The Screengrab

Okay, so there's a new Uwe Boll movie coming out.  Big deal, says we.  Sure, we're curious about how the Teutonic uber-hack managed to get Dave Foley to star in his new film (Postal, opening in limited release today).  And sure, we're even more curious about how he got Dave Foley to do a nude scene.  And yes, we must admit that there is something oddly compelling about a filmmaker so universally reviled that a chewing gum manufacturer has helped sponsor a petition to get him to stop directing movies, and who is himself so adamant that he is a cinematical genius that he has challenged his critics to meet him in the boxing ring.  But however rotten this German-come-lately may be -- and he's plenty rotten -- for us here at the Screengrab, there is only one true heir to the crappy moviemaking throne vacated by Ed Wood, and that man's name is Albert Pyun.  The Hack From Hawaii -- who directed his first film in 1982, only four years after Ed Wood's death -- has been responsible for over forty films and direct-to-video releases, at least one of which has already turned up on movie janitor Scott Von Doviak's "Unwatchable" list.  Both in his ridiculously prolific output and his utter lack of talent and shame, Albert Pyun leaves Uwe Boll in the dust.  So instead of trying to find a theater willing to screen Postal this weekend, why not settle down for a film festival with our man Big Al?  To help you in this terrifying endeavor, we've assembled a list of five of Pyun's best works -- and we use the word "best" in the loosest possible application to which the word has ever been put.

THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)

Albert Pyun's first screen credit -- as both director and writer -- is a real doozy that sets the tone for his innumerable too-cheap-to-be-camp movies to come.  A standard-issue steel-and-spells epic ripped straight out of Albert's Friday night dorm room Dungeons & Dragons games, The Sword and the Sorcerer cost about nine dollars to make, with a script too dull for TV and special effects that would have seemed hokey in 1972.  The real treat here is the cavalcade of has-beens populating the cast:  there's well-past-his-prime teen idol George Maharis, his suntan decaying before our very eyes; future Murphy Brown fixture Joe Regalbuto; hulking, self-serious Night Court golem Richard Moll; coked-out Nina Van Pallandt, a million miles from The Long Goodbye; unreconstructed manimal Simon McCorkindale; and, in the lead, none other than Matt Houston star Lee Horsley!  Sadly, this collection of fourth-stringers would be the hottest cast Pyun would ever work with.  It would be all downhill from here.

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We can’t confirm the online petition had anything to do with it. We’re not sure the possibility of free Stride Gum played a part. But it looks the planned May 23rd release of Uwe Boll’s Postal has hit a snag.

Per CinemaBlend, Boll has issued a statement claiming that the wide release scheduled for next weekend will not happen. “Theatrical distributors are boycotting Postal because of its political content…We were prepared to open on 1500 screens all across America on May 23rd. Any multiplex in the U.S. should have space for us, but they're afraid.”

You may recall that Postal, Boll’s latest videogame-based opus, is intended as a “shock comedy” and opens with a scene of the 9/11 terrorists accidentally slamming into the Twin Towers when passengers overwhelm their attempts to divert the hijacked plane to the Bahamas.

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It has come to our attention--mainly because they sent us a press release about it--that Stride Gum, the ridiculously long-lasting gum, has jumped on board the anti-Uwe Boll bandwagon. To do its part, the company has pledged to dole out a million packs of gum if the petition urging Boll to shred his Directors' Guild card reaches the required one million signatures. (Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of the underground lair he sublets from the Monarch, Paul Clark shakes his black-gloved fist.) Who knew the CEO of Stride Gum was such a movie geek? Actually, it appears that this is the company's way of declaring its allegiance to the video-gamers it sees as an important part of its demographic. “Since gamers are one of our most supportive groups, we’ve been looking for ways to return the favor,” said Gary Osifchin, Stride North American Marketing Director. “And what better way is there to get gamers’ backs than by helping them rescue their cherished videogames from the clutches of Uwe Boll?” Osifchin added, "Look, it's nothing personal against the guy. Maybe his non videogame-based films are unbelievable!" (Uwe Boll has made non-videogame-based films? I guess it's possible--Wes Craven once made a music appreciation movie starring Maryl Streep, and then there's that Bill Murray remake of The Razor's Edge--but it still seems wrong.) If the petition racks up its millionth signature between May 7 and May 14, 5 P.M. EST, each signer will receive "a digital coupon for a pack of gum, downloadable on May 23, 2008," which is the day that Boll's Postal, featuring Verne Troyer in the challenging dual role of "Himself" and "Voice of Krotchy", is set to hit theaters.

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Uwe, Uwe, Uwe. You need to know that the delusion goggles you wear do nothing. As we mentioned this past Monday, Uwe Boll sent an inadvertent challenge to his haters when he said he’d cease making movies if one million people signed a petition in the interests of making him stop. After nearly 150,000 individuals with moderate to good taste signed said petition, Uwe released the following statement on Youtube. NO ONE CALLS MICHAEL BAY A FUCKING RETARD IN MY TOWN!

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Via Cinematical comes news that schlockmeister Uwe Boll either has a sense of humor about himself or at least would like us to believe he does. Boll, who specializes in brainless action and horror movies often based on videogames (House of the Dead, BloodRayne), is perhaps best known to those who avoid his movies like they’re radioactive for challenging his critics to fight him in the boxing ring. But is Boll finally tired of fighting?

After a screening of his latest exercise in videogame-based bad taste Postal (which opens with a scene of the 9/11 hijackers realizing there won’t be enough virgins for them in the afterlife as they hurtle towards the World Trade Center, and presumably only gets more hilarious from there), Boll chatted with FEARnet and proved he’s full of surprises.

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