During our trip to Tromadance, the independent film festival run by Troma Entertainment and directed by legendary Troma filmmaker/president/actor/jokester Lloyd Kaufman, we had a chance to speak to the man himself in what may the The Inept Owl’s most serious interview. While it may be unexpected that the filmmaker that gave us a mutated super-hero in a tutu, wielding a mop, and the satirical news site that gave us Keanu Reeves on Shakespeare, would come together in a stuffed shirt CNN type of interview, it is a testament to how versatile these two people really are behind the outer layers.
With his lovely daughter Charlotte by his side(probably to protect our editor), Mr. Kaufman enlightened us about Tromadance, the politics of independent film and the internet, the future of Toxie and Troma, and how our movie reviews are seriously lacking without any Troma content. Here, in both print and audio clips, is that interview.
(In this first clip, Lloyd talks about the past and present of Tromadance, the politics involved in independent arts, and net neutrality.)
Click for Part 1 Audio Feed of the Interview
Patrick E: You’ve been in the film business for 40 years. How do you keep it fresh?
Lloyd Kaufman: Well, when one is a failed filmmaker for 40 years, it’s always fresh. If you make movies from the heart, it will be fresh. It will be sincere, and maybe you’re not going to get all the people that showed for The Bounty Hunter or Remember Me, you may not get all those folks, but you will attract a very core, lovely, loyal audience, and Troma has become kind of a brand name for movies that come from the heart. I think as long you do what you believe in, you will produce fresh art. Or fresh avocados, one or the other. Sometimes I get them mixed up.
Patrick E: And that[idea] is what made Tromadance what it is?
Lloyd Kaufman: Well, Tromadance grew out of the fact that the South Park guys, before they were South Park guys, I think they got kicked out of Colorado University, but they made a movie called Cannibal! The Musical, and we, Troma, realized that it was funny. Nobody got it. We got it, we understood their humor! Nobody else would distribute Cannibal! The Musical, and we did.
They wanted to go to Sundance Film Festival. I would never even dream of going there, I had no interest. So I went with them just to go skiing, and I was astounded at how unpleasant Sundance was. These young people were coming to Sundance thinking it was the epicenter of independent art, and in fact it was the epicenter of publicizing Cadillac, Mercedes Benz, Harry Winston Diamonds, and everything but independent cinema. Trey and Matt spent the money to submit their movie to Sundance, because we[Troma] never payed film festivals. I’ve had my movies in film festivals, so I know that most festivals, if they want your movie, they’re going to take it whether you submit it or not. My movies have been in some pretty serious film festivals. Not Sundance, obviously, and not the Cannes Film Festival, but San Sebastian, Tokyo, and we never paid money to submit. So they[Matt and Trey] paid the submission fee, they never even got a “fuck you” letter from Sundance, so they decided to go to Sundance and have their own one-movie film festival, the Cannibal! The Musical Festival. They did it right in the center of Park City and it was a big success, and Robert Redford, apparently, was very upset.
And that led me to think, well, let’s do it as a festival. Let’s have a free festival, one that you don’t have to pay money to submit, where there’s no entry fee, tickets are free, no VIP policy, no snottiness, and we’ll do it right in the middle of Sundance and see if we can make a difference. And 10 years later, I think we did make a difference.
About 5 years ago, on the opening day of Sundance, the Salt Lake City Tribune’s front page story was about Tromadance, not about Sundance, it was about Tromadance. I was really bitter then, I was really mouthing off. I’m more mellow about Sundance now, but I was really hostile because two of our guys got thrown in jail one year for passing out leaflets, so I was pretty bitter, and also I had a cause. And I think Sundance had to have seen that. About three years ago, Sundance did try to clean up its act a bit. From what I’ve heard, this year, and I did see last year, they had a lot of independent movies, not bullshit independent movies like Mirimax or Fox Searchlight, but real independent movies. I think they’ve heard the message, and I think maybe we helped light a fire. I don’t want to take credit, but I think to some extent Tromadance, being so idealistic in the middle of this totally materialistic, artificial giant of a festival, I think maybe it touched a nerve and I think Sundance, it looks to me they’re much nicer now.
Patrick E: Do you think your work with the IFTA had a lot to do with it as well?
Lloyd Kaufman: The IFTA[Independent Film and Television Alliance] work came later. I ran for the chairman of IFTA because, during my 40 years of making movies, the industry has become so consolidated and vertically integrated. The rules that used to protect the public from monopoly have 
been done away with. The government and the big industry and the labor unions have conspired together to get rid of competition in the media, so as a result you’ve got these vertically integrated media giants that control the access to the public. Thank heavens for The Showroom and thank heavens for the small numbers of small venues showing movies to an audience, because otherwise everyone’s going to have to go see The Blindside, or turn on the TV and see LA Law or Law and Order or whatever it is, twenty-four seven.
It used to be that the movie theaters were not permitted to be owned by the studios. That law got removed by Reagan’s administration. Then Clinton’s administration removed the rules against vertical integration in the television industry, so that now Universal, NBC can own their shows. They don’t even have to acquire any independent content. They used to have to acquire independent content. It used to be part of the FCC doctrine, but that was done away with during Clinton, not Bush, Cinton, as Michael Moore says, the greatest Republican president we ever had.
The point is, the media has become the play-thing, the private preserve for the Rupert Murdochs of the world, and the rest of us are all being marginalized and economically blacklisted, so that’s why I ran for the chairmanship of IFTA, because IFTA’s got a treasury, and IFTA has money to pay a lobbyist in Washington to go and fight, because, in my opinion, it’s fight or die. There are members in IFTA who want to have cocktail parties. They want glamour, they want a $400,000 cocktail party. I’d rather spend that money on a lobbyist and try to make a difference, try to change things, try to prevent ComCast NBC from merging, unless ComCast NBC puts in writing that they are going to play a certain amount of independent content, as they call it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, the longest-running Supreme Court Justice in history, also rather conservative if I may add, he always said that a man does not live unless he shares in the reactions and passions of his times. And I’ve always felt that is true, and my wife, who is the New York State film commissioner, she says to our children, “Make a difference.” And she’s right. You can do it, you can make a difference. Tromadance is making a difference, there’s no question about it. Not just the festival itself, but just the young people who read about it. There’s been a Tromadance New Mexico now for 5 years. Kurly Plapapoya, he owns an independent video store called Burning Paradise Video. He’s been prodicing Tromadance New Mexico 5 years now. Christie Larsen in Las Vegas has done 3 or 4 years of Tromadance. So there’s this moviement of sleeping cells of very idealistic, independent artists who are following the Troma doctrine. In addition to making their own damn movies, [they’re] trying to preserve or keep alive the flame of independent art. It’s very important because the independents are the Van Goghs of the future.
(In this next clip, we touch on the politics of a place where Troma and The Inept Owl thrive: the internet.)
Click for Part 2 Audio Feed of the Interview
Patrick E: You should be lobbying in Washington…
Lloyd Kaufman: Well, our lobbyist represents us, but we go down there, I go down to Washington. I’ve met with Senator McCain. Net Neutrality is now a big issue. The bad guys want to fuck up the internet. They want to get rid of the level playing field. The internet is the last democratic medium. The internet is the only diverse media medium. It’s truly diverse. It’s truly democratic if you have something. The Troma website is good. 500,000 people every month go there. Troma has as much advantage on the internet as Disney does. That is not true anywhere else in the other media; newspapers, TV, movie theaters, Troma is economically blacklisted.
But on the internet, The Showroom Theater, The Inept Owl, we’re all equal on the internet. If we have something good, people come. The MPAA, which is the Motion Picture Association of America, the big studios which own it, they want to get rid of net neutrality because they don’t want to get up in the morning and have to think and have to be creative. They’d rather have cartels. They can make The Wrestler, and they can make that crappy movie with [Jeff]Bridges playing the guitar, which was kind of The Wrestler on guitar, they don’t have to do anything and people show up because they spend $80 million on advertising. They have their asses in a tub of butter. They all have their big houses and cars and cocaine and hookers without having to do any work, but it’s a nice little club for them, and Troma’s not part of the club.
The internet is the last chance, and we have to fight to preserve net neutrality. And that’s another reason why I wanted to be elected chairman of the IFTA, to try to protect net neutrality, which is under assault. And net neutrality is not just under assault, it’s also under a pepper, and that can be very, very painful if that goes into a certain orifice.
(In this next section, our editor goes into “Fanboy” status by asking Lloyd how Tromeo and Juliet became such a hit. We also hear about Charlotte’s starring roles in Tromeo and Juliet as well as Terror Firmer.)
Click for Part 3 Audio Feed of the Interview
Patrick E: I wanted to asked you a little about my favorite Troma film, Tromeo and Juliet. It seemed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes’ Romeo and Juliet came out, then Troma’s Tromeo and Juliet
came out right after. Was that just a coincidence, or did you say, “Ok, let’s get a script and let’s do a little satire on this whole Shakespeare thing?
Lloyd Kaufman: No, Tromeo and Juliet, I started working on the script about 6 years before it came out, and I just couldn’t find my way. And then, finally, James Gunn became my assistant of Troma, and I told him “Ok, you have a week, you have to write a script, it’s going to be Tromeo and Juliet. Take this, this is what we’ve done so far, and make it good.” And he did! He wrote a really good script, and so we shot it.
We finished Tromeo and Juliet way before Romeo and Juliet, but the theaters refused to play Tromeo and Juliet because, they said, Shakespeare is not commercial. They wouldn’t play it. Then Romeo and Juliet came out, and was a huge hit, so suddenly we started getting calls, “Hey, don’t you guys have some sort of Shakespeare thing?” So we started playing Tromeo and Juliet, and it obviously wasn’t what the theaters expected, but it was quite successful. It was really successful on home video. It played about 2 or 300 theaters in America. Got good reviews in The New York Times. I don’t know if The Inept Owl reviewed it…
Patrick E: No, we weren’t around at the time.
Lloyd Kaufman: Ah, that’s no excuse! Charlotte is one of the muton children at the end of the movie. She and her sister Lisbeth were very young, sat very patiently in the special effects make-up room getting these appliances on. It ended up being 24 hours. Took a long time, this teeny weeny kid, you were a very good sport.
Charlotte Kaufman: I believe there were a few freaks around to entertain us.
Lloyd Kaufman: Then Charlotte has a tour de force performance in Terror Firmer. Charlotte has one of the main parts in it. It’s the most personal film that I’ve made. It’s about the independent artist trying to make the movies he believes in. They may be good, they may be bad, that isn’t really the issue. He believes in what he’s doing. Then at the same time there’s a sexually confused serial killer. So that the real life violence of the city intersects with the hoopy Troma violence.
Charlotte Kaufman: I think you also shouldn’t forget that the filmmaker is blind.
Lloyd Kaufman: That’s true, the director is blind. And again, Woody Allen did his movie[Hollywood Ending], luckily that came out after Terror Firmer, but he played a blind director. Charlotte plays my mute daughter, and during the movie I’m trying to teach her to say “1, 2, 3,” and she can only go “Uh, ugh, uh,” and people loved that. And then at the end, when I die, I get blown up, that shocks her, and then suddenly she has this long [monologue]. People who discover it now really liked it. It could have been a little early. The hermaphrodite side of it is a lot more palatable today.
James Gunn, of course, wrote it[Tromeo and Juliet]. His next career move after Tromeo and Juliet, which is a movie that, among other things, promotes incest, James Gunn’s next career move was to write the beloved children’s hit, Scooby Doo.
Charlotte Kaufman: Which also promotes incest. And bestiality!
Lloyd Kaufman: And farting!
Charlotte Kaufman: And drugs!
Lloyd Kaufman: I think that’s what made Scooby Doo so successful. It had James Gunn’s dark side. He also wrote the Dawn of the Dead remake, which is very good!
(In this last clip, Lloyd speaks about remakes, including the remake of his own Toxic Avenger. He also touches on the future of Toxie.)
Click for Part 4 Audio Feed of the Interview
Patrick E: Thanks to the net, you hear a lot of weird rumors, and I heard one about a remake of The Toxic Avenger.
Lloyd Kaufman: It’s not a rumor. It’s real. It’s signed, let’s put it that way. Whether or not it’s real, you don’t know until they actually make the movie. They paid us some money to sign, enough so that it hurt them, enough so they had to be somewhat serious. One of the triumvirate with whom we signed is the guy who is responsible for Mother’s Day. The other two people I don’t know, but one of them is an Oscar winner for A Dangerous Mind. He wrote A Dangerous Mind, or he has a dangerous behind, I
can’t remember.
A lot of the fans of Troma, or my fans, are very upset, because its sort of a knee-jerk. There’s been so many bad remakes, so there’s a Facebook that’s been set up, “Don’t Remake The Toxic Avenger”. and they started another one for Lloyd Kaufman to direct the remake. I wrote a sort of defense of our remake. It’s not our remake, it’s totally out of our hands. From the point of view of logic, Toxie is always going to be there. The first Toxic Avenger, it’s not going to go away. You’ll always have the first Toxie. So even if the remake sucks, so what? Troma gets some more fans. People who didn’t know Troma, maybe as a result of the remake, will learn about us. We’re gonna get a check which may help us make more Troma movies.
Charlotte Kaufman: And it’ll bring people to Troma.
Lloyd Kaufman: Yeah, it’ll bring a whole new generation.
A fan sent me a photograph of a record album that she saw in a store called The Toxic Avenger, and she said, “Shouldn’t you be suing these people? Look what they did!” I said, “No, it’s free publicity! So they call themselves The Toxic Avenger. That’s good advertising. It’s free distribution, and it’s market research. It’s like that jewelry. There’s a lot of bootleg Troma merchandise out there that we didn’t authorize it, but I’m all for it because A) it’s promotion for Troma, and if people make a few bucks, so what; and B) it’s market research. If someone makes a Troma necklace, like a Toxie necklace, if that thing is selling well, then we’ll put out a Toxie necklace, and it’ll be the official Lloyd Kaufman Troma Toxie necklace. I don’t mind that stuff at all.
The other thing is remakes don’t have to suck. You don’t go to Remake Jail if you make a good remake. It’s just that there’s been some bad ones. A Star Is Born with Judy Garland, one of the greatest films of all time, that’s the third remake; All Quiet on the Western Front is a remake; The Thing is a remake; The Fly by Cronenberg is a remake, these are all great movies. James Gunn’s Dawn of the Dead was a remake. It was a very good movie.
Charlotte Kaufman: Romeo and Juliet was a remake, of the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet.
Lloyd Kaufman: That’s very true. So, remakes don’t have to be bad. It could be really good. You can look at my defense on troma’s site, or the LloydKaufman.com site. But it is interesting how many of the fans are very upset about it.
What would be objectionable is if you took The Toxic Avenger and then reworked it. Let’s bring it up to date. Let’s remove the “shooting the blind-woman’s dog” scene and let’s put in something about the internet. That would be obscene! They did that with The Night of the Living Dead. They fucked with it. That’s like taking the Mona Lisa and putting a moustache on it.
Charlotte Kaufman: But you just signed for them to do the remake. You still have the right to make the 5th one[movie]. you could do whatever you want with it.
Lloyd Kaufman: No we don’t. We have the right to make the 5th movie, but they have the franchise. Once they make that movie, we still have a big piece of it, but they will control the Toxic Avenger franchise. We can make Toxic 5, that’s it. From then on… Whatever we’ve done on Toxie we have, but they have everything else, I think. I could be wrong. But let’s hope they do the remake. Troma’s never been more famous, but we’ve never had so little revenue, because of what I was saying about industry consolidation. It’s not so difficult to make your own damn movie anymore. In fact, anyone can make a movie now because of the digital miracle. But, how do you live off your art. That is almost impossible, unless you are in with the big conglomerates.
Thank you, Lloyd, for keeping us inspired and conspiring.
For more about Lloyd, visit his website, www.LloydKaufman.com , or learn what’s it’s like to live with the madman from his daughters’ Tromemoirs.