiff, reflecting the growing rift in their hearts.

  Time, too, is presented as fleeting, with one impressively edited visual sequence seeing the twosome’s rapturous ‘summer in bed’ pass by in a depressing matter of seconds.

  Jones and Yelchin deliver commandingly mature performances, authentically encapsulating the fatigue of their star-crossed union. When Jacob has Anna’s beloved writing chair shipped to London as a surprise, Jones’ muted, half-hearted enthusiasm is so perfectly measured, you can practically see the passion begin to dissipate. Similarly, Yelchin plays wounded very well, his forlorn, puppy dog eyes effectively communicating Jacob’s inner anguish.

  Reminiscent of Derek Cianfrance’s similarly morose Blue Valentine, it is a brutal, affecting watch, though Jacob’s refusal to simply move to London makes Anna’s infatuation difficult to swallow. Although the couple’s blind naïvete may occasionally make you feel like knocking their heads together, this is a sober, bittersweet picture for anyone who’s ever been heartbroken.

THE GREY

Former Jedi, Liam Neeson channels his inner Bear Grylls for Joe Carnahan’s engagingly cerebral action thriller about a group of roughneck plane-crash survivors battling for survival against savage wolves in the Alaskan wilderness.

  The brooding, sombre tone is more reminiscent of Carnahan’s earlier work on the grim, gritty Narc, than the hyperactive, bubblegum, explodey silliness of The A-Team, instilling proceedings with a genuine sense of peril. One of cinema’s most unsettling ever plane crash sequences is viewed entirely from Neeson’s point-of-view, not once cutting outside the fuselage, the spectacular set-piece typifying the measured style Carnahan employs throughout.

  Filmed on location, the merciless conditions and sparse lighting give an authentic impression of seclusion in the expansive, unforgiving tundra, and there are plenty of gripping, heart-in-mouth moments with Neeson plunging off cliffs and through frozen rivers to escape his relentless predatory pursuers.

  The wolves themselves, an effective, shrewd mix of CGI and animatronics are glimpsed only fleetingly, with eloquent sound design proving indispensable in the unrelenting build-up of tension. The slightest creak in the distance inspires absolute panic, the omnipresent howling a bleak reminder that time is running out.

  Though the modest lighting occasionally makes it difficult to discern exactly who is being devoured, and supporting players are not sufficiently fleshed-out to make us really care when they do become wolf-fodder, Carnahan still delivers a thrilling and unexpectedly profound experience. The narrative is punctuated by brief, jarring, hyper-stylistic dream sequences, including one emotion-pummelling scene involving a long-haired little girl that provides heartbreaking, poetic insight into one survivor’s fractured psyche.

  But ultimately, this is the Neeson show and the man who, since 2006’s Taken, has become the studios’ seasoned, grizzled, vulnerable hardman of choice, and who reportedly took freezing cold showers to prepare, is superb throughout. Disconsolate eyes hint at inner torment with his world-weary huntsman lending real gravitas to an endurance tale that proves far more emotionally devastating than its action-packed, wolf-punching marketing campaign might have you believe.

  Filming in belligerent conditions, production must have made for an unforgettable experience, making the lack of extra ‘making-of’ features all the more disappointing. Deleted scenes, including a stunning polar bear encounter and extended campfire parlance give some background, and gravel-voiced Carnahan’s droll commentary offers some involving insight on the arduous shoot. However, with a distinct lack of bonus Neeson, this flimsy package feels like a frustrating opportunity missed.

EXTRAS>Commentary >Deleted Scenes

UWE BOLL, ANTICHRIST?

13 February 2011 saw the Berlin premiere of German director Uwe Boll’s solemn Holocaust docu-drama Auschwitz. For the filmmaker, often described as a ‘schlockmeister,’ and best known for campy, critically-reviled, low-budget videogame adaptations like 2003’s House of the Dead, this picture marked the zenith of his efforts in recent years to make more sober, sensitive pictures that might see audiences take him more seriously. In an interview with Die Welt newspaper, Boll proclaimed, ‘for a director like me, who is known for his explicit depictions of violence, it’s my duty to use precisely this talent to show people the atrocities of the Nazis.’ Unfortunately for Boll, it was widely reported that a number of critics would boycott the picture, with many fearing that, based on the director’s reputation, the film could not be anything other than horribly exploitative. Supporting her decision, journalist Sophie Albers wrote in Stern magazine: ‘The words ‘Auschwitz’ and ‘Uwe Boll’ in one breath leads one to fear the worst.’

 Here was a remarkable case of a filmmaker who had somehow managed to accrue such a groundswell of ill-feeling against himself that, in spite of his alleged attempts to turn a corner, his work could be condemned without even being seen. Despite industriously churning out close to twenty films in the last decade and managing to attract big name talent such as Ray Liotta, Jason Statham and Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley, Boll, helmer of this year’s forthcoming Age of Greed: The Bailout, has become a decidedly unique hate figure in the movie business – the cinematic equivalent of Lucifer himself.

 Auschwitz would go straight-to-DVD in the UK, to very little fanfare and, like the majority of Boll’s recent pictures, would quickly fade into obscurity. A search on RottenTomatoes.com will yield just one review for the film, the director’s reputation being such that most critics now apparently choose to simply turn a blind eye. The existence of anti-Boll websites, like the ominously titled ‘UweBollIsAntichrist.com,’ as well as a highly publicised online petition imploring Boll to ‘stop directing, producing, or taking part in the creation of feature films,’ is evidence that it is not just the press who dislike him. But how did his reputation become so sullied? Boll’s few defenders do not claim his films are works of art, but they certainly feel that the filmmaker is far from the ‘antichrist’ figure he is made out to be. In an age where audiences are increasingly seeking movie knowledge online, there is an argument that public and critical opinion has been perhaps too easily swayed by the roarings of the passionate coordinators of an internet witch hunt, whose exclamations are getting louder and louder.

 Many of Boll’s films, predominantly low-budget, blood spattered genre fare, are amongst the lowest rated entries on the Internet Movie Database, a forum where many users have chosen to vent their vexations on the filmmaker. Boll himself has often publicly blamed such forums for unfairly ‘sabotaging’ his career and in one message published on IMDb on January 13, 2008 he claimed users have successfully used the messageboards to ‘help destroy me.’ The filmmaker claims, ‘You hate me, you write against me, you hate my movies and you made the critics hate me and you made the theaters not believing in me [sic].’

 Boll’s tirade appears to be more than simple paranoia, as an exploration of these IMDb messageboards, where passions often run high, reveals a culture where users, many admitting to not having actually seen Boll’s films, appear to be actively disparaging them, awarding them low ratings, whilst imploring others to avoid them. On the Auschwitz board, one poster with the handle ‘matt-282,’ writes ‘It’s a movie directed by Uwe Boll, avoid it at all costs! DO NO watch! [sic],’ before confessing, ‘I wouldn’t watch this movie even if someone bribed me.’ Another user, mccutch22, actually posts: ‘If things got to a point where people vote down his movies just for the hell of it, there’s a reason, right? He deserves it.’ These are just two of a multitude of derogatory posts aimed at the filmmaker that make for provocative reading.

  A quick glance at Boll’s filmography may lead to initial mild bafflement as to where this negativity has come from. His early career had been relatively inconspicuous, helming a stream of forgettable, cheap indie thrillers such as Sanctimony (2000) and Blackwoods (2001). Boll was just another nondescript overseer of unremarkable direct-to-video fare, earmarked by cursory plotting, wooden performances and lacklustre camerawork, yet peppered with just enough sex and violent mayhem to make for an easy, if unmemorable watch.

  Then in 2003, Boll’s production company, Boll KG, acquired the rights to popular Sega videogame The House of the Dead, piquing the interest of the franchise’s large, loyal fan base. The zombie horror was the director’s first feature to gain a stateside cinematic release and was heavily marketed towards the game’s hopeful legion of followers. Sadly for Boll, his directorial inadequacies were exposed with a very high-profile flop littered with risible dialogue, nonsensical plotting and ludicrous monster make-up.

  The failure of House… triggered an outpouring of scorn, and the birth of the ‘New Ed Wood’ tag that the filmmaker would struggle to shrug off. Yet, Boll bounced back in 2005 with another videogame adaptation, the Christian Slater horror Alone in the Dark.  Again, the reviews were generally disastrous, and the ire of the videogame diehards was provoked to new levels by a film that many argued bore scant similarity to the source material. Online, fans articulated their rage, condemning Boll’s pictures as inferior imitations of the games they loved, adding fuel to a hate campaign that has snowballed, blighting the director’s career.

  Though many sub-par videogame adaptations like Mortal Kombat (1995), have found a cult following among gaming enthusiasts, one of the largest stumbling blocks for Boll, who has gone on to direct a further seven games adaptations, has been that the gamers have actually been his harshest critics. Dedicated fans can become extremely enamoured with their favourite titles, ensuring any adaptation will have a lot to live up to. Many will hope a film interpretation can capture the essence of what they love about the parent property, perhaps even displaying to non-gamers why the games matter to them. With gamers making such an emotional investment, much of the ill feeling towards Boll inevitably seems to stem from the idea that his ‘betrayal’ of the source material reflects badly on them. For someone like Boll, who has made a big point of making videogame movies, despite repeated protests, the results can be ugly.  Boll’s apparent disrespect has fuelled his detractors’ ire, giving them real purpose: a crusade to destroy him, with the battle being fought online.

 Boll’s case highlights the intriguing effect the web can have on audience reception, and its powerful capacity to effect and sway opinion. In March 2012, in a fascinating example of the internet’s efficiency as a tool for collating and articulating fan frustrations, thousands of devotees of the popular videogame Mass Effect 3 coordinated an extensive online campaign demanding that developer BioWare alter the game’s conclusion. Bowing to fan pressure, Bioware would eventually publish a free download that expanded the game’s climax, setting a dangerous new precedent for developers. In a similar move, after CBS cancelled television drama Jericho back in 2007, scores of fans inundated the network with vicious emails, prompting the series’ swift, if short-lived return.  Despite a similarly wrathful campaign following Warner Bros’ decision to delay the release of the sixth Harry Potter film in 2008, fan power has so far failed to affect film production in quite the same way. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that if the diehards can shout loud enough, the movie moguls may have to listen.

    Boll did appear to take heed of his critics, attempting to move away from videogame adaptations to direct his own original scripts on films like the thought-provoking genocide exploration Darfur and the kill-spree horror shocker Rampage (both 2009), though the damage appears to have already been done. The few critics who bothered to review these more recent original efforts talked in whispers about how Boll might actually be improving and may have found his niche with films that attempted to spread the message of important social issues to the masses. However, perhaps tellingly, the IMDb ratings for these efforts remained abysmally low, and audiences kept their distance. Boll would find he could do little to placate the wrath of the scores of film fans who felt so aggrieved by his existence that they seemed more than willing to resort to dirty tactics to ensure his unpleasant and messy demise.

  As Boll has claimed, amongst the great slews of space afforded to discussing his work on IMDb, there are suggestions that the far below average star-ratings his films receive could partly be the work of bitter saboteurs. By coordinating multiple low votes, often without even seeing the films, the plan seems to be to keep the ratings low to deter potential viewers.  On the messageboard for 2009’s Stoic, Boll’s gritty, Edward Furlong-starring exploration of the dynamics of prison life, conspiracy theories abound that Boll’s more recent efforts are being deliberately tarred with the same brush as his earlier films by motivated antagonists who refuse to assess them on their own merits. A user with the handle ‘aroundaround’ alleges that at least 51 users had cast one-star votes against Stoic before filming had even been completed. It is also alleged that, the day after the first test screening for just 171 people of Boll’s vampire thriller Bloodrayne (2005), over 360 IMDb users had voted negatively against the film. Before it had even been released, Bloodrayne was already ranked one of the site’s worst films of all time, displaying the web’s capacity to harm a film’s chances if enough people can conspire against it.

 This brings to mind the way that Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008) was able, for a few weeks following its release, to depose The Godfather (1972) from IMDb’s coveted number one spot. Many theorised that this achievement could be put down to a healthy degree of hype or, more interestingly, could have been achieved by careful design on the part of the legion of dedicated Batman fans.  More recently, there has been suggestion of supporters of Nolan and DC Studios forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises (2012) taking to the IMDb page of rival Marvel Studios’ Avengers Assemble (2012) to deliberately cast low votes in an effort to ‘game’ the film’s rating, sabotage its success and to prove, once and for all, that Batman is the definitive superhero icon. Regardless of which film is ‘the best,’ these cases certainly highlight the potential dangers for a film’s publicity when fans become organised and misuse online voting systems for their own agendas.

  In his own vehement IMDb post of January 13, 2008, Boll himself slates the website for ‘opening up my movies for votes almost a year before they are getting released and giving the 1 point votes between 200 and 300% more impact than the 10 point votes.’ On IMDb’s own Voting FAQs page, the site’s administrators, who are careful not to reveal the exact calculating methods used to create their ‘weighted average’ star ratings, rebuff such accusations, stating: ‘various filters are applied to raw data in order to eliminate and reduce attempts at ‘vote stuffing’ by individuals more interested in changing the current rating of a movie than giving their true opinion of it.’ The statement continues: ‘Occasionally we receive mail from people who seem to assume that some favourite movie has been victimised by the weighted ratings, whereas this is not the case.’ However, the administrators do concede that ‘while there is no foolproof way to verify if users have actually seen the film, or that the vote they cast is what they really think about it, we depend on and expect our users to be truthful and only vote on those films they have personally seen.’

 Safeguards may be in place, yet if users continue to impulsively cast negative votes without viewing the films, their actions could prove harmful, highlighting the worrying ways that the unique conditions of online discussion and behaviour can lead to the loosening or abandonment of social restrictions and inhibitions that would otherwise be present in normal everyday interaction. The anonymity of internet blogging allows users to be potentially much crueller than they would otherwise allow themselves to be. The relentless internet bashing, or ‘flaming,’ where users tag discussions with titles like ‘Burn In Hell, Uwe Boll’ could perhaps be put down to what social researchers have dubbed the ‘online disinhibition effect,’  whereby users often experience reduced awareness of other people’s feelings, and feel less inclined to conform to perceived norms.

  The level of malice directed at Boll may also be due in part to the phenomenon of ‘deindividuation,’ a concept in social psychology that refers to the diminishing of one’s sense of individuality that can occur with behaviour disconnected from personal or social standards of conduct. As a faceless member of an online mob of Boll-Bashers, a blogger may be more likely to post a scandalous threat to the director, or deliberately attempt to engage in ‘vote-rigging.’ Like a sensible father who suddenly feels compelled to hurl racist abuse when encompassed by the rammy of a furious football crowd, under the cover of an online alias, surrounded by virtual strangers, normally restrained users might find it easier to take a ‘moral vacation’ and suggest that a filmmaker suffer all manner of violent torture. Social media, when combined with anonymity has proven itself to be a dangerous mixture, one that can quite easily reinforce extremism.

  Boll has been quick to dispel the notion that there is no such thing as bad press. In a 2006 interview for Youtube.com, the director laid out some of the potential ill effects of this dissent, explaining, ‘If there are a lot of negative reviews of a movie, foreign buyers for example, they use that to lowball the price that they pay for the movie.’ Boll stresses that once an abundance of negative currency has been unleashed on the web, justified or not, damage control can be practically insurmountable, explaining, ‘once this image is set in, it is a lot of work to do away with it, or at least to alleviate its consequences.’

  The phrase ‘a million people can’t be wrong’ must be particularly irksome to Boll, as a massive networked game of electronic Chinese Whispers has meant that whether film fans have seen his films or not, the director’s name has become a dirty word. Much of the information available online is far from Gospel, but due to the way we use the web for quick fixes of enlightenment, for someone in Boll’s position it might as well be. With such a dearth of online propaganda devoted to painting the filmmaker in an unfavourable light, a quick Google search of his name probably wouldn’t inspire users to seek out his films for anything more than ironic chuckles, or to see what the fuss is all about. With the ability to research films on our mobile phones while standing in line at Blockbuster, it is becoming progressively easier to let the web dictate our viewing choices.

  In a key scene in Auschwitz, a young woman talks of how Germans who helped Jews in World War II would be imprisoned, explaining that under the boot of the Nazi regime, it was easier to simply ‘follow the current.’ The girl is asked what she would have done, to which she responds, tellingly, ‘the same.’ It is this tendency that humanity has to follow the herd that could very well mean that Boll’s films will, regardless of any improvement in quality, remain largely unseen. This idea of an ‘information cascade,’ of viewers abandoning their own information in favour of inferences based on other people’s opinions means that, by and large, the public will probably continue to believe the hype. Trashing Boll has become fashionable, another ‘meme,’ transmitted through our culture like wildfire, making it all too easy for critics to give him the cold shoulder. It has become the done thing to castigate the director, and it may take a minor miracle for him to overcome it. The rot may have already set in the moment Boll unleashed House of the Dead, riling a community that took an instant dislike to his methods and who, with the influential power of the web, had a powerful weapon with which to strike back.

   Boll finds himself at the mercy of invisible internet assassins who seem to have the final say over how his films are received. Boll has found out the hard way about the difficulties that lie ahead for a filmmaker who inadvertently disrespects or fails to heed the lamentations of these online fan communities. The recent glut of Hollywood remakes, sequels and comic book adaptations indicate that it is becoming increasingly arduous to get a major film made unless the source material is not already treasured by an established fan populace. The fans, possessing the ability to make or break a picture, are slowly coming round to the fact that they are the most powerful people in the media landscape. By harnessing the potential of the internet, be it to campaign through social media, or to hijack a film’s online star-rating, the fanboys are now in charge and the artists are discovering pretty quickly that they will need to play ball or face the consequences.

  We are investing more and more of ourselves into our cultural consumption, increasingly defining ourselves by the things we buy, the books we read and the games we play. A culture so committed can often lash out, sometimes unjustly, at those who meddle with the perceived gratification that immersion in these private fantasy worlds can provide. For many, Uwe Boll is a sort of antichrist, as for so many people entertainment media has become their religion and the German director has sacrilegiously sullied it. Like any organised religion, if you can spread your doctrine far and wide and attract enough disciples, you have the power to alter history and dictate the future. Unfortunately for Boll, his naysayers want him crucified.

LUX AETERNA - A TAINTED REQUIEM

On Friday 22 July 2011, the same day he bombed a government building in Oslo, Norway before carrying out a mass shooting at a political retreat on the country’s Utoya Island, leaving a death toll of 77, right-wing Christian extremist Anders Behring Breivik electronically distributed his 1500 page political manifesto. A collection of spirited diatribes against Islam, and Norway’s liberal immigration policies, the lengthy compendium also detailed how Breivik planned to prepare for his ‘preventive attacks to defend the indigenous Norwegian people.’  In addition to detailing his expected mental state, the extremist disclosed: ‘I will put my iPod on max volume to suppress fear, if needed. I might just put Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell on repeat as it is an incredibly powerful song.’ He went on:  ‘The track is very inspiring and invokes a passionate rage within you.’

  The song’s title may not be immediately familiar, but for all who hear it, ‘Lux Aeterna’ should be instantly recognisable, thanks to years of repetition in movie trailers, advertisements and sports news bulletins. As stories of the attacks filtered out of Norway, the soundtrack to the sociopath’s rampage - a haunting, urgent composition with a beguiling swirl of ominous neoclassical strings - would also make for a depressingly apt backdrop to footage of the atrocity’s aftermath. With Breivik, acting compulsively on a universe of bizarre, delusional and grandiose thoughts, appropriating it as an anthem  of his ‘low intensity civil war,’ the track takes on sinister new dimensions, foregrounding the way art, once unleashed into the public domain, can become something far beyond the vision of its’ creator.

  ‘Lux Aeterna’ started life as part of composer Clint Mansell’s brooding, evocative score for Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 feature Requiem for a Dream. Aronofsky would describe his drug parable as a ‘monster movie,’ with Mansell’s expressive composition, performed with strings from the Kronos Quartet, said to represent the embodiment of this ‘monster.’  ‘Lux Aeterna,‘ in this context, exists as the musical personification of a theme repeated throughout the director’s work, on films like Black Swan and Pi – the idea of protagonists at war with themselves, blaming outside forces for their woes when in reality it is their internal struggles that cause most damage. The parallels with Breivik, a paranoid schizophrenic who alluded to himself as a ‘knight’ battling multiculturalist ‘traitors’, are too strong to ignore, though the score’s profounder meanings were perhaps slightly lost on the killer. All songs are shaped by the experiences of those who hear, reappropriate or reimagine them, and ‘Lux Aeterna,’ once freed from its creator, would eventually mutate into something else entirely, becoming a celebrated paean to grandiosity, before finding it’s home on a killer’s mp3.

  In 2002, on a visit to the cinema, four years after writing the song, Mansell would hear an altered, even more rousing, revamped version of his composition, utilising full orchestra and choir, blasting out over a trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Due to overwhelming response, this reworking, arranged by Simone Benyacar, Daniel Nielson and Veigar Margeirsson, was eventually released as an EP entitled ‘Requiem for a Tower.’

  The track’s effectiveness in conveying a thrilling sense of drama swiftly saw this version become ubiquitous in trailers for grandiose, big-budget effects pictures, usually with desperate ‘life-or-death’ situations like Troy, Sunshine and Babylon A.D. More absurdly, the song would soundtrack TV shows like America’s Got Talent and BBC’s Top Gear, popping up to infer high stakes and gripping melodrama and its omnipresence was confirmed when it was employed as the attention-grabbing intro music for Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Sports News channel. In this incarnation, as a sort of musical shorthand for all things ‘epic,’ it is easier to imagine how Breivik could appropriate the composition as a resounding call-to-arms, a commanding theme song for a delusional ‘crusader’ with an overinflated sense of self-importance.

   The composition’s influential, dramatic chord progression, its ability to make the listener feel like something cataclysmic is looming, has seen ‘Lux Aeterna’ embraced not only by canny film and television producers, but also by members of the video-gaming community, who commonly utilise the track as suitably dynamic background music for online video ‘highlight reels’ of achievements in popular role-playing games like World of Warcraft. Breivik’s manifesto details how he would spend days immersed in Warcraft’s Tolkienesque fantasy world to relax and for ‘training simulation.’ It is tempting to imagine the killer, who referred to himself as a ‘Knight Justiciar’ in reference to his Warcraft avatar, hearing the composition in this context and envisioning it as the perfect anthem for an urgent ‘mission’ that, in Breivik’s mind at least, was like the plot to a grand, fantasy epic where he was the hero.

 Though enthusiastically embraced by many as a radical and thoroughly emotive piece, ‘Lux Aeterna’ has nonetheless been dismissed by some film score scholars as overrated, repetitively simplistic and structurally featherweight. Like Breivik’s unsettling, ill-conceived manifesto, the composition is, to the educated, nowhere near as awe-inspiring as the killer might have conceived.  

  Yet its prevalence and longevity in popular culture surely hints at something extraordinary: some mysterious, unquantifiable element at work. With ‘Lux Aeterna,’ Mansell captured lightning in a bottle, uncovering something intangible that endures. Music’s uncanny ability to stir the soul resists the evaluation of language: that indeterminable something that separates the flash-in-the-pan from the phenomenon. The beauty of song is in interpretation, in the creation of powerful emotions not so easily expressed, carrying more weight than their progenitors could ever imagine or hope to control. Unfortunately, for men like Breivik, stood on the precipice of something awful, this capacity to stir can be fatefully poisonous.

  Following the tragic events in Norway, Requiem For a Dream’s stirring musical leitmotif will now and forever be so much more than simply a movie score, and will no doubt continue to acquire deeper layers of meaning each time it is heard.  That it has ended up on the playlist of a madman could very well see Mansell’s composition condemned as Breivik’s Catcher in the Rye, but for better or worse, its place in history is now assured.