Latest / WASD and Beyond / IT CAME FROM SCREAMBOX: An interview with Lloyd Kaufman!

Transcript

IT CAME FROM SCREAMBOX: An interview with Lloyd Kaufman! · WASD and Beyond

0:20
Welcome back, everybody. We're host Nick, Noah and Alex,
0:24
and this is it came from Screen box.
0:26
We want to do a quick little introductory to this week's
0:28
episode as it's very special. It's incredibly near and dear to
0:32
our heart hearts, our collective hearts.
0:34
Rather, this is something we've been very excited for.
0:37
We've been kind of teasing it on and off the show for a couple
0:41
months now. You know, we've kind of been in
0:44
the know of this and been making it work the best of our
0:46
abilities. And luckily, the good people
0:48
over at Troma and Lloyd Kaufman himself have made this episode
0:53
possible. Enjoy our interview with
0:57
everybody's favorite uncle from Tromaville, Lloyd Kaufman.
1:01
This was a wild ride. It was a lot of Lloyd just
1:06
letting us know exactly the business.
1:09
And I couldn't be happier with how this episode turned out.
1:12
It was so surreal and you're going to hear it if you're
1:15
watching, you're going to see just how at a loss for words we
1:18
were sometimes during this conversation.
1:21
But I mean, that's, you know, that's the guy through like film
1:25
pioneer, this guy, the legend of the game.
1:28
If there ever was 1. And he's so humble with it.
1:32
He's so humble with it. He does not let it go to him at
1:36
all. 100%. It shows us our young podcaster
1:42
minds and our young fan minds. But we are.
1:47
I think we kept it together. I think, you know, I think we
1:49
kept it together. I think we did a good job.
1:51
I think we did our job and Lloyd should just host the show from
1:56
that one. I was going to say Lloyd ran the
1:58
show this episode. And I loved every second of it.
2:00
100%. No, he was.
2:03
He was a fantastic guest. We are so very humble and just
2:07
honored to have someone like the prolific Lloyd Kaufman on the
2:11
show. We hope you guys enjoyed this
2:12
episode as much as we enjoyed having him on the show.
2:16
Enjoy our conversations. Please check out the sponsors
2:19
down below as well, though without them we would not have
2:22
been able to do this as well. So please check out Screen Box,
2:26
Final Boss and Doc Longy, all links down below.
2:29
Check out all things Trauma. Go check out trauma now.
2:33
Do what Lloyd said. We're not going to tell you what
2:35
he said. Go listen to the episode.
2:36
Do what he says. Great stuff.
2:41
Spawn camp WASD. I'm at a loss for words.
2:43
WASD and beyond rule for deception.
2:46
It came from screen box. We hope you guys enjoyed this
2:48
episode. Now on to the show.
2:53
Super in depth, unlike us where it's like, yeah, this movie was
2:55
great. The gore was great and the cast
2:57
look like they're having a blast.
3:00
Well, that's that's just as good as long as it's home.
3:04
A movie. Oh, we love our trauma for life.
3:09
Yeah, we've done a handful. Literally.
3:10
Literally for life. We're we're we're marked.
3:12
You going to show them your marking of toxic It's.
3:15
It's on my leg, but Nick and I are both marked till death.
3:18
Yeah. Well, thank you very much.
3:23
And the only reason we're here, we're still around after 53
3:26
years, is thanks to you and the other and the other 50 fans.
3:34
I think it's a lot more. Than that that's worldwide
3:36
numbers that's a Gallup poll numbers but.
3:40
Luckily, I think it's a lot more than that.
3:42
I think trauma in and of itself, and what you and everyone a part
3:45
of trauma have created is something that has paved the way
3:49
for filmmaking in general. Like the renegade against
3:53
traditional filmmaking has in and of itself made it possible.
3:58
People like Sam Jackson, James Gunn, Matt Stone, Trey Parker,
4:02
like all, like all these prolific names in Hollywood, to
4:06
do what they're doing and to be doing it at a level that no one
4:09
else can match. And they and it all stems from
4:12
trauma. That's the beauty of it.
4:15
Well, thanks. Thank you for seeing film
4:19
history that way, but I'm afraid that you're probably the only
4:22
one. But I do agree, a movie that
4:27
Demi Moore made, what got Oscar nomination.
4:31
I, I must have gotten 200 emails from fans saying what, what was
4:36
the name of that movie? Substance, The substance.
4:39
But that's a trauma movie. Now, I did see it and it's
4:43
terrific. And to me, Moore is great.
4:46
And is it Margot who's the other guy you know in it?
4:50
Margaret Qualley, I think. Is how he said it.
4:53
Yeah, yes, he's terrific and the movie's great.
4:57
But apparently it, I didn't see a lot of trauma in it.
5:01
It was too good. But a lot of people did.
5:05
And if you look at a lot of what goes on now, there is a trauma
5:08
influence. There are people all over the
5:11
world, young people making kind of trauma DI do it yourself
5:17
movies with political and sociological content, yet
5:22
understanding that they have to keep people's attention.
5:25
They can't just film, you know, you know, a random building and
5:30
building. Yeah.
5:31
Hey, there's a movie nominated for Oscar.
5:36
It's called Sira. SIRA with a circumflex over it
5:43
and it's a Moroccan, French, Spanish movie and it's nominated
5:47
for Oscar best International and it won the jewelry prize.
5:53
It can and I'd love for you guys to see it because I wear it and
5:59
and it gets 90% on the Rotten Tomatoes.
6:03
And the reviews, Oh my God, the reviews are like orgasms of
6:08
assembly. Yet I sat through this thing and
6:14
I I swear I I can't imagine what the fuck that was going on, yet
6:20
the audience it in which I was embedded silence They they there
6:26
was no coughing, no shifting. Nobody walked out.
6:29
I want, but I, I was afraid because I had a free ticket.
6:34
I didn't want to filter the people.
6:37
But I, I would love to know what the hell is that thing is What
6:40
what am I missing? What happened?
6:43
See it? Yeah.
6:45
Yeah. I think it's, you know, word of
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mouth. The only reason trauma still
6:48
exists is word of mouth. And maybe this Sarat thing.
6:52
Obviously I'm missing. I'm 80 years old and that's my
6:55
excuse. But they did have a 2 Almovadors
7:01
that were heavy on the credits at the beginning of the film.
7:04
So maybe they, you know, maybe they knew they, they maybe it
7:08
was one of their proteges, or maybe it has something to do
7:11
with all mobadors son or daughter or.
7:14
Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to the credits, but
7:18
but suddenly I see that great name, you know, genius.
7:22
So maybe, yeah, obviously the audience and the critics and the
7:27
festivals and the Oscars have all, you know, zoned in on this
7:32
movie. So obviously I'm out of step.
7:37
You know, that's the first time. I think that's the first time
7:40
that Troma has ever been out of step.
7:43
You know what I mean? I mean, we've been pretty middle
7:46
of the road and, you know, very safe, right?
7:51
Yeah. I.
7:53
Don't. Yeah, I'd say safe is the word.
7:55
I would describe trauma. Family friendly.
7:58
As well, you've, you've, you've always been in very into like
8:02
International Film for your whole life, is that right?
8:04
Well, again, I was brainwashed by my Yale roommate, Robert
8:08
Edelstein and Eric Sherman, the late Eric Sherman to be in Otur
8:16
so that the films that they had, but they really told me what to
8:20
watch. So Russellini was good, Fellini,
8:24
OK, but not Otur. You know, they were so big.
8:30
There's a Gucci. Oh my God.
8:32
And I do agree the, I think that the most religious experience
8:37
I've ever had watching a movie was indeed Mr. Gucci, Princess
8:41
Young Wei Fay. And I did major in Chinese
8:44
studies and it's a Chinese novel basically, although it's by the
8:47
great filmmaker. And I did have kind of a
8:52
religious. Does this sweatshirt make me
8:57
look fat? I've got kind of I, I usually
9:00
wear a tie, but we were in the studio.
9:04
No. You look, you look, you look
9:05
comfy. I look.
9:07
A athleisure. I should sit up better.
9:11
Yeah. Mr. Gucci, I had.
9:13
I saw Princess Young boy Faye once, and that was thanks to a
9:18
guy who was sort of part of the Yale Film Society.
9:21
But not a filmmaker, more of a scholar.
9:24
But he he he somehow either reconstructed a print or or
9:29
restored a print of Mizaguchi's Princess Yangoi Fei, apparently
9:34
very rare and got the museum out of an art to have a screening.
9:38
This could be all wrong information.
9:40
All I know is that that guy spearheaded us going to see this
9:43
movie and it really is a amazing film.
9:48
If you want to look up the word sublime in the dictionary, you
9:52
will get is a Gucci or the other way.
9:54
I mean, the movie really is and and the ending and I and it's so
9:59
good I never wanted to see it again.
10:01
It was just that spiritual and religious for you.
10:04
Yeah, yeah. It was really Mother Nature.
10:07
It was there and and I felt it, but I also felt the same thing
10:14
when I had LSD in 1967 I guess. Also the good real stuff, not
10:20
the crap we got today. Oh yeah, that.
10:23
Well, it was. That was a good trip.
10:25
I had AI had a bad one, don't worry.
10:27
But I have to say that LSD did it.
10:30
I would say it got me a little more wisdom about the way of the
10:36
world. My grandmother, my grandmother
10:39
was way left wing. And I think there's a couple of
10:44
acid trips I saw. I kind of saw what, you know,
10:49
what it's all about. Then I had a bummer.
10:51
It was bad. This is the bad time.
10:54
Very bad. No.
10:56
Going off of the question about foreign film, was it those
11:01
foreign film mixed with the directors you looked up to that
11:05
helped spearhead your career? And then making trauma right?
11:10
Like creating the toxic anger? Like creating trauma itself?
11:13
Was it those influences that you just took and kind of
11:17
amalgamated for yourself when I can do it and I could do it like
11:20
this? Or was it just like, what was
11:23
it? Exactly because I bought into
11:26
this Otero theory of filmmaking. And lucky for me, Mr. Michael
11:32
hers was going. I'm older, he was going through
11:35
law school and and Oh no, we met at Yale.
11:39
My brother and Michael, hers were camp counselors together.
11:45
I don't mean together in that way, Alex, come on now.
11:50
But they my brother's the nicest guy in Michael's and and anyway,
11:54
when I went to Yale, my brother said to Michael, it was a couple
11:59
of years, a lot younger. Why don't you look up my brother
12:02
at Yale? And Michael did, because I had
12:05
ATV, black and white television. That was it.
12:09
The minute he met me, he knew I was a jerk.
12:11
But I had the TV and not everybody in those days, not
12:15
every student had the televisions.
12:18
And it was one of these black and white things.
12:20
We had to bang the top of it to stop the thing with.
12:24
Michael Hertz was coming to meet you, correct?
12:27
Yeah, yeah, right. And so we met at Yale and then I
12:34
went out and made some money losing movies.
12:38
But I worked on some movies and there was one called Cry Uncle
12:44
and that John G Avalon directed and I and I raised a little
12:48
money for it and I was, I'm in it actually, I play a, a hippie
12:56
cry uncle. Terrific.
12:57
It's it's on Troma now, the streaming service Troma now it's
13:02
a free app and it's free the first month and then you can
13:06
keep putting in. If you're poor, you can keep
13:09
putting in the emails, different emails every month.
13:13
Otherwise, it's Fortnite people. We just, we, we really want
13:19
people to look at what we have acquired and what we've made.
13:23
And if they can't afford it, what the heck?
13:26
I don't mind that because they'll talk to their friends
13:29
and that's the whole reason we're in.
13:31
How you know, probably you heard about us from a friend.
13:35
I don't think you saw a trailer in the AMC Theatres about the,
13:41
you know, hashtag Shakespeare shit.
13:43
So it's coming to you in 30, you know, next week or soon.
13:49
No. The the the first Troma movie I
13:52
learned about was Sergeant Kabuki Man, and it was a sort of
13:56
a Mystery Science Theater type show.
13:58
And then I just went on a Bender through all the other Troma
14:01
movies. Isn't that something?
14:06
Yeah, Kabuki man's a good film and but it it has it's up and
14:11
down. But in the fullness of time,
14:13
that's a real hit for us. And there's a terrific new.
14:19
We put out a Blu-ray a while back, but Vinegar Syndrome has
14:22
put out a box. It's it's really is amazing.
14:26
It's. Very pretty.
14:27
Yeah, isn't it great? And there's different art on the
14:29
cover and then you open it up, it's the old, old artwork and
14:34
and and they around and they're great and they love, they love.
14:38
I know the I've spent time talking to Joe Rubin.
14:42
He loves cinema, no question about it.
14:44
You know, it's great. And they have to they just
14:47
opened another store that I think they're making movies too
14:50
anyway. But the collectible people, the
14:54
physical media, they vinegar syndrome is the is the what CBS
15:01
used to be the Tiffany of right. CBS used to be the Tiffany of
15:05
television till Trump crushed them.
15:07
But the vinegar syndrome, the Tiffany of physical goods and
15:12
the and trauma that we do our own physical goods.
15:15
And I keep telling the trauma team his fucking vinegar
15:19
syndrome is we competing with him.
15:22
God damn it, we got to do something to beat them and win
15:26
the race. I'm just happy physical media
15:28
still has its stake in the ground when it comes to movies,
15:32
music, video games. Physical media still as
15:35
important as it was back when it first started.
15:39
People love to have something physical in their hands.
15:41
Like for me, like the recent toxic toxbox is some toxic
15:46
toxbox, something I had to get. It's a bit of a tongue twister,
15:51
but I love physical media and I know that trauma prides itself
15:55
in everything physical and just in your face like it.
15:59
It's awesome to see that there is a studio still around and a
16:03
group like yourselves. They're like, no, we can do it.
16:06
We can put it in your hands, we can put it to the screen.
16:09
Is how important still for trauma is that to be creating
16:13
films? And are you guys still creating
16:14
films the way you were or I know with modern technology we're
16:17
kind of switched things up, but how close are you keeping it to
16:21
that trauma fail while filming? Well it was 2 parts questions.
16:27
What was the first part I forgot?
16:30
I think I forgot too because I just got so excited about
16:32
physical media. Oh yeah.
16:36
The great thing about the thing we got into DVD, the minute I
16:41
was introduced to DVD by David Schultz, who ran a little office
16:45
we had in LA, who now has his own very good distribution
16:50
company for theatrical distribution.
16:54
But he told me about these DVD's and and I started playing with
17:00
them and Oh my God, this is great.
17:03
So we started doing DVD long before people even had the
17:07
machines. And we had about two or three
17:09
years where we were in there ahead of everybody.
17:12
And it's great because there's room for the movie and the, and
17:16
also the quality is much better than anything we would do on 35,
17:21
because it's 35. It gets scratched up and you
17:25
know they put the platter machines and in the theaters and
17:29
and 35mm Costa shit load the ship and and then the
17:33
projection. If they take out the good head
17:36
crushing scenes right or or other things.
17:39
So you end up with a print that the next theater it gets pissed
17:43
off about anyway. Where was I?
17:46
You students should have listened to what I just said.
17:48
I because there's the value there.
17:51
Any rate the the DVD was great because you could put so much
17:56
history on it and preserve the, you know, let the actors talk
18:00
about the movie. In the case of Monster in the
18:03
Closet, I had movie stars. I remember, Oh, no, for
18:08
foreplay, Monster in the closet, old movie stars, I did.
18:12
I went back and interviewed them and did Stella Stevens and all
18:16
these great people, Paul Dooley. But I remember for foreplay,
18:21
which was John G Appleton's movie foreplay.
18:25
It's on Truman now, the hot news streaming service.
18:28
But I think, I think it was Estelle Parsons who has the,
18:34
the, the, a very important part along with 0 Mostel who was in
18:39
Mel Brooks as the producers. But she, she, I had, I had
18:45
trouble convincing her to do a extra for the DVD.
18:50
And you know, John gave me her number and I, I said, look, it's
18:55
for students. You put, we're putting the DVD
18:57
people. It's part of history.
18:59
You had an Oscar winning director, blah, blah, blah,
19:01
blah, before you became an Oscar winning director.
19:04
And so she said, well, I'll call Johnny and John Avildsen was my
19:08
mentor. And and then she agreed.
19:11
And the Monster in the Closet is such a good movie.
19:14
We only helped, we put some money into it and and we shot
19:18
some of it in New Jersey for them.
19:21
But it's a brilliant film and it just came.
19:24
It was too far ahead of its time.
19:28
But it's got a lot of stars. Even John Carradine, my old
19:32
buddy from Silent Night, Bloody Night, very nice.
19:37
I love it. There's just so much history.
19:40
So much. Boy, am I bored.
19:43
No. Not.
19:44
At all. Not at all.
19:45
Why we're excited to have you it's.
19:47
Awesome. I'm like a bad.
19:48
I'm like a bad Mel Brooks. No, that's so good.
19:54
That's so funny. No, Alex.
19:59
By the way, there's a great group of film makers in Detroit.
20:04
Oh gosh. It'll come to me, but they're
20:08
terrific and I stayed with them. We I'm in their film, which is
20:13
really, really good and I I can't, I'm having a brain fart.
20:17
I can't. Were you in Detroit right before
20:19
the premiere at San Diego Comic Con?
20:25
Perhaps. Certainly before that, I
20:27
believe. Yeah.
20:28
I think Sabrina was there. Oh, no, she wasn't.
20:30
She wasn't there because I know she knows the group.
20:33
She. She she's very enthusiastic
20:36
about the people that do you know them or?
20:42
I, I I know a film director over in Detroit who's a good friend
20:46
of ours. His name is Nicholas Holland.
20:48
He's released a couple indie films so far.
20:52
Kate, my friend was named Kate KAIT Kate Brazen.
20:58
Very talented makeup and special effects artist and they made a
21:05
terrific movie. I just I would love to pluck in
21:07
but I'm so stupid. Really good e-mail.
21:12
It to us, E-mail us the link and we'll put it in the episode for
21:14
sure. We'll definitely find.
21:16
Out remind me you send me an e-mail, send me send a Sabrina
21:19
and me an e-mail and it might get done.
21:22
You never know. You were very incompetent to no,
21:28
it should be an I in the word trauma.
21:31
No, that's not true. We've managed to keep going and
21:34
Michael Hurs, the real boss, he he's got a shit together, let me
21:40
tell you, and he's a great guy. You know, we we've never had a
21:45
contract, nothing. And if Michael Hurs had had
21:50
directed, if he wouldn't have stopped directing movies, I
21:55
wouldn't be here talking to you guys.
21:56
Let me tell you, I'd be talking to like Variety or Hollywood
22:02
Reporter. You know, Michael was a good
22:05
director. Absolutely.
22:07
And Toxic Avengers. It's a lot of of of Michael
22:11
Hurst there and first turn on the funniest of our comedies is
22:15
Michael Hurst. And and he really directed that.
22:18
But he he grew up, became an adult and let me run the company
22:24
into the grounds. No, we had someone who invested
22:29
who said I ran the no, we no, he blamed both of us.
22:33
We ran the company into the ground.
22:35
Those were words, but we're still here.
22:38
Thanks to you guys. What it's?
22:39
Flourishing. It's flourishing you.
22:42
Know all the billionaire class? They can have all the money in
22:45
the world they can't buy. You can't buy word of mouth no
22:48
matter how much money you throw at it.
22:51
And of which we have none. But people, thanks to guys like
22:55
you, we keep going, right? And every once in a while, you
22:58
get James Gunn, and he talks about us and Trey Parker, I
23:02
mean, his movies, James Gunn and Trey Parker and and others talk
23:06
about, you know, when we get a like, a trauma of a family and
23:10
it keeps us going. You know what I mean?
23:13
Yeah. You, you need that team behind
23:15
you, man, and it's. Well, we're more like I see, I
23:19
see Troma more like an injured fawn, a baby deer whose leg was
23:25
amputated in a vicious trap for bears and and people need to
23:32
save this beautiful. That's Troma, right?
23:35
That's us, right? The MPA we our movies were
23:40
butchered by the Motion Picture Association of America.
23:44
My brother's career, Mother's Day, the best film film ever.
23:50
I believe the best film and I think it's one of the two best
23:55
and I think everybody agrees he couldn't They chopped up
23:59
Mother's Day, made it into hamburger.
24:03
They chopped up what Nietzsche calls a brilliant satire that
24:07
there's nothing in it. That's that there was, there's
24:12
there's basically no nudity. There's the only breasts you see
24:16
are like one second for a silly joke.
24:19
But they cut every possible thing they could and my brother
24:23
tried to keep going, but and the same with me.
24:27
The Toxic Avenger the First Toxic Avenger 20 minutes removed
24:31
by the Motion Picture Association of America, Canada,
24:36
45 seconds, right right up, right up the stairs there and
24:41
France 30 seconds and here to get in.
24:45
Oh, and and in order to get into the theaters, you had to have an
24:49
R rating. So, you know, they totally
24:53
fucked us. Yeah, 'cause you're NC 17, you
24:55
can't get in, right? Well, that was then there was no
24:58
NC 17. They created that to to, I think
25:02
satisfy their genius and God, Harvey Weinstein, I think it was
25:07
for him when the and whatever it is the the Motion Picture
25:13
Association of America put a lot of little traumas out of
25:17
business by double standard censorship.
25:20
Yeah, Traumas War, for example, which is a cartoon and it came
25:27
out after Bruce Willis Die hard and it's almost wore their only
25:34
blood is goofy jokes and silly things, and they may Whereas
25:39
Bruce Willis had serious knees exploding on walls.
25:44
No problem with that. Put it right in the theater.
25:47
We had to cut out bullet hits, dead bodies, people getting
25:52
punched in the mouth and spitting out Chiclets, which is
25:55
a hilarious joke. I mean, everything was and, and
25:59
the guy who runs the MPAA named Hefner, oddly enough, president
26:05
of the MPAA, a psychiatrist or something.
26:08
He told Michael Herz, our movie was NFG, that no, we'd never get
26:13
an R rating. It was basically, and the MPAA
26:17
was not supposed to have any artistic opinion of the art.
26:22
It was supposed to be community standards.
26:24
The president of the MPAA telling Michael Herz right with
26:29
no NFG or whatever he said fuck him.
26:33
Anyway, we cut the movie down and put it out R rated and of
26:36
course it flopped and we had about half 1,000,000 bucks of
26:40
our own money in it. See they would at a normal
26:44
company would have gone out of business because of the normal
26:47
independent film studios had to pay back banks so they could
26:51
went bankrupt. Yeah, so luckily we were putting
26:56
up our best friends and our own money to make.
27:01
So at least, you know, we didn't pay, you know, we weren't paying
27:05
interest to a bank and all that kind of stuff.
27:07
So we, you know, you know, it was a disaster.
27:11
But Tomas War eventually, thanks to our good friend, physical
27:15
media caught on and there I think there were two versions,
27:19
the R rated version for the fascist states like Alabama, and
27:24
then the director's cut for the rest.
27:28
I literally, I literally have the director's cut right here.
27:33
What's that I? Literally have the director's
27:35
cut right here. Oh, thank you.
27:38
Wow. Yeah, look at that.
27:40
That's. Amazing high tech.
27:42
See Unbelievable. But Speaking of Alabama, our
27:47
daughter Charlotte Kaufman who played the the mute child in
27:52
Terra Firmer and shot Occupy Khan or Lily Hayes Kaufman's
27:59
documentary and and is in about 10 Choma movies and also
28:04
director of photography. She has a movie that she made
28:08
with Andrew Jarecki, the The Alabama Solution, all about the
28:15
Alabama prison system, and it's brilliant.
28:19
It's also nominated for Oscar. And it's really it shows you
28:25
that Alabama isn't even a state. It's a colony.
28:29
It's a racist, fascist colony. It's all there.
28:33
And the prison system is is is a another American dirty secret.
28:39
Burt Lancaster made a movie in 1937 called Brute Force about
28:44
the prison system, in which Burt Lancaster and other stars, all
28:49
the issues that were in that movie, overcrowding, say sadism,
28:55
Hume Cronin, I think, played the sadistic guard.
29:00
Bad health, food, nothing's changed.
29:03
It's worse. There's more overcrowding.
29:05
There's more. I mean, it's and you see it in
29:07
the Alabama Solution, but under the cloud of Trump, you know,
29:12
let's hope the Academy picks the right film.
29:15
There's already been a because of the Alabama solution.
29:20
Andrew Jarecki, by the way, made finding the the Friedmans, which
29:28
the one I it was in Sundance and won, I think it won an Oscar.
29:33
Do you know that movie? Is it discovering the Friedmans
29:36
or finding Anyway, it's great, whatever it is, he's a genius
29:40
and also he created the Jinx, which Charlotte produced with
29:46
him, Charlotte Kaufman Ho ho ho. And, and now he created the he's
29:52
the one who came up with this idea about the Alabama prison
29:56
system and Charlotte basically lived in Alabama or commuted for
30:00
about 7 years. And it's a really heartbreaking
30:05
and beautiful documentary. But you know, it's it's not in
30:10
the Trone mood where everything has to be Pollyanna ish, right.
30:14
The Smithsonian can't reflect slavery or no take down those
30:19
plaques. We didn't have slavery.
30:22
Oh, what's that? We genocide against the Indian.
30:26
Oh no, no, no, we had nothing to do with that.
30:29
That was that was, you know, I mean, really good.
30:33
We live in crazy fucking times. Yes, exactly.
30:37
It's unbelievably, Joe Bob Briggs did a great video where
30:40
he said in his entire life, he, he's never seen anything where
30:44
you, you're not allowed to speak out or whatever, you know.
30:48
You were just on the last episode of the last Drive in,
30:50
correct? The last episode that's going to
30:52
be on shutter, right? I think our movie one of them
30:57
movies which I had. It's a great film and an
31:01
important film. The last horror film was the
31:05
last was on Joe Bobby last show, but I was not part of that.
31:12
But the film is terrific. Joe Spanel, a great Spanish,
31:16
really good. It's a terrific film and I'm
31:19
very grateful that Joe Bob picked up one or two and it was.
31:22
It takes place at the Cannes Film Festival.
31:25
So if you see that movie and then you see Lily Hayes's
31:28
documentary Occupy Cannes, where the trauma team is basically
31:33
policed out by fascist people from, I don't know where they
31:37
came from, but they were not the Cannes police.
31:39
They would be the Cannes Festival or anyway, they put us
31:45
up. They didn't.
31:45
Luckily I ran away, but they put up.
31:49
They put them against the wall and made them delete all their
31:53
photographs and and and then you'll see the documentary.
31:57
It's shocking. This is supposed to be a
32:00
festival. I've been there for 51 years.
32:02
And anyway we haven't we same. Well, the same thing happened
32:06
with Droma Dance at Park City, and we moved Troma Dance to
32:11
Asbury Park and then to New York.
32:15
And now, good news, Troma Dance is going to have a big reunion
32:21
in 2027. Or is it 26 anyway?
32:28
Anyway, it's coming up in Boulder.
32:31
Whenever Sundance starts in Boulder, Troma Dance will have a
32:36
beautiful reunion once again and we'll be in Boulder.
32:41
Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Matt Stone.
32:44
They were the the founders of Troma Dance because they we all
32:49
went up to Park City with the Cannibal the musical, because
32:54
they entered the film and I wouldn't Troma wouldn't pay for
32:58
the entry fee because we knew they were Sundance with Fox and
33:02
Trey and Matt didn't even get a fuck you letter.
33:05
They got nothing. So they said, well, wait a
33:08
minute. Nobody said we shouldn't do.
33:11
Nobody said we shouldn't come to Sundance.
33:13
So they there we all came. We stayed in Trey and Matt's I
33:17
stayed in. I slept on the floor next to to
33:20
one of the stars of Canada. Well, great guy.
33:24
I can't remember. Anyway, he plays the the little
33:27
guy in the hat. Oh, Dion, I think.
33:29
Is his. Name Yeah, Dion, Dion Dion's the
33:32
best. I I literally we both slept in.
33:35
We both slept on the floor in front of the closet.
33:38
And but I, I I was, I kept my hands off him.
33:42
Don't worry. But anyway, and at cannibal and
33:46
musical, they had a one movie festival.
33:48
It was huge, you know, just people come in and sing there
33:52
because you can't get into anything at Sundance and you
33:57
know, everything's like 10 times what it should be.
34:00
So anyway, so the train and Cannibal the Musical was shown
34:06
and then I think then it got shown in Slamdance.
34:11
Anyway, I got it all mixed up. But they, they're the ones who
34:14
who gave us the attitude to trauma dance And we, we did all
34:19
free movie festival where you could submit your movie for
34:22
nothing, no payment. You could come in and see the
34:26
movies for nothing and no VIP policy.
34:28
And we had two venues, one in Park City and one in a very nice
34:33
movie theater, like where you could have wine and get pizza
34:38
and all that, you know, very nice.
34:40
And, and we, you know, it was free, free admission just to buy
34:44
food, hopefully for the theater. And it was great.
34:47
We did it there for 10 years. And we made a lot of noise.
34:51
And then eventually we got policed out.
34:53
So Troma Dance moved to New York for 10 years.
34:56
And now thanks to Matthew Clickstein, who put together a
35:00
book called Interviews with Lloyd Kaufman, published by the
35:04
University of Mississippi. So that means I must have been
35:08
pretty damn clean. There were it's something like
35:12
40 years of interviews or 50 years of interview.
35:15
And it's very good. He spent five years on this
35:18
Matthew Clickstein. And he says it's a good view, a
35:22
good eyeball into history of of Independence cinema during 1974,
35:30
from 1974 through present pretty much.
35:33
And so it's a good book. And anyway, he's putting
35:38
together a Troma dance in Boulder, and we have the venues.
35:42
We're getting places to sleep on the floor and learn how to ship
35:47
in a paper bag and all that. Kind of, we'll probably no, no,
35:52
I shouldn't say that. We'll, we'll be, I mean, we went
35:55
to Sundance for 10, at least 10 years and we, we would get a
35:59
condo and we'd have lots of people and we always left it
36:03
spotless. And the owners always were, you
36:06
know, told us we would need it than the celebrities and and
36:10
whatever, you know, billionaire class.
36:14
I'm sure. Yeah, it's funny.
36:16
I don't. It seems to be something.
36:18
Is there something in front of my face?
36:21
What is that? Is it bedtime?
36:26
No. No.
36:26
No, I thought you. No, I ran into the bed.
36:28
I was like, what did we do? No, I mean, I'm upstairs, but my
36:34
my wife is downstairs. She's going to be making a
36:37
presentation tomorrow. She just retired from being the
36:41
commissioner of media for New York City, all Media, and she
36:45
had a big staff and prior to that she produced Hashtag
36:50
Shakespeare Shitstorm. She was one of three producers
36:54
and prior to that, she was this New York State film commissioner
36:59
and created the incentive whereby you get a third of your
37:04
money back if you make a movie in New York and 15 new sound
37:09
stages in, in New York City and also upstate and all because of
37:14
and, and now the other states did it and many of them are even
37:19
have even better incentives. And of course, COVID came and,
37:23
and after that and the strike, the city industry brought that
37:28
back. And she did another term as
37:32
commissioner. And last week she retired.
37:35
And but she's doing a presentation tomorrow.
37:39
Fantastic. Congratulations to her.
37:42
We call her the Commission. The Commission.
37:46
What one of the things like I, I know that you haven't directed
37:50
it a little bit, but when you compare like what it was like in
37:55
the like in the days of like original Toxic Avenger and
37:58
Kabuki Man and all that. Do you, was it like easier back
38:02
then to get your films out or do you find now having like a
38:05
streaming platform of your own that it sort of helps with the
38:08
distribution? Well, trauma now, it's very
38:12
small trauma now the, it's an app, it's free and then you get
38:17
a free month. And that's really the, the, what
38:21
keeps us from going out of business is there's a, it's a
38:25
small revenue stream, but it takes care of our small payroll
38:29
and we don't even get paid, Michael and I, or if we, you
38:33
know, make a couple of deals and there's extra money, then we get
38:36
paid. I've never taken a director's
38:38
fee or producer's fee ever. I I've worked on big movies and
38:44
gotten paid, but, you know, to keep the lights on.
38:47
I've never enjoyed that. But having worked with John G
38:51
Abelson, who was definitely a mentor, and John Badham, with
38:55
whom I from whom I learned a lot on Saturday Night Fever, I'm
39:00
glad I did those jobs. Oh, also Kirk Douglas, I learned
39:05
a lot from him. He, he, he great, great, great,
39:09
great movie person and a brave man and he broke the blacklist
39:14
and tough guy. But he, he, he should have
39:18
directed the movie I was involved with.
39:21
Unfortunately we had a director who was very bad, but Kirk and
39:27
his son saved the film. And I, I think there are some
39:30
people who think it's OK. Could have been dynamite.
39:34
Right where from here? What is the future looking like
39:40
for trauma for with, I mean, we just had Macon Blair's Toxic
39:44
Avenger, which was the proverbial passing of the mop,
39:48
so you know what I mean. What is next?
39:50
Like are we getting a Kabuki man at all?
39:55
Like is there anything like that possibly being thought up in the
39:58
think tank? Or that's it's a great question
40:01
about Sergeant Kabuki man, NYPD Andrew Miller and Adam Pelletier
40:07
who? Have worked for Troma they have
40:10
written a script return of Kabuki man but it's going to
40:15
require 1,000,000 bucks and I don't have that kind of money I
40:19
can get about I'll. I'll chip into that.
40:22
I'll chip know who you you don't want.
40:24
I'd be directing it you lose your money, but to be involved
40:27
though it's worth. It.
40:30
You're a nice guy, but if some, if somebody came along, you
40:35
know, or if there was a star, you know, Stan Lee's favorite
40:40
movie, a trauma movie, was Sergeant Kabuki man NYPD.
40:45
He tried to get Jim Carrey, but that was kind of right after the
40:50
mask or something. And but there are people out
40:55
there who stars who are, you know, but I, I have no juice So
41:00
and I don't know how to put together that kind of movie, but
41:04
you never know. Maybe there'll be somebody who
41:06
worked for us, who is rich or whatever, who doesn't mind
41:11
losing 1,000,000 bucks and. Well, unfortunately we're just a
41:15
couple of broke schlubs over here, so.
41:20
Yeah, I feel your pain. Anyway, I probably should go.
41:25
At what time is it? Oh good Lord.
41:27
It's 8:48. Yeah, I've got a Yeah, I've got,
41:29
I've got to make dinner for my wife, probably, you know.
41:32
Awesome, thank you for hopping. Out Lloyd.
41:36
Thank you so much. In your world, I'm I'm a
41:39
maestro, but where I live, I'm a booth boy.
41:46
All righty. Good night.
41:48
Good night. Thank you.
41:49
You've got. My digits, if you're in Queens,
41:52
come visit Childrenville. Thanks a lot for your attention.