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Photos
By Joe Bondi
On
June 16th Lloyd Kaufman made a return visit to Pittsburgh
and I
had the pleasure of interviewing him once again at a undisclosed
location.
Here is that interview- Troma revisited!
9. Do you have any superstitions?
Well not really I don't think so. Sometimes if I kick something in the street, like if I kick a bottle cap in the street I might kick it a second time. Or if my right foot. If I'm jogging and my right foot kinda kicks a little twig I feel that my left foot has to find a twig to kick. That kind of stuff. Otherwise I don't think I have any serious superstitions.
10. Is there anything you do to prepare before you start making a movie?
Just finding a theme, you know, that I believe in. Something that really appeals. I think the most difficult part of the preparation is getting the script the way you feel it is ready to be shot. Pulling the trigger on pre-production and then pulling the trigger again on production. That's, I think, what has to be done to prepare. Not to mention little details like raising money, which is very difficult. I talk about that quite a bit in "Make Your Own Damn Movie". That's always problematic. Big problem always.
11. What's your outlook on life?
It's about people. I think most people are good. People are good and I think the only time..I think the bad people are not bad. They're just frightened. They do things, you know, they're just scared. Not much you can do about it. Most people, I think, unfortunately fall into that category. So but basically people are good and I think things improve also. Even though I think quite a bit about suicide I'm an optimist. I do believe that things are getting better. Even though there are still 500,000 little babies dying of starvation in Africa every year while Sandra Bullock gets $11,000 for her hair budget per movie. Even though that kind of stuff is around I'm still..I think the situation is better than when my life began. So I'm rather optimistic.
12. What attracts you to a person?
I don't know. It's very hard to say. I really don't think I can answer that. I mean what doesn't attract me? I think what turns me off is pretension and disloyalty. I think for the most part I really rather like people. I'm not too..unless someone's really rude. You know I'm pretty much attracted to everybody. I like men with really big penis's, of course. David Silvio(Kiss of Death Productions) and I used to bathe together. It's one of the things that made him very attractive to me.
13. Is there a period in history that fascinates you?
Well it depends on umm literature I'm interested in the 17th century from the point of view of literature I'd say the 17th. I don't think so. I don't think I specialize in any particular area of history..
14. What's your opinion on war?
There is absolutely no need for it. It should be totally done away with. The stupidity of our current policy is to ask these countries not to make a-bombs and not to have them. is asshole time. It's ridiculous. Everyone should not have them. We should get rid of them and everyone should get rid of them and that's all. It's the only way it's gonna stop. People are fearful but it's absolutely absurd to ask a little crappy country to get rid of it's dirty bombs or whatever they got and then we got all these a-bombs. France is allowed to have them. England is allowed to have them. China is allowed to have them but North Korea is not allowed to have them just because they have a psychopath, a guy with weird glasses and goofy hair and leading the place. That makes no sense. Just cause the British guy looks okay and he seems sane he should have the a-bomb but the Korean guy with the goofy hair shouldn't because he looks crazy. It makes no sense. Nobody should have the a-bombs. There's no excuse for them- it's a disgrace.
15. How many of the Toxic Avenger comic books were there?
I don't know. Marvel Comics did them. Marvel went bankrupt and they had to cut out most of what they were doing that wasn't core material. There's a Spanish company, Spanish fans..There's some guys who used to be fans in Spain who are now older and have a comic book company. They are publishing Troma comic books in Spain. It's called Fester Comics and they are turning them out. I can't keep up with them but they are doing a lot but they are in Spanish. They are pretty damn good. We're writing some of them, the Troma staff are writing some of them. We kinda have our hand in it but it's being handled by the Spanish company. We don't sell them. They do it all. You can get them off the Troma website. There's a link for Fester. I think you can still buy some Troma comic books some old ones on the Troma site. I'm not sure. Troma we did publish our own comic books for awhile but then we had to turn to DVD's. Comic books are just too time consuming. There's no way to make money with it. So we prefer to go into something more expensive like DVD's which there's no way to make money also. At least we can spend what little money we have left quicker.
16. What do you think of Pittsburgh?
I love Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is great. It's very creative and inspiring to see Kiss of Death Productions and it was a great privilege to have been associated with the first theatrical airing of "Meat For Satan's Icebox"'s theatrical trailer. That was very cool at the Rex Cinema. That was really really great. It's wonderful to see, you know obviously I'm a major major Romero fan and he's probably the most underrated American director in history. It's a pity he's not directing more movies but every movie he has made is terrific. I just looked at the DVD of "The Crazies" aka code name "Trixie", which he made in 1972 or something. It's great. It's really good and "Martin"..All his early "Martin".."Martin"'s a film noire that can't be beat. A lot of great movies were done in Pittsburgh. Not just Romero but some of the interesting mainstream movies. "Boys on the Side"..That wasn't bad but there's all sorts of things. It's just wonderful to see all the independent cinema that's going on here in Pittsburgh. Not necessarily at the Filmmaker's place but outside of that it's really great. The best seems to be outside of that. I mean I'm sure that place is great but there seems to be really inspired stuff going on kind of out there like Kiss of Death Productions and Happy Cloud Productions. Mike Watt and Amy( Happy Cloud Productions) are doing a movie called "Severe Injuries". It seems that there's a lot of energy here. A lot of great creativity and that whole South Side is a great neighborhood. The Cynics too are a very good band. That's a Pittsburgh band isn't it? we tried to contact them. I think they are still playing but we just haven't been able to get in touch with them. They're really great.
© 2011 Ariann Boisvert
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