Raging Boll
September 24, 2006 10:06 PM   Subscribe

Remember when Uwe Boll challenged his critics in the boxing ring? Some of them accepted and the event went down on September 23rd. One of the challengers was Lowtax, who had some fun with it.
posted by bob sarabia (40 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
*thumbs up*

"Fuck."
posted by secret about box at 10:15 PM on September 24, 2006


I heartily approve of anything that involves Lowtax getting his ass beaten down.
posted by keswick at 10:26 PM on September 24, 2006


Nice. And lowtax is a punk.
posted by delmoi at 10:30 PM on September 24, 2006


Wow. That's a whole lot of Lowtax hate. Why?
posted by jmhodges at 10:33 PM on September 24, 2006


That was the only way Uwe could become a multi-hyphenate...
posted by Operation Afterglow at 10:36 PM on September 24, 2006


Is Lowtaw the new Kaufman?
posted by sourwookie at 10:39 PM on September 24, 2006


Apparently Boll told the critics it would be for 'fun' and not serious. He also promised training for them so it would be more fair. He lied.
posted by clockworkjoe at 10:45 PM on September 24, 2006


Wow. That's a whole lot of Lowtax hate. Why?

I had the not-quite pleasure of working with Lowtax when he spent a few months famously working for GameSpy. I'm very happy that he's been so successful at what he does.

But the dude was a punk and got fired for being a punk. And this was back in the bad old days of GameSpy, 1999, when I was ripped a new one for merely moving the stash of company porn from one fully accessible server to another fully accessible (and faster) server. Back when the employee birthday parties were marked with a traditional viewing of Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker." Back when there were terabytes of mp3s and DVD movies on a server called RIPNBURN.

Ahh, good times.

Now, just imagine what it would take to get fired from a place like that.

Somehow, Rich pulled it off.
posted by frogan at 11:00 PM on September 24, 2006 [2 favorites]


I watched the video of this after getting home from a concert last night.

It made me sad. Because Boll will be happy with what he accomplished that night.

It made me sad that no one took a challenge from a serious amateur boxer seriously.

It made me sad that no one had the wherewithal to lie to the bastard about their abilities as a boxer and then beat his ass.

But the interview with Lowtax afterward made me less sad.
posted by sparkletone at 11:20 PM on September 24, 2006


Wow, that went on last night not 10 km from where I'm now sitting? Fuck, I should totally pay more attention to what's going on around me.
posted by vernondalhart at 11:21 PM on September 24, 2006


As much "fun" as Lowtax tried to have with it, it would be infinitely better if Uwe had actually gotten a beat down. Seriously, that man is a pox upon the movie-making industry and the culture is a little bit cheaper and more tawdry for his existence.

Take away his camera!!
posted by Parannoyed at 11:45 PM on September 24, 2006


Lowtax is actually a lot more witty in person than I had expected, especially right after being punched in the head a few times.
posted by blenderfish at 11:46 PM on September 24, 2006




bob sarabia: And yet if you check out neo-Coleman Francis's iMDB page, you see that he's got several more projects lined up. We aren't due to be out of the woods until at least 2008.
posted by sparkletone at 12:12 AM on September 25, 2006


Since his new projects are labelled as in pre-production I'm hoping that he hasn't gotten funding yet. Although that's probably not true.
posted by bob sarabia at 12:25 AM on September 25, 2006


Lowtax is actually a lot more witty in person than I had expected

He did great in that interview. Think about how surprised he must have been when he got punched in the head hard the first few times. Boll gets even more aggressive in the 3rd and especially the 4th fight (against the 17-year-old "amateur boxer"). It's really pathetic to watch him work out his anger at folks who know he's a talentless hack by punching a 17-year-old in the head furiously.

But, his opponents did sign up for it...
posted by mediareport at 1:23 AM on September 25, 2006


Many of Lowtax's ICQ pranks are brilliant:

http://www.somethingawful.com/pranksicq/
posted by martinrebas at 1:51 AM on September 25, 2006


posted by frogan at 11:00 PM PST on September 24 [+] [!]

you wouldn't happen to be one of the people mentioned here, would you?
posted by jimmy at 2:23 AM on September 25, 2006


What's with the 'Loxtax' tag?
posted by MrMustard at 3:13 AM on September 25, 2006


In an ideal world, there would be a real boxer who would take offence at Uwe giving boxing a bad name with this bullying PR stunt. He'd proceed to challenge Uwe to a bout and subsequently knock the living shit out of him making an award winning film in the process. Then someone would make a game of the film.
posted by jiroczech at 3:36 AM on September 25, 2006 [2 favorites]


Why does Uwe Boll hate America Germany movies video games everything?
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:04 AM on September 25, 2006


It's pretty obvious that Uwe stacked the deck, and in the process made himself look pretty bad. That's okay, though... Lowtax got a free trip out of the deal for about five minutes of ring work.
posted by MegoSteve at 5:10 AM on September 25, 2006


My crush on Lowtax just had an exponential increase.
posted by frecklefaerie at 5:12 AM on September 25, 2006


Now I know what ad hominem looks like.
posted by redteam at 5:15 AM on September 25, 2006 [1 favorite]


While I admit the title "Raging Boll" is cute, I never want to have Uwe Boll and Raging Bull connected ever again, even in my mind, for fear that my thoughts could generate some sort of quantum wave which would somehow influence the world in such a way that leads Martin Scorsese to, in a fit of dementia, sign the remake rights of Raging Bull over to Uwe.

Raging Bull
Directed by Uwe Boll

:shudders:

I remember hearing about the challenge a few months ago, and I can't believe the critics actually went through with it. Nor can I believe that Uwe didn't chicken out.
posted by Ndwright at 5:55 AM on September 25, 2006


Why would he chicken out, the guy looked like he knew what he was doing.
posted by empath at 6:36 AM on September 25, 2006


I was under the impression at the time that it was a Jack-Thompson-challenges-gamers type thing.
posted by Ndwright at 7:02 AM on September 25, 2006


I never did hear how the last fight worked out.

What happened with the 17 year old?
posted by WinnipegDragon at 8:31 AM on September 25, 2006


Damn you, Ndwright! Even now Uwe Boll's Raging Bull coalesces out of the darkness.

It is the year 2020. Boxer Jake "Slam Man" LaMotta (Stephen Dorff) battles his way through Neo York on his way to an epic confrontation with Silas Kane (Max Von Sydow), the undead head of the Mafia. Ignoring the warnings of his brother (Matthew Lillard) and his biochemicist wife (Heather Graham), LaMotta has turned to a drug called "Rage" to help him in his quest. Rage grants its users the ability to turn into inhumanly strong minotaurs for short periods of time--but is its use worth the massive weight gain that it triggers?
posted by Iridic at 8:32 AM on September 25, 2006


you wouldn't happen to be one of the people mentioned here, would you?

Nope, but some of those people are my best friends. Rich is a unique person with a lot of talents, but "conscientious, hard-working colleague" just doesn't appear on his character sheet.
posted by frogan at 8:57 AM on September 25, 2006


What happened with the 17 year old?

He got the shit kicked out of him, hugged his mother and then took the microphone to tell the world Uwe Boll is "a great guy and he makes great movies."
posted by mediareport at 9:45 AM on September 25, 2006


There was an amateur boxer in Vancouver with several fights under his belt who wanted to fight Boll. Boll refused, only wanting people with no experience.
posted by clockworkjoe at 10:41 AM on September 25, 2006


He got the shit kicked out of him, hugged his mother and then took the microphone to tell the world Uwe Boll is "a great guy and he makes great movies."

And that, my friends, is the very definition of someone with a concussion.

Boll refused, only wanting people with no experience.


Probably the same criteria he uses when choosing editors, and camera men, and scriptwriters.

Uwe Boll makes bad movies and someone should ask him to stop.
posted by quin at 11:00 AM on September 25, 2006 [2 favorites]


quin: Uwe Boll makes bad movies and someone should ask him to stop.

Pishposh. It's not like he's hurting anyone in the process.
posted by sour cream at 12:26 PM on September 25, 2006


Please, please tell me Lowtax got his ego deflated, even by a bit. He's a funny man, but he's still a horrendous raging egomaniac.
posted by watsondog at 12:28 PM on September 25, 2006


watsondog: he was on the forums within minutes registering his disgust and making lame excuses, which his thousands of sycophants eagerly lapped up, so I'd say "probably not."
posted by keswick at 12:30 PM on September 25, 2006


Good stuff.

I wish more directors and reviewers would slug it out.
posted by the cuban at 1:29 PM on September 25, 2006


It was hilarious. Lowtax had to actively work at getting a fight that he knew was going to result in him getting beat up. As an unabashed fan of Something Awful, I approve of anything that makes fun of Uwe Boll, has fighting, and somehow involves one of my favorite internet celebreties getting hurt.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 2:31 PM on September 25, 2006


Man. Lowtax does great in the post-interview, but this whole thing just reaks of him being unprepared.

When you make your living making fun of people, cover your ass. Write a bunch of jokes ahead of time in the event you get the tar beaten out of you, don't just say "OMG HE LIED."

Also, for someone who runs a site that executes amazing internet pranks (remember Greenlighting?), Lowtax apparently has no idea how to do research. I'm pretty sure multiple people mentioned that Uwe is a boxer in Lowtax's forum posts, and it was ignored.

I remember thinking at the time "I hope he isn't brushing this off."


SA fanboying aside, he doesn't come off of this looking at all good. Trusting Uwe Boll is not a valid excuse.


PS:
frogan: please tell us stories.
posted by ®@ at 5:51 PM on September 25, 2006


frogan: please tell us stories

I never worked super-close with Lowtax, but it was a small company. We were all up in each other's corn.

It's funny, reading his background essay linked to from above, he makes such a big deal of Darren "Dakota" Tabor being a lawyer, as if that automatically means Darren was an evil corporate back-stabber. Yes, Darren was a lawyer that loved games and left that behind to run GameSpy. But he wasn't a trial attorney or even a corporate lawyer -- he was a fast-rising judicial clerk for the Illinois and New Mexico State Supreme Courts, and he made his bones doing legal work for racial and AIDS-related issues. If he stuck with it, I'm certain he'd be a judge by now. So, comparing his legal background to ambulance-chasing shysters is like equating Emeril Lagasse with a hamburger-flipper at Hardees.

Darren just wanted Rich to, you know, show up and, like, you know, work. This was a write-your-own-ticket kind of job, and Rich wrote his as "fuck you i am on teh intarweb."

But that's Lowtax for ya'. Talking about Lowtax is like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
posted by frogan at 8:36 PM on September 25, 2006


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