Latest / Cinema Yūgen / KENT'S CLASSICS: Behind the Lens: The Uwe Boll Story
Transcript
- 0:00G'day, that's right, it's that time again. Time for Cinema Yugen!
- 0:06Music.
- 0:17Okay, Cinema Yugen, the second fan-requested classic this month. Dr. Uwe Boll.
- 0:24House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark. Blood rain, seed in the name of the king.
- 0:30If these names are familiar, Dr.
- 0:35Uwe Boll is a cinematic acquired taste.
- 0:39Some people love him, some people loathe him. I was talking to the good doctor
- 0:44in connection with yet another documentary made about him at this time.
- 0:49Dr. Boll was stepping away from filmmaking. making.
- 0:53Now, regardless of how you feel, if you do not know this man or have not seen
- 0:59any of his films, you should check them out because each man,
- 1:04each artist is but a genre unto himself.
- 1:08And never has that been more true than in the case of Dr.
- 1:14Uwe Boll. He is a fascinating gentleman. and this wasn't the first and only
- 1:19time I talked with the good doctor, but...
- 1:23This is one of our longer conversations. And it was always interesting to chat with him.
- 1:32So depending on how you feel, here he is, the Van Requested Classic, Dr.
- 1:38Uwe Bolland.
- 1:41Sorry, I have a little cough.
- 1:45The problem is, of course, the fact that the old market, how we know it,
- 1:51with theatrical and DVD revenues is gone.
- 1:54And now you basically have new players like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu.
- 1:59And I'm not really close enough connected to them to make big deals to get a movie financed.
- 2:06So my decision to stop making movies was really just forced by films cost money,
- 2:12and I cannot refinance in the old way movies anymore.
- 2:17So I could come back making movies, but then we need Netflix or Amazon,
- 2:23Hulu, whatsoever, stepping up and actually paying a movie.
- 2:28I mean, that is how it goes.
- 2:31And it's too bad what happened. And so I was basically 50 years old,
- 2:36forced to stop making movies.
- 2:39Yeah. Oh, that's a real shame.
- 2:41I was kind of hoping to write a new A Bowl film one day, but, you know. Yeah.
- 2:49I'm glad for the films that you did make anyway.
- 2:54But anyway, so we're talking a little bit about Sean Scholl has made a wonderful film about you.
- 3:01Yep. It's called Fuck You All, the Uwe Boll story. It's not my choice.
- 3:08He said that you liked parts of it, that you didn't like all of it. Is that true?
- 3:16No. I'm so sorry about my coughing. No, no, I think it's a very good documentary.
- 3:23So it's trying in like one and
- 3:26a half hours to basically show a picture of me, what is not so out there.
- 3:32And it's not basically only focusing on like the nerds or the reviews, right?
- 3:41So, or the fact that I would have a box against my critics. And that is what
- 3:46I, when you showed me the first version of it, I said, I would really appreciate
- 3:51if you can actually talk about my, or show a little more about my movies.
- 3:55The movies are actually different.
- 3:57Right so and go a little away from the
- 4:00video game based movies and and focus it like that the
- 4:03four is a southern wall street rampage tunnel right there
- 4:05a lot of movies i did they're basically about the
- 4:09real world we're living in and so i think that
- 4:12he changed it then and and the new edit like
- 4:15the new finished version i think it's a
- 4:18good one it's entertaining it's has humor it
- 4:21has a lot of people talking about me i
- 4:24have and not only people they've watched some movies also because
- 4:27i worked with a long time like dan clark the bright knight my ad then collect
- 4:32the line producer you know so and i think that is we did a good job and of course
- 4:37i always as a filmmaker or whatsoever i always wished more stuff about about my movies and less about,
- 4:46fighting with with reviewers i i thought but the one thing i didn't like is
- 4:51basically I think the guy from the Razzies got too much space.
- 4:56You know, the Raspberry Awards, the Razzies Awards.
- 4:59I mean, I never met that guy. He watched maybe five of my movies in total from 30 movies I did.
- 5:05And he basically has almost 15 minutes in the documentary where he talks.
- 5:10And I think that was a little too much room for a guy like this.
- 5:16But okay. I mean, in a way, I understand him too. But I'm very positive about the doku.
- 5:23And I think there was that other doku about me arranging Ball years ago that
- 5:27was basically only about the reviews and only about the boxing matches.
- 5:31And that I didn't like because it's, I mean, I like the boxing footage,
- 5:36but I didn't like the way Dan Vest, the filmmaker, portrayed me.
- 5:43You know, I didn't make movies for reviewers. I made movies for people and for
- 5:49myself, the stories I wanted to tell.
- 5:51And I was definitely forced to, in a way, to make all the video game-based movies
- 5:57because I was able to finance them.
- 6:00I mean, film cost money, right? And I didn't work a lot with subsidies.
- 6:05So for me, I needed to raise private capital to make movies.
- 6:09And with House of the Dead, after House of the Dead made money,
- 6:13I was able to raise more money with Alone in the Dark and other movies like that.
- 6:19But as I said to Sean, what really needs to be taken away from your story as
- 6:25well is that you are an exceptionally talented producer. Yes.
- 6:30As well as a director and a writer and all that sort of thing,
- 6:32because like any sensible producer, you needed to go after properties that had commercial,
- 6:38you know, that were commercial, that could be, you know, made for a nice budget
- 6:43and that had already a built-in audience so that you could sell the films based
- 6:48on that. I mean, that's just smart producing, yeah?
- 6:52Yeah, I could let you see it this way. I mean, that was a thing also where I
- 6:56felt, I mean, being connected here in Vancouver to the film industry,
- 7:00and I see so many productions amateurish, going over budget, you know, like people,
- 7:07let's take Bryan Singer as an example. I know him since X-Men.
- 7:11He shot at the next studio door where we shot Alone in the Dark.
- 7:16And he never brought a movie in on budget on time.
- 7:20He always fucked everything up and didn't came and stuff like this.
- 7:24But then a guy like this got movie after movie after movie after movie and got
- 7:31hired by the studios over and over again.
- 7:34And every single time, the production ended up going way over budget.
- 7:38And that is what the mystery of Hollywood, what I don't get.
- 7:42You know, it's like this kind of like why nobody came back to me and said,
- 7:46let's produce movies together.
- 7:49I mean, 32 movies, every single one I brought in under budget and I didn't get any credit for it.
- 7:57I mean, that is the thing. It's so absurd how the film industry works.
- 8:02And that is one of the reasons what I said in the beginning with Netflix and so on.
- 8:05They also grab the same filmmakers what the
- 8:09studios grab before and I have this feeling like if
- 8:12you don't have Brad Pitt you don't get a job you know stuff like this but I
- 8:18mean another thing too that I was talking with Sean about yesterday is the fact
- 8:22that if you had have come along and made your first movie in North America and
- 8:29it had been an absolute bomb.
- 8:32Financially financially, then you probably might not have gotten a chance to
- 8:37make any more movies, unless you did it independently.
- 8:42Which you did. Yeah. No, I agree.
- 8:46And it's also a thing like when, I remember when Alone in the Dark came out
- 8:51and it made only a $5.8 million box office in US and everybody was saying like,
- 8:56oh, what a disaster, blah, blah, blah.
- 8:58But if you really think it through, look at the last three years, for example.
- 9:03You know how many huge movies with huge stars, with huge production budgets,
- 9:08made no box office, made a million or two million box offices.
- 9:12And, you know, but when I had something, I got bashed into, like, the worst of the worst.
- 9:19And other things getting just like...
- 9:22Basically.
- 9:25Forgiven. They don't care. They don't get harsh criticized.
- 9:32And I got overly harsh criticized. And then all my follow-up movies from Postal,
- 9:37starting with Postal and so on, got not the credit they should have got.
- 9:44And that is the thing that I think only film critics and people like you and
- 9:50so on can correct for film history, right?
- 9:54So, I mean, to be honest, like a lot of the movies, if I compare my Dafur film
- 10:00with Moonlight, who won the Oscar for best movie of the year, I think Dafur is better.
- 10:06And Assault on Wall Street was a great movie. Rampage 1 was a great movie.
- 10:11And the best I got was that they were okay.
- 10:15You know, because people, they're always like, oh, I cannot really give Uwe Boll the credit.
- 10:20That has a negative impact on the critic himself if he would say,
- 10:28oh, we were like dead wrong about Paul, actually.
- 10:31But that is... And that also didn't really come across in the documentary, I think.
- 10:37I think I get some credit there, but I didn't get the credit for some really
- 10:41important movies like the Duffer movie.
- 10:44And yeah, but it's still better.
- 10:46There would be no other documentary, Bob. Yeah.
- 10:50But, I mean, it's a bit like Keith David says in the documentary that...
- 10:56It seems today that the success of a film is based on how much money it brings in.
- 11:02It seems the magic number, if it breaks $500 million worldwide,
- 11:07then it's a successful movie.
- 11:10Yeah, I know. But think about what movies making $500 million.
- 11:16Not too many. But that is now what the studios are doing and the streaming services
- 11:22doing that $20 million movie. Or $30 million movie.
- 11:26And it looks like nobody reads the scripts.
- 11:29Everybody basically says, oh, you have Brad Pitt, boom, money.
- 11:34You have Will Smith, boom, money.
- 11:35Yeah, exactly. And that is when, I mean, I'm a big fan of Netflix,
- 11:39like episodical shows, knockoff, whatever, El Chapo, this kind of stuff I really
- 11:44like, but the individual movies Netflix are doing are horrible.
- 11:50I mean, they're mostly, like, really crap. I
- 11:54just watched yesterday that Coen Brothers of Western thing
- 11:57they did there I mean I never saw a worse movie from
- 12:00the film book really yeah it's almost like
- 12:04I don't know they sell them they make their movies what nobody else wanted to
- 12:09finance ever and then they make them right but yeah I mean and they're spending
- 12:14an awful lot of money I mean I read somewhere that the script for that Will
- 12:17Smith Netflix movie they spent nearly four million dollars on the script,
- 12:23To buy the scripts. Yeah, I know. That is the other thing that is a miracle for me.
- 12:28Some stuff, I mean, the Bright movie, that was an okay sci-fi cop movie kind
- 12:37of thing, but maximum okay, I would say.
- 12:39But why four million bucks?
- 12:42Exactly. Right, so that is the thing. And I just don't get it.
- 12:46I mean, I have, for example, a great project where the guy wrote,
- 12:51Whitney Bain, And he wrote it, it's about, from Elliot Ness,
- 12:54like the, you know, the Untouchables and stuff like this.
- 12:56So Elliot Ness was a real cop in real life.
- 12:59And before the movie Untouchables basically started, he cleared up his first
- 13:05big case was a serial murder case. Serial murder of Kingsbury running Cleveland.
- 13:10And a guy wrote like an eight episode, ten episode miniseries.
- 13:16And I'm not getting any financing for it. and I
- 13:19mean if you think about it like Elliot everybody knows that
- 13:22movie Untouchables everybody knows why that
- 13:25doesn't get financed whatever you know if
- 13:28I would be Ron Howard I would just get a check and
- 13:31it would be financed and that is the thing where I hoped with the streamers
- 13:36like Apple Google whoever goes in content that they also kind of pick sometimes
- 13:43different people they were not really in the studio system to produce for them But they don't.
- 13:48They just hang out in Hollywood and with name-dropping, and most of the production
- 13:53companies who they work with have an actor as part of the production company.
- 13:59That is the new green-lit situation.
- 14:05It seems to be a very incestuous town, Hollywood.
- 14:10Would yes and it's
- 14:14you know it's really like who knows who the agent knows
- 14:17the producer the producer news the studio and
- 14:20and and instead of going against the trend and also doing maybe things totally
- 14:25against uh the old-fashioned way i have the feeling that amazon and whoever
- 14:31enters that business they are just fascinated and want to be part of it yeah
- 14:36you know they're They're not saying,
- 14:37now we rewrite the business and we go away from that stupid manager,
- 14:42agent, Hollywood, as we know it, and we just look plainly at the facts and go
- 14:50also with producers with a cycle record.
- 14:53They can actually deliver on budget. They don't go over budget or whatever,
- 14:57but no, they do the same thing what everybody else did before. Yeah.
- 15:04One thing I thought was interesting in the documentary that Sean put in there,
- 15:09it was a comparison to you or your films with Tommy Wiseau and The Room.
- 15:19That kind of boggles the mind. Have you seen The Room?
- 15:23Are you familiar with Tommy and his... I mean, I watched the James Franco movie. Right.
- 15:31Right, right. And, yeah, and I think of... But, look, that was before with Ed
- 15:37Wood, for example, you know, when they compared me to Ed Wood.
- 15:42But I think it's just total bullshit.
- 15:44Yeah. I mean, that is things what is really annoying for me and totally absurd.
- 15:49And it's also, I mean, I love the movie from Vince Franco.
- 15:53I think it was funny, you know, like Tommy Wiseau was so convinced from his
- 15:58thing, he went fanatically to make it happen. and even, I don't know,
- 16:03to this day nobody knows where the money came from.
- 16:06And I think it's an interesting thing how he got it together and spent so much money on a crap movie.
- 16:16But at the same time, you know, Ed Wood never had really money to make movies
- 16:21about these kind of stupid, childish things.
- 16:25And he only got like kind of celebrated based on the movie with Johnny Depp, from Tim Burton.
- 16:33It made him kind of getting famous.
- 16:37But in my case, I mean, it's just not true.
- 16:40I mean, I studied economy. I made
- 16:4332 movies. The production volume I moved around was 500 million bucks.
- 16:48So, I mean, I went public in Germany. That is also the thing.
- 16:54When you listen only to nerds, then people basically oversee that I'm an absolutely
- 16:59sophisticated business person.
- 17:01Exactly. And, you know, I never had a debt. No company from me ever folded.
- 17:06No. And that is the thing also where I, with Sean,
- 17:12when I was sitting there and gave a real long interview to him,
- 17:16I mentioned all of this, but he didn't move further into this chapter because I think it's too boring.
- 17:24You know, it's maybe only interesting for actual film people.
- 17:29But I think, of course, that is the real, let's say, sensational thing, what I did.
- 17:37I mean, I know a lot of filmmakers, right?
- 17:40And I think that a guy
- 17:44from a small town in Germany with no
- 17:47connection to the film industry and not rich parents basically works his way
- 17:53through it and even solves the financing problem in a way and brings things
- 18:01with his and Steph's and whatever Chris and Fred are thinking through life.
- 18:04That is the real let's say work I did where I should get credit for and bringing
- 18:12all the productions in without owing people money, without fooling people over.
- 18:18I think that was the point and when they always said oh I used German tax money,
- 18:23that is so strong and so idiotic because there was no German tax money they gave to you.
- 18:31You had to go around and find investors in your product.
- 18:36And besides me, maybe 200 other directors tried it, but they didn't raise any
- 18:42money because they didn't make profitable movies.
- 18:45And that my money grew every year up to in the name of the king before then
- 18:50Germany stopped that kind of investment was because I returned money to them.
- 18:56And when you read it in the press, even in the sophisticated press about me,
- 19:00it's all I've written it.
- 19:02I abused the taxes for such a reason. It's completely bullshit.
- 19:05And the fact is that if you, let's say you're a dentist, whatever,
- 19:10you invested $100,000 in the film, then you would not pay taxes on the $100,000.
- 19:17Right. But that means also, and it reduces your income. So you basically save $50,000 for taxes.
- 19:24But you still have $50,000 in risk.
- 19:27Right. And you don't want to lose that. You know, like if my investors would
- 19:32pay taxes and never, they would still have 50% cash in their hands.
- 19:38So, of course, nobody invested in any movie in the German sex shelter funds.
- 19:46Tank his money or hopes that the
- 19:48movie would not make revenues that is completely wrong
- 19:52in the press on wikipedia everywhere they never
- 19:55digged into it and got it right and they all invested to basically to shift
- 20:01paying taxes to a later date but they all hope that the movies come in with
- 20:08profit and generate revenues that spread over the next like up to 10 years so
- 20:14and that That is the thing.
- 20:15And there were so many German funds, mostly from banks or financial institutions,
- 20:20they completely failed.
- 20:21They financed Lord of the Rings. They financed Mission Impossible, whatever.
- 20:26And they never got paid by the studios. They got completely screwed over, the investors.
- 20:30And I made my own movies, kept the control. And of course, there were also movies that failed.
- 20:36But everybody got at least 30% back, 60%, one fund, 120%. 20%.
- 20:41So at least I created revenues for them additional to the tax break they got.
- 20:47And they know that I will account properly.
- 20:51And that I miss in the movie. That it's never mentioned what I got told you,
- 20:56basically, what people can hear in your podcast.
- 20:58I hope that that would be in the movie.
- 21:02I personally think it's fascinating. I really think you could...
- 21:07We could all profit, Certainly people who love movies and are interested in
- 21:12making movies could profit so much from lectures from you about simply producing,
- 21:19forgetting about, obviously you could put writing and directing and everything
- 21:24else that you do in there.
- 21:25But I think your knowledge and your skills, people are very ignorant of how
- 21:34difficult it is to put a film together.
- 21:37Not just the financing, but the shooting, the editing, delivery,
- 21:43advertising, the whole package.
- 21:47Yeah. I mean, that is another thing. what I felt when they would have House
- 21:53of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, when they're getting marked up like trash,
- 21:57whatever. But they are not.
- 22:00You know, the crews I had, from the stuntman to the CGI artist,
- 22:05they were all A-list people.
- 22:07They all have, like, you know, the army and milching guy who cut Dungeon Siege,
- 22:12he cut it, iRobot, as an example.
- 22:16So I needed to think I think that Julian Clarke who composed it got the Oscar
- 22:20for he did Deadpool later for editing and he got the Oscar for the thing from
- 22:27South Africa, what was the name of it?
- 22:30Was it Grandma Gertrude Thoreau, I think it was Neil Blomkamp that did a movie
- 22:35in South Africa, that sci-fi movie.
- 22:39I mean, it's a thing. It's completely absurd to say Uwe Boll is like Ed Wood.
- 22:47I mean, I had around me the people I worked with are delivering non-stop movies
- 22:54on the highest level of studio quality.
- 22:57And to say it's total bullshit, it's total trash, it's just wrong.
- 23:03I mean, Alone in the Dark was not a great movie. Other than that, it's not a great movie.
- 23:08If it ever based on shooter video game you know so don't
- 23:11expect too deep of a story and to say
- 23:14they were totally shit in regard of
- 23:17editing camera lighting CGI done
- 23:21it's just absurd it's not the truth you know and that is I felt like this kind
- 23:27of in my case it was so a wave of negativity that it's like completely spaced away from any kind of,
- 23:38a chance to get a proper a
- 23:41proper credit or a proper analyzing
- 23:45situation of how that movie got done and
- 23:49how they were distributed and whatsoever I mean it's just and there was a reason
- 23:53at one point I also left that behind me you know I mean I could not kept reading
- 24:01the reviews and only dragged me down so I just at one point felt like forget it,
- 24:08If there are things that don't change, there are things that don't change.
- 24:11So focus the time to convince the critics, focus on trying to sell the movies and make the money back.
- 24:19There's one thing I think that's missing from the films that have been made
- 24:23about you and certainly a lot of the press that's been written about you is
- 24:27your utter and complete passion for what you do.
- 24:32I don't think that comes through in anything I've seen or read about you.
- 24:37Because I think you're an artist of great passion for what you love,
- 24:44and I don't think that comes across sometimes.
- 24:48Yeah, I mean, that is the thing also. I mean, as a German, I wrote a biography,
- 24:53right, but it's only in German language so far, where I really wrote that down,
- 24:57that the reason for me to make movies or to go into film industry had nothing
- 25:01to do with money at all, and I didn't make any money before I was like overshadowed.
- 25:05So, you know, like my German movies, I put all my money onto it and time and everything.
- 25:12And we traveled from movie theater to movie theater.
- 25:15You know, like whatever, you get like 120 bucks from the movie theater,
- 25:18but you have to sleep in the shit hotel on your own cost.
- 25:23You don't make any money, but you try to build a name for yourself.
- 25:26And this kind of grinding I did for years and years, you don't do this if you're money-driven.
- 25:33You do that if you really want to make it in the film industry,
- 25:38to make the movies and tell the stories you want.
- 25:42And that was the initial motivation when I told my mother when I was 10, I want to make movies.
- 25:49So it has never anything to do with money.
- 25:51But then when you're actually in the business and you start making movies,
- 25:55you see movies are expensive.
- 25:57So that means the whole time you have to think about money.
- 26:01Like where you get the money from to make a
- 26:04movie and and i just watched you know
- 26:06on netflix the orson welles doku they love me when i'm dead about orson welles
- 26:12and and i mean he was cut out from bollywood and for me one of the biggest geniuses
- 26:16of all time in film and one of the reasons i want to make movie and then they
- 26:21how they the last 25 years of his life that basically let him hang Ang Kool,
- 26:25and all his work,
- 26:28all his trying,
- 26:30was to get money together.
- 26:33That was his life, right? He tried to get investors outside of Hollywood.
- 26:38And that is the reality of the film industry.
- 26:42In the end, it boils down to money.
- 26:45And to make it hard for somebody like Orson Welles to get money together is,
- 26:50for me, still the biggest crime Hollywood ever did.
- 26:53I mean, you have a Van Gogh in front of you with Orson Welles,
- 26:59and they fucking let him basically die.
- 27:03That is what they did. And the whole loop that he's with Macbeth,
- 27:07Othello, Apple Pay, all that stuff was financed in Europe, almost with no money.
- 27:13I mean, what a crime from, you know, how many people at the Oscars and in the
- 27:19studios would always say, Oh, God, Citizen Kane's the best movie ever.
- 27:22Yeah but then you have to say like yeah but otherwise it's still alive I want
- 27:26to make movies why the fuck you don't give him a penny exactly I mean that is
- 27:30the thing what I think it's so unbelievable right so it's like that the biggest artist who,
- 27:35made one of the best films of all time got completely.
- 27:40Bashed into the ground forgotten and nobody gives a shit about it yeah well
- 27:44as he famously once said it's uh it's 99% hustling and 1% movie making that's
- 27:50no way to spend a life Nice.
- 27:53Yeah i agree and it's that is the thing it's it's it's a very expensive hobby
- 27:59right so and it's too bad that like whatever let's say larry alexand his daughter
- 28:05megan allen doesn't see whatever got a billion bucks and and she produces only
- 28:09crap right so i mean that it's the thing it's like.
- 28:13Why not one of that billionaire is an uber ball fan right you know like that
- 28:19would help me but But they're all fans of Terrence Malick or whatever,
- 28:23or Paul Thomas Anderson.
- 28:24And then they give them money, and then they make the worst films of their lifetime
- 28:28with the money of the billionaire.
- 28:30I mean, that is the thing. It's so absurd, too. Like, it's almost like if people
- 28:33are getting on a different career path, they lose their bite. Yeah.
- 28:41And I never did that, everybody. If you see my movies, they're all very,
- 28:45very gritty and very, very confrontational and direct storytelling. telling.
- 28:50And, I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood is my favorite movie of the last 20 years.
- 28:56And then, as soon as he got financed by Annapurna Pictures, he turned into an absolutely idiot.
- 29:02I mean, look at that movie, the math, all that other stuff with jerk and foot. It's completely crap.
- 29:08And Charles Malick is like straight away in a different dimension of filmmaking,
- 29:15where you feel like, what the fuck is he doing?
- 29:17But he's not telling us a story. it's just like putting music together and faces
- 29:22of prominent actors and they're all like oh Terence Malick of course I play
- 29:27for you a movie where I say two lines and only stare in the fucking sun.
- 29:32You know I mean they completely lost it I mean and I think that it's so funny
- 29:39because they are so laughed by the reviewers so the reviewers have so much problem
- 29:44to say how it is yeah you know I mean And did you watch Phantom Threat with Danny Day-Lewis?
- 29:50I mean, how can the same director, actor who did There Will Be Blood,
- 29:55shoot a movie like this and don't tell them halfway through,
- 30:00what the fuck are we doing?
- 30:03I know, I know. We don't do movies. There is no story to tell.
- 30:07That's just completely BS what we're doing. I know. I completely agree with you.
- 30:12I believe that There Will Be Blood is one of the last sort of great films that I've seen anyway.
- 30:18But like you said, Terrence Malick and Thomas Anderson, their last films have
- 30:25really been what I consider just arthouse wanks.
- 30:29You know yeah yeah it's kind of like i'm
- 30:32i convinced megan allison she just gives me
- 30:3570 million bucks i shoot whatever the i want
- 30:38and i feel good yeah and i
- 30:41pay myself five million bucks a director salary and nobody
- 30:44cares so i mean that is the thing where i feel like that it
- 30:47is also like i mean that that lines stay hungry
- 30:50i think is very important and they
- 30:53they didn't stayed angry so they you know like
- 30:56i think you always have to make the movie
- 30:59in a way that it's your last move yeah and
- 31:02and you know like like and don't pick mediocre subject matters pick things they
- 31:08really matter and and i think you know this this why i stopped after rampage
- 31:13i think in rampage two and three i turned so political that i mean i nailed
- 31:19the situation with Donald Trump now.
- 31:20I mean, look at Rampage 3. Who gets shot right off the bat is the president of the United States.
- 31:25And that was before Donald Trump was elected president.
- 31:28And I think that that is the thing. I think I try always to do things that really matter.
- 31:35And the Southern Wall Street, about the bailouts, or the genocide in Sudan.
- 31:40I mean, I did the Dafur movie because the murderers in Sudan are still ruling
- 31:46the country. They never got indicted.
- 31:49They never got arrested. They never, you know, so they hacked 450,000 people into pieces.
- 31:55And because Sudan is not interesting for people.
- 32:00Us, basically. They stay in power.
- 32:04And then we're killing, we go and then get whatever Gaddafi has to go,
- 32:10or Mubarak in Asia, because they are so horrible, horrible dictators.
- 32:14And it's all a cover-up for the interest the West has in the oil.
- 32:20And, you know, I mean, it's so obvious and so absurd.
- 32:24And, I mean, look at now, like, how can we have any kind of relationship with Saudi Arab.
- 32:31I mean, they hacked that guy into pieces, the Khashoggi guy,
- 32:35and basically murdered him.
- 32:38And I mean, how can we continue like nothing happens to countries like this?
- 32:45Absolutely ridiculous. I mean, it's really like, I mean, that is the thing what
- 32:50really is on my head right now.
- 32:52It's really like how the world turned into the most possible catastrophic situation
- 32:58right now, ignoring climate change, and at the same time, one democracy after
- 33:04the other turns into a dictatorship.
- 33:07I mean, where the law, the truth, nothing matters anymore.
- 33:11Free press, freedom of speech, all that gets slowly removed.
- 33:17And we are in bed with the worst countries in the world.
- 33:22I mean, it's true that all the terrorists of September 11th were Saudis.
- 33:27From Osama Bin Laden to the pilots. They were all Saudis. They were not Iraqis.
- 33:32They were Saudis. And they're our biggest friends.
- 33:36Because they invested a lot of money in the stock market and bribed a lot of Donald Trump hotels.
- 33:41I mean, that is the thing. It's completely, it's so dirty that it's really,
- 33:47really making me feel to throw up.
- 33:49I mean, that is the world we're living in right now.
- 33:52And there was a different world where I grew up.
- 33:55It was really a world where I think I think the standing up for principles and
- 33:59moral principles was equally important based on all the lessons from the Second World War on,
- 34:07that you cannot bend over only because of money,
- 34:13but the main principles of the Constitution,
- 34:17we live together, right?
- 34:19And the thing, I think, with Saudi Arab, that they always were bad to the people.
- 34:23They always, whatever, executed people in public.
- 34:27They were always pieces of shit, the Saudis, basically.
- 34:30But with the Khashoggi thing, there was a message from them that they can kill
- 34:37people in other countries and getting no penalty for it. Yeah. Yeah.
- 34:44That was the message and and and you know what the message
- 34:47is successful yeah i mean
- 34:51and think about it the poor people who basically the killer commando they are
- 34:55all now getting perfectly prosecuted in saudi arab and they will all get executed
- 35:00right i mean what is this that is that is uh i mean think about it you are basically
- 35:07a killer commando guy for the saudi print,
- 35:10you fly in a private jet to Turkey, you kill a guy, chop him up, and get rid of the body.
- 35:15Right. And then you get executed by the guy who told you to do it.
- 35:20And the whole world says, okay, justice is served.
- 35:25Unbelievable. I mean, that is really like whack the dog style.
- 35:29You know, that would be like, normally you would say that can be only happening
- 35:32in really heavy satires.
- 35:35You know, that is exactly the world we're living in.
- 35:38Nah. Ah, and people really don't want to deal with it. I mean, it's powerful stuff.
- 35:45It's current, but they'd rather go and see like a Marvel picture or something.
- 35:51Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that is what, when you listen to my Uber Raw thing on YouTube.
- 35:57Yes, I do. I'm a big fan of yours.
- 36:00I'm a big fan of yours. Yeah, you know, the last one I put up yesterday where
- 36:03I said like, if you think about Wonder Woman.
- 36:07Yeah. or Black Panther, that they made this typical Marvel superhero bullshit
- 36:14and tried to turn it into...
- 36:18A movie of women are strong or black lives matter i mean it is absurd i mean
- 36:26if you just just see plainly simple the movies there are nothing else as yet
- 36:32for kids entertaining big big cgi driven,
- 36:38action movies yeah but there is no second level in black panther black panther
- 36:43is a stupid movie movie, the same like Avengers or whatsoever.
- 36:48So, yes, sometimes it's popcorn movie time, and you just don't want to think
- 36:51about it. You watch stuff like this, I have no problem with it.
- 36:54But what I have a problem with is that they're trying now to make Black Panther
- 36:59like a follower of Martin Luther King or something. I mean, that is the thing I have a problem with.
- 37:04That this movie is even getting in the run for best movie of the year.
- 37:11It's like unbelievable that they even think about bullshit like this and that
- 37:16the same happens with Wonder Woman.
- 37:18I mean, you know, you have reality, you have a mediocre actor in a miniskirt
- 37:22playing Wonder Woman and they make it like whatever, all Harvey Weinstein victims
- 37:28love Wonder Woman because the woman is the strong person.
- 37:31I mean, what the fuck is wrong with all that people? And that is also in a way
- 37:37with what happened to the press because they're also part of conglomerates now.
- 37:43Yeah. You know, so it's like they also lost any kind of buy it.
- 37:48They know that it could be a big problem if they actually release a review of
- 37:53a movie like Black Panther that it's a complete piece of shit,
- 37:56zero out of five stars in the Washington Post that will have consequences. Yes.
- 38:02You know, that would have consequences. So they all try and I see that in various
- 38:06movies in the years and years now where they try to squeeze something positive out of,
- 38:13where nothing positive is in, and give it two stars or three stars out of five
- 38:17so that they get away with it, you know.
- 38:21So, yeah, that is very interesting to see that.
- 38:24But that is also a big symptom, a big problem we have in regard of reporting. Totally.
- 38:33So now, Dr. Baldit, you're not making pictures anymore and you can simply go
- 38:40to the movies or watch movies. Yes.
- 38:42Probably the way you did before you started making movies yourself.
- 38:47Are you enjoying watching films simply as a viewer again?
- 38:54Instead of having to... All my life I've watched films and TV shows and so on.
- 39:00And if a story can get me in, so basically that I have a real blast watching this.
- 39:08I'm also a victim of binge-watching on some stuff. We're really like,
- 39:13whatever, watch 10 episodes in two days.
- 39:16And I mean, that is the thing. Of course, watching a lot,
- 39:19but there's also a lot of stuff what you basically can watch only if you,
- 39:24whatever, read something parallel or make something else because it's too boring.
- 39:29Or a lot of stuff would get shot.
- 39:32You already know after 10 minutes in what direction it goes.
- 39:36And then it's kind of time put apart, forward button.
- 39:40And I mean that is the reality but I'm always on the hunt for things that grab
- 39:47my attention and keep my attention and then I enjoy it and I'm happy that I
- 39:53watched the movie or happy that I watched the TV show Yeah,
- 39:57well I think that's a good place to end Dr.
- 39:59Ball because I have always loved
- 40:03and enjoyed your work I'm very glad
- 40:06to have had a chance to talk with you this
- 40:08morning it's sad in many
- 40:12ways that you won't be making movies anymore but I'm so grateful that you did
- 40:15make movies and that those films will last forever and I wish you all the best
- 40:23with your I know you're a restaurateur now you have a wonderful restaurant and
- 40:28you're hoping to open more I understand.
- 40:31More restaurants? Yeah, I mean, we maybe open one more restaurant,
- 40:34but I'm not in, let's say this way, we cannot compare it to the move.
- 40:39You know, it's like nice to have a restaurant, good food. You have like different
- 40:44kind of problems in a restaurant.
- 40:46But for me as the owner, like when I set everything up and I got the people
- 40:50together and so on, then I only, I'm there now to bring guests in.
- 40:55And always when we put a new menu up, I tell my opinion and maybe change something.
- 41:00Some items or change some dishes, how they are.
- 41:05But overall, it's not so work intense as making a movie. Yeah.
- 41:12Anyway, look, God bless you, sir. I wish you all the best. Thank you.
- 41:16I hope you... Thanks so much. I hope they keep making good movies to keep you entertained.
- 41:23Okay, perfect. Thanks so much. Okay, bye. Yes, that was Dr.
- 41:28Ball. there'll be a link in the description if you
- 41:31know his work well you may not want to if you're unfamiliar you should check
- 41:37him out you should give every filmmaker a day in court because they all set
- 41:43out passionately to make films regardless of how that comes across,
- 41:50it's all done with passion just like everything here
- 41:53on cinema eugen and as always thank you you little yuganites for listening to
- 42:01us on spotify or wherever you choose to listen to your favorite podcasts i'm
- 42:07kent hill and we'll see you next time on the one and only cinema.
- 42:13Music.