Uwe Boll. It's a name that strikes fear and anger into the hearts of at least 248,969 gamers worldwide. Through his continued efforts in bringing critically bashed adaptations of video games to our attentions, he's earned an online reputation that's only rivaled in the community by the likes of Jack Thompson.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I was invited to an early screening of Uwe Boll's latest film, Postal. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I have never experienced an Uwe Boll film. Perhaps it's because Boll has never touched any of my most beloved game franchises. Looking at his past films, it appears he hasn't made as many films to justify the fervor that surrounds him. Is anyone really angry that the House of the Dead film wasn't A-grade cinematic material? Is the film somehow a disgrace to the game's "legacy?" Doubtful. Are people really up-in-arms over how he "ruined" BloodRayne, or Alone in the Dark?

Postal is also an interesting choice for the German director. Very few have actually played the game (neither have I) -- but those that have don't really like it. Even if the film amounted to a terrible disaster, it wouldn't disgrace the game, or the "genre" of the video game film (if such a thing should be considered). With all of this in mind, the curtains opened and Uwe Boll's Postal screening started.

Sometimes news comes across our digital desk that's just too odd not to pass along to you. This is just one of those stories: The makers of Stride Gum are putting 1 million packs of gum on the line to put a stop to Uwe Boll's directing career. In short, if this petition receives another 764,000 signatures or so by May 14, the company's going to give every one of the signers a free pack of gum on May 23.

Wait, this is a publicity stunt? Oh, yeah, we know. But you know what else we know? We love free gum. These are the kind of moral quandaries you get into every day as a video game blogger, but we're pretty sure we made the right call on this one.

Joystiq's sister site WoW Insider is dedicated like a Night Elf Hunter's pet leveled up to the highest loyalty to bringing you news from all over Azeroth. From the upcoming patch 2.4.2 to everything you need to know about the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, we've got your your back just like that sneaky Shadowstepping Rogue. Ok, well not quite in that way, but you know what we mean. Here's our top posts from the last week in Warcraft.

News

• Patch 2.4.2 notes released
  Blizzard announced what's coming down in the next (bugfix, not content) patch.
• Undocumented changes in 2.4.2
  And we cover what they didn't announce.
• Blizzard to Boll: Thanks, but no thanks
  Well at least we can say one good thing about the Warcraft movie: Uwe Boll won't be directing it.
• Macro for a prettier WoW
  Type this into your console, and spice up the look of Azeroth's environments.
• Drysc reveals Arena Season 4 ratings requirements and rules
  News about the Brutal Gladiator gear coming in Season 4, and how Blizzard is fighting win trading.

Features

• Guildwatch: "officers dont do officers like u did"
  Drama, downed and recruiting news from around the realms -- oh my!
• Blood Sport: No scrubs allowed in Season 4
  Our Arena PvP column lays out the changes to requirements in Season 4, and if you're not good, you're not getting gear.
• Spiritual Guidance: Three priest specs your raid shouldn't leave Shattrath without
  Tips for holy priests, or raids who want their help.
• The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Are Warriors underpowered?
  Matthew Rossi might be crazy -- but he also might be right.
• Five tips to minimize raiding downtime
  Five ways to keep the mobs coming while raiding with a larger group of players.

We were always taught to "use our words" to solve disputes between our peers and colleagues; but we guess if your words are ogreish and oft-incomprehensible, your fists will have to do. That's right -- Uwe Boll, much like the honor-bruised 1800 presidential candidate Aaron Burr, has officially donned the boxing gloves he wore in the Webcritic Massacre of 2006 (and while he wrote the script for "Postal", we assume) and challenged the king of summer blockbusters, Michael Bay, to twelve rounds in the ring.

No offense, Bay -- we loved "Bad Boys 2", but you'll forgive us for putting our money on Boll's massive ham-fists. What that guy lacks in movie making ability and social graces, he more than makes up with his pugilistic proclivities.

That sound you just heard? It was over 10 million World of Warcraft subscribers breathing a simultaneous sigh of relief, now that the MTV Movies Blog is reporting that reviled game-film director Uwe Boll won't be getting his hands on the movie version of the popular fantasy franchise.

Boll recounted a conversation with Paul Sams in which the Blizzard COO reportedly told the director, "We will not sell the movie rights, not to you ... especially not to you." In a rare moment of self-awareness, Boll seemed to understand Blizzard's reluctance, speculating that "because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income." A bad movie? But how could the self-described "only genius in the whole fucking business" ever make a bad movie? It just doesn't make sense!

Blizzard joins Konami in the exclusive "Smart companies that definitively won't let Uwe Boll near their successful franchises" club.

We feel kind of dirty giving any sort of attention to the cancerous boil on film directing that is Uwe Boll, but when the guy is acting this freaking weird we just can't help ourselves. Boll has followed up his offer to stop directing if an online petition against him reached 1,000,000 signatures with a heavily-accented YouTube video that manages to insult Eli Roth, Michael Bay, George Clooney and practically all of Hollywood as "fucking retards" that don't understand that Boll is "the only genius in the whole fucking business."

While Tinseltown insults are all well and good, what really interested us was Boll's call for a "pro Boll petition" to counteract the anti-Boll forces. Boll said he "expect[s] a million votes, Pro Boll," and he's already well on his way, with a whopping 72 signatures so far on the Pro-Boll petition set up by FilmDrunk.com. That's a far cry from the 137,644 that have signed the anti-Boll petition as of this writing, but maybe it takes "the only genius in the whole fucking business" to understand the vagaries of the math involved.

Watch the video and read a transcript of Boll's rant after the break.

You'll never be able to get back those eight-and-a-half bucks you blew on your ticket for Uwe Boll's "Alone In The Dark", but those seeking revenge against the infamous German filmmaker will be pleased to know that a recent interview with FEARnet revealed a giant glowing weak point in his floundering directorial career -- amidst Nazi humor and PETA endorsements, Boll commented on a petition, currently at around 18,000 signatures, for him to forever put an end to his game franchise-defiling ways. It'll take more than that to derail his train of box office catastrophes, he claimed -- though one million signatures should do the trick.

We doubt one million people have even been exposed to Boll's unique brand of sensory torment -- but still, this remains your best chance to fulfill any vendettas you may hold against the pugnacious producer. With enough door-to-door campaigning and MySpace chain letters, this lofty goal may be attainable. If not, we can always hold out hope for the merciful release of bankruptcy.

With any luck, we won't be writing too many more posts announcing trailers for Uwe Boll's game-to-movie crapfests but, until that time comes, we feel it's our duty to bring this excrement to your attention (if only to be summarily panned in the comments). Here you are, cinéastes: Far Cry, An Uwe Boll Joint. Now look what you've done Ubisoft. Just when we were ready to be excited about this franchise again, you've licensed the property to the one man capable of making the name enough to turn our stomachs. Find out for yourself after the break.

[Thanks, EternityInBlack]

Los Angeles Times Magazine spent some time breaking down the rules of Hollywood, schooling would-be fortune-seekers and laying down some hard truth: "Hollywood can't win at video games." Filmmakers are advised to avoid video games as source material because games' "weak narratives" haven't transitioned to the big screen as well as comics – a sentiment echoed by Uwe Boll during a recent Fox News interview; the infamous director declares, "A lot of video games have no story." (Yeah, especially light gun games.) But even something as intricately devised as the Halo universe doesn't seem to hold much promise in the eyes of Hollywood. Halo script re-writer Josh Olson (A History of Violence) complains that video games "have aimless cycles. You go to A, shoot some monsters, then go to B, then start over and do it again." Why argue?

Historically, Hollywood has done a miserable job selecting games for film adaptation, while we've enjoyed plenty of strong narratives developed for and executed in games. We say: Why give Hollywood a chance to muck up the true gems? The game industry has nothing to prove to American cinema.

Read - LA Times (subscription required; try: bugmenot)
Watch - Uwe Boll on Fox News (warning: obnoxious)

We think it's safe to assume that everybody who's reading this is familiar with Uwe Boll and his auspiciously terrible body of work, which includes such gems as "Bloodrayne", "House of the Dead", and Rotten Tomatoes' second worst reviewed movie of all time, "Alone in the Dark". That's why it may surprise you to learn that Boll's latest (and possibly last) big-budget box office flop, "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale", is actually ... wretched, of course! Don't be silly.

In this very special edition of Metareview, we're taking a look at the cream of the crop of the film's reviews, which have already provided us with more entertainment than the actual movie ever could. Join with us in our appreciation of these brave reviewers, who have unwittingly tacked their own names onto Boll's lengthy "to be punched in the face repeatedly" list.

• Sam Adams - Los Angeles Times: "Uwe Boll isn't the worst director in the world, but In the Name of the King might be more enjoyable if he were."

• Dustin Putman - TheMovieBoy.com: "[The movie] would be irredeemable if not for its near-brilliant ability to give the viewer douche chills for 127 solid minutes."

• Jim Lane - Sacramento News and Review: "It's like a Florida dinner theater production of The Lord of the Rings, though it's not without enjoyment if you're in a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 frame of mind."

• Scott Weinberg - Cinematical: "If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Uwe Boll just spent 126 minutes telling Peter Jackson how thin, talented and gorgeous he is."

• Joe Leydon - Variety: "Doug Taylor's script, loosely based on the "Dungeon Siege" vidgame, is a lazy mash-up of cliched situations, grandiose speechifying and verbal anachronisms. But, then again, "In the Name of the King" is the sort of half-baked farrago that brings out the worst, or the least, in almost everyone involved."

"A religious charlatan (Foley), his mild mannered nephew (Ward) and a gang of bosomy commandos face off against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in an epic battle that will determine the fate of the world in Postal, the latest film from controversial director Uwe Boll (BloodRayne). Boll roasts an entire herd of sacred cows and smashes taboos to smithereens in this over-the-top and hilariously subversive critique of modern day America."

...We thought we'd kick off with the description of Postal straight from the site of this new trailer, just because there is literally no combination of consonants and vowels we could create that would be more entertaining than that. Also, we're happy for Uwe Boll's burning of sacred cows, but did one of them have to be Dave Foley? Dear, sweet Dave Foley! Where did things go so wrong?!

Bad news for Uwe Boll love-to-haters: the infamous German director and pouting pugilist will see his future endeavors financially constrained after his latest $70 million video game adaptation, "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale," set the box-office alight with all the effectiveness of two moist fish furiously rubbed together. The $3 million weekend opening marked the director's third consecutive failure to Boll audiences over, and with no more German tax shelter funds to rely on, it looks to be his last big-budget bomb.

Not willing to throw in the raggedy towel just yet, Uwe Boll (pronounce it correctly, please!) told The Hollywood Reporter that he plans to focus on smaller cinematic explosives. Like grenades. "These are films that represent my true passion, and they can be done with small budgets," said Boll. Bad movie lovers (or lovers of bad movies) need not fear -- if this director's proven adept at anything in the last few years, it's working around a complete deficit of worthwhile resources.

[Thanks, David]

You may have seen an ad on this very site for Uwe Boll's upcoming In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Do yourself a favor: Head to the official website, go straight to the "Trailer" section and buckle in for the ride of your life. There's so much to enjoy here, we simply don't know where to begin. Should start by marveling at how Ray Liotta's main display of power seems to be making books spin around? Or is that too obvious?

Should we mention some of the classic lines like "Those who you fight, we will help you fight them" and "Tomorrow we gouge evil from its shell"? Or should we note that while cool in movies like The Transporter, seeing Jason Statham (who's name is misspelled on the "Cast" page, natch) using martial arts in a medieval fantasy setting is totally rad? Honestly, we don't even know what you're still reading this for: You're about to witness the edge of reality.

We're not sure why you'd want to hurt Uwe Boll. Honestly, he's a dear, sweet man with a heart of gold. But apparently someone out there thinks that you've been hurt enough by his cinematic atrocities that you'd want to shoot his digi-version. The director will be placed into the upcoming Postal 3, according to developer Running With Scissors' president Vince Desi.

Between BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, you have plenty of reasons to want to off Boll. But is it enough to tempt you to play the third in a series of games that has scored averages between 55 and 62 percent?

MTV's Multiplayer blog continues its helpful pronunciation guide, this week shifting from Nintendo's Reggie "FEEH-SUH-MAY" to notorious something-resembling-filmmaker, Uwe Boll. The German director notes that if you're going to bash his next anti-masterpiece (and let's face it, you almost certainly will), at least have the decency to get his name right. It's not "YEW-EE" or "EEE-VEE," it's "OOV-UH."

"OOV-UH-BUHL."

All that's left is to apply this knowledge to everyday conversation:

• "I can't wait to see OOV-UH-BUHL's interpretation of Far Cry's thought-provoking plot!"
• "I left a message on OOV-UH-BUHL's answering machine. I do hope it's spelled correctly."
• "Wow, I was simply BUHLED OOV-UH by how bad that movie was."