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Hosted by Mark Vega, Esq. |
So the reporter says "Excuse me, are you Weiner?" After scanning the suite to make sure everyone's watching, he says, "Yea, I'm Weiner. My job is acquisitions. I acquire, pick up, pilfer, five-finger-discount, replace the right price tag with a better one, distract your view whilst I shove it under my arm, scratch-n-sniff (wait, no, that's something else) get it while it's hot Troma team member."
"Hi, I'm Andrew, how's it going."
Whoa, I snap out of my daydream about how I'd be greeted in the infamous Troma, Inc. suite at the Loews during the AFM and instead am faced with the cold hard reality that this normal looking dude stands in front of me, hand extended, smile on his face telling me he's Andrew.
"Andrew, Hi. I'm Mark Vega and I'm covering the market for the single largest independently owned and operated content-based web site focussing on the entertainment industry."
"On the Internet?"
"Yea."
"Cool."
That's it. No pretensions. No attitude. Just cool. Just like it should be for a representative from the 23-year-old brain child (toxically afflicted, no less) of Presidents Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz. Troma, Inc. may be the only independent film production/distribution/sales company with true name recognition -- if you know it's a Troma film, you know exactly what to expect. This is the company that brought you infamous titles such as The Toxic Avenger (and 2 sequels), Surf Nazis Must Die, Bloodsucking Freaks, Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the C.I.A., The Good, The Bad and the Subhumanoid, and, the only intelligent musical about flesh-eating frontiersmen Cannibal! The Musical. If these titles aren't familiar to you, you've got two options: stop reading (click "back" or return to surfing for downloadable graphics from sellout filmmakers or big brother studios), or you can read on, hit-up a local video store and get with the program!
If you've got any interest in independent film, you've got to know about Troma, Inc. Twenty-two+ years ago two visionaries (probably referred to as knuckleheads at the time) named Kaufman and Herz decided the only way to make films the way they wanted to make films was to tell the filmmaking establishment to pucker up, cuddle close and kiss their young butts. Then, they went to work making movies. Not your average kind of movies. But movies with an edge. O.K., movies with lots of edges. The thought of a film exec at any major, mini-major, wanna-be-a-mini-major or thinks-their-doo-don't-be-stinking-mini-mini-mini-mini-major describing to a producer that they're looking for "daring, cutting edge stuff" is enough to make you laugh up lunch, unintentionally pass a bit-o-gas or even quickly develop a nasty tic when you know that only Tromatype products can hope to wear the badge "daring and cutting edge." But enough about labels. Troma's not about that, but if someone called Kaufman the "most brilliant director since Orson Welles" or "a visionary, the likes of which haven't been on earth since Galileo" or, my personal favorite, said "that girl is WEARIN' those shoes," Kaufman would probably quote the hell out of em' in his newsletter The Troma Times, then send them (dismal quality) videotape copies of A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, Beware: Children at Play (uncut, so to speak), and Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. because the reviewer obviously hasn't ever seen a Troma picture. Along with the three tapes, of course, would be an invoice immediately due and payable because Kaufman isn't just in this to have fun and fart at will. He's made a living off this stuff. Ingeniously, he pays his hourly employees only 15 cents per hour, thus keeping costs low, at least according to The Troma Times, Troma's no-holds-barred, balls-to-the-wall, quality just-like-mom-used-to-make, with lots-of-silly-hyphenated-metaphorical-phrases newsletter sold, nay, given to just about anyone whose hand happens to be sticking out of the right place at the right time. Just know that if you take Troma (or anything you're reading now) too seriously, you should go buy more preparation-H, re-alphabetize your spice rack, re-caulk your bathroom and just forget about Troma.
The pictures offered at this AFM show that Troma is coming of age. No, it's not that Kaufman and Herz are suddenly growing tired of bared breasts, blood and shtick, but that their budgets are rising (hope the employees don't find out) along with their production values, and, honest to goodness, the chic value of the properties. O.K. all Troma lovers (and Kaufman and Herz -- I'm not sure about Weiner) just cringed and burped up a little lunch cuz of that word "chic." No other word seems to fit. Maybe cool. Maybe audiences are getting cooler and maybe a greater number of people can now "get it" and will do so at theaters. Hopefully Kaufman, Herz and their Trominions won't be put off and cop attitudes just because the general populous of the U.S. may finally be ready to consume mass quantities of Tromatreats. Heck, many members of that populous have already suffered through to this paragraph and weathered the numerous Tromatalk references heretofore unbeknownst to them yet, comfortably, unthreateningly in this forum. Despite all Americans' purported support of their Constitution and its First Amendment, the U.S. has remained incredibly puritanical when it comes to movies. Troma prides itself on providing the type of movies that can act as old bacteria infested bandages to be applied to the fresh and never-healing gaping sore on America's collective bottom wherefrom oozes the puss of puritanism and prevents us, as a nation, from ever sitting upright without pinching the cheeks and appearing the tight ass. WELL, MAYBE THE TROMATIME HAS COME!
The movies I'm talking about are the newest releases that will be hitting theaters (maybe in your area) soon. Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. tells the story of hard-working street cop Harry Griswold who stumbles upon the magical powers of an ancient Japanese hero while investigating the murder of a famous Kabuki actor. Griswold becomes Kabukiman, a hero who flies and hits his foes with trick weapons that even Q never imagined. Kabukiman sends killer wooden sandals on an aerial assault, deadly chopsticks on a pinning mission, little fire-breathing tiny umbrellas sailing at enemies, and soaring sushi rolls into an opened orifice of any available opponent! No one man can stop Kabukiman, but plenty will be watching him when he gets a theatrical debut in the U.S. at New York's famed Film Forum on May 22, 1996. The film already won a best comedy award at the Houston Film Festival and, according to The Troma Times, is a smash hit in Europe. The Film Forum debut ain't no small potatoes. The film the Roanoke Times called "the Citizen Kane of Troma movies" might give Troma some 1990s respect that it deserves (though true to form, Kaufman & Herz probably couldn't give a rat's tromaturd for) by getting into more theaters after the Film Forum run. It's a big enough deal that the editors of the Tromazine portion of the company's website announces "A STERN WARNING TO ALL TROMA FANS: Normal Tromatic behavior will NOT be tolerated. Burping, vomiting, farting, injecting Draino, self-mutilation by mini-rotary saw, and having sex with inflatable ewes in the aisles will be treated harshly. This is not Cannes. Film Forum is a very classy place run by very nice people, guys. So please don't humiliate us." Of course, this tongue in throat, or rather, cheek warning is exactly what Tromans and Tromettes (get the affectionate tone?) love about Troma, Inc. Another example of the coming of age of American audiences for Tromatreats is Blockbuster Video's decision to carry the classic The Good, The Bad, and the Subhumanoid: Class of Nuke 'Em High III. This Tromagem includes one guy playing three roles and includes lots of shots of flexed, tight pectorals, exposed breasts, stop-action animation and special effects required by the title alone.
The biggest attraction likely to draw in new fans, get them nauseous, then get them to return is Troma's Shakespearian romantic tragedy Tromeo & Juliet, due to be completed in May with a possible debut at Cannes. Celebrating 400 years of the Bard's classic tale of love and derision between the Montegues and Capulets is Kaufman's own dismembered take on the whole love-death-love-beheading story. He toiled for three years on the script, then got co-writer James Gunn to make the words jump off the page in screenplay form. Gunn was liberally quoted by The Troma Times as saying, "I never realized how intrinsic automobile crashes, tattooing, mutations, special effects, decapitizations, de-Capulet-ations, eye-gougings, and body piercings were to Shakespeare until I began working with Lloyd (Kaufman)." Unknowing fools who haven't yet got a Troma film may get their first real chance by seeing Tromeo & Juliet which may prove to be the best film the company has ever produced. Aside from great visuals, the film boasts a soundtrack featuring such artists as Motorhead, Sublime and the Ass Ponys and underground and up-and-coming noisemakers such as Thorn, Willie Wisely Trio and The Icons. Motorhead's lead loud-mouth Lemmy is featured in the film.
Aside from theatrical exposure, Kaufman and Herz have come up with another way to serve special sides of Tromatalk via teasing, titillating, talkative Tromettes through the Tromaville Cafe, a television wrap-around program that shows different scantily clad "Waitress-cum-Action-News-Reporters" giving a Tromatic treatment to various social (and anti-social) issues such as homelessness, environmental disasters and mud-wrestling through interviews with various Troma personalities such as the Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kabukiman. The skits lead into a featured Troma film. The wrap-arounds can happen anywhere and one segment was even taped during the AFM, right inside the Loew's Hotel in Santa Monica, where the market is held. The Cafe began airing in January 1996 on FilmNet, the far-reaching behemoth of a television network in Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. No word on a U.S. air date, so get your webhead companions with access to help you out.
Finally, Blondes Have More Guns and Beware: Children at Play are just released new Troma videos that anyone getting this far into this profile must check out. I haven't seen either one but am assured by Weiner that Children at Play addresses the socially important issue of whacked out kids whacking their parents and includes a wonderfully nasty -- only Troma and no one else could pull it off -- finale.
Back at the AFM suite, Weiner was quick at the VCR controls and had one-sheet facts and figures available at the tip of his tongue. Zoom to some great parts of the Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. film and check out unforgettable fleshy bits of Cannibal! The Musical. Then he lays out a new style of film that still maintains some Tromatrademarks but begins to skew in a different direction and will be distributed by Troma's new 50th Street Films. The Hotel Manor Inn, is a dark horrific comedy promising "one man, one hotel, one dream and a few unexpected guests" in the same spirit as Arsenic and Old Lace and The Trouble with Harry. O.K., O.K. Weiner is earning his keep and (lucky for me, for Troma and for buyers sucked into the suite by the Tromavortex created when you mix bored market attendees with the most colorful and creative one-sheets on display) Weiner is not living up to his name.
Lastly, finalmente, el fin y una cosa mas: Troma's website is among the best of the best! Forget about the snails pace of the mega-graphic, bells and whistles laden inconveniently structured sites of the studios and mini-majors. The Troma site is organized, informative, constantly changing and designed so that you don't click-and-fall-asleep-waiting. Instead, you get a ton of selections, you're welcomed into the fold and are greeted by Kaufman himself. You can read about the Troma universe, personalities, "history, herstory, and itstory" of Troma and judge for yourself whether Troma is "the world's most significant independent film studio" because it's "the only independent film studio left." Your menu selections include such notables as: Toxic Transgressions from President Lloyd Kaufman; Troma Movie Guide; Troma 'Zine: New Stuff@Troma; Ask Tromie -- Sex Advice for the Truly Desperate; Troma Casting; and Tromabilia. The site is so hot that there was no way I would install a hypertext link to it until the end of this profile cuz you'd leave and never bring your wandering eyes back here. After reading this profile and visiting the site, if you don't become a Citizen of Tromaville (another menu option) then just don't worry yourself that you just don't get it. Not everyone can be Tromatized, though eventually, all the right people will be.
