Anyone's who been to the Hound's head office knows how much the MovieRetriever staff loves — and we mean, unabashedly LOVES — director Uwe Boll. And we're not being ironic hipsters or anything, we honestly, truly love both the man and his films. Why? Because if Monty Python and Judd Apatow had a love child and that baby signed a multi-picture development deal with Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey, it STILL would not produce as many laughs as Uwe has given us over the years.

You'll be hearing a lot about Dr. Boll (that's right — he's a doctor) on this blog in the weeks to come, but, in this first entry to our online Boll diary, we just wanted to mention two things.

#1. While you can, please, please try to catch In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale while it's still lingering at a few dollar theatres. It's TOTALLY worth your dollar, plus you get the normal Boll onslaught of awesomeness, including Burt Reynolds as a king, Ray Liotta and Matthew Lillard throwing down in a scenery-chewing showdown, completely inexplicable ninjas, and an end credit soundtrack filled with some of the most gleefully embarrassing German metal tunes in recent memory.

#2. A fun anecdote: As some of you may remember, Uwe Boll held a contest in 2006 where he offered to box his harshest critics, in an apparent attempt to prove their rhetoric wrong with sheer knuckle sweat. Despite the fact that we knew that Boll used to be an amateur boxer AND that he was screening the physical characteristics of the contestants, the Hound just had to throw his hat into the ring.

And — we swear to God — after we sent in our application letter and samples of our reviews of his films (he's actually the only director in the book with an all WOOF rating), we received this response from Uwe not one hour later (the original spelling and grammar have been left intact):

"what weight, size and age you are?

and send a jpeg of you

One of the Hound's favorite tinseltown traditions took place on January 21 (the day before the Oscars noms were announced), the unveiling of this year's Golden Raspberry nominations. The Razzies celebrate Hollywood's worst, presenting annual "Dis-Honors for Worst Achievements in Film." It's an award show that recognizes unheralded gems like Showgirls, Catwoman, and the oeuvre of Uwe Boll, so it's hard not to

Even though (not surprisingly), there are a fair number of old school comic book nerds on the MovieRetriever payroll, we're really conflicted about the recent news that Warner Brothers has shelved their formerly fast-tracked Justice League movie. According to Variety [http://www.variety.com/VR1117979189.html], "Warner Bros. let the options lapse on the young cast that director George Miller chose to play DC superhero staples. The studio, which

Many thanks to the excellent Best Week Ever blog [http://http://www.bestweekever.tv] for putting John Boorman's 1974 classic Zardoz back on the Hound's radar.

One of the things we miss most about the 1970s — aside from Mummenschanz and Billy Beer — is how the success of 2001:A Space Odyssey encouraged Hollywood filmmakers to be as weird and self-indulgent as they wanted to be,

Man-oh-man, the Foreign Press Association must hate the Writers Guild of America. Thanks to the WGA's ongoing strike, the booziest award show of the season essentially got cancelled this year. Because the FPA couldn't negotiate a temporary deal with the WGA (and since the FPA got into a public battle with the award show's original broadcast network NBC), the 2007 Golden Globes got reduced to

Even though critics got their butts every cleverly handed to them by Anton Ego in last year's sublime Ratatouille (you see, THAT is how you criticize a critic, M. Night, not by having some stupid terror dog maul Bob Balaban in Lady in the Water ), the Critics' Choice Awards still held their annual ceremony, which was broadcast on E!. Thanks to a

The American Film Institute has, once again, put out their list of the ten most influential motion pictures of the year. Probably the biggest surprise is the inclusion of Judd Apatow's Knocked Up , a popular favorite (which did well with critics too), but comedies typically go unnoticed at award season, unless there's a lesson or feel-good moment in the end.

Here are the

Congratulations! You've stumbled upon the VideoHound Awards Watch Blog! (Your trophy will be arriving in the mail in the next 3 to 7 years. All awards acceptance speeches will be made by Pauly Shore who lovingly accepts the award in your behalf.)

Our purpose on this blog is to try to keep track of all the multitude of film awards being presented throughout the year

As a loving tribute to the American holiday industrial complex, here are some MovieRetriever staff picks of our favorite holiday movies of all time.

Read, enjoy, and come back often!

MovieRetriever's Staff Picks for Our Favorite Holiday Movies

• VideoHound Editor: Turk182
• Movie: A Christmas Story (1983)
• Why: The traditionalists can have It's A Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, or even the original Miracle on 34^th Street.