I have just had about as much fun as could possibly be expected reading a Wikipedia entry. The subject of this user-contributed truthiness? Uwe Boll.

Uwe Boll, expressing his feelings about his own filmsIf you are a fan a Penny Arcade, then you know who Uwe Boll is. What? You don’t? Let me refresh your memory.

I’m not going to ruin too much of the humor of the Wiki entry. If you have 10 free minutes, you really need to invest it there. Right now.

I mean, you know, come back here when you’re done. Don’t forget who brought you this delicious candy.

Why I Was Looking For Uwe Boll

I don’t make it a habit to randomly Google insane German filmmakers. No, I wanted to know about his movie Postal and what, exactly, the hell he was thinking.

Postal is a movie I have not seen based on a video game that I never played. But I saw the trailer, and it was enough to offend even my Gremlin-tastic sensibilities.

The term “Postal” refers to the Post Office workers (remember them?) who would routinely go crazy, buy a bunch of guns and start shooting everyone in sight.

This term is of course fertile ground for high-minded comedy and satire, which is the kind of film that Mr. Boll tried to make. After watching the trailers, I don’t believe he succeeded. And the 200+ people that walked out of a free screening of the film probably agree with me.

A Misunderstood Artist

Boll continues to claim that he wants to break taboo and bring the attacks of September 11th down to Earth, asking “is a dead child in ruanda less worth as a september 11 victim?” That, by the way, is a copy and paste from an email that the director sent to gaming site 1Up.

So, at heart, he’s an artist. Because art is something that cannot be objectively defined. And “breaking taboo” is code for “I can say what I want, and I have a huge, tax-free budget to make movies and I’ll punch you in the face if you tell me I suck.”

Here’s another Penny-Arcade strip about Uwe that I happened to find.