(Before you read this, go read the first part of the interview!)

Vuk Radic: When you talk about money, and you mentioned art before, are you familiar with Uwe Boll’s work?

Lloyd Kaufman: Yes, yes! I like him, because Uwe Boll saved a drowning dog, so he’s a big hero, I think. I don’t eat meat, I don’t eat chicken, and I don’t eat fish, because I feel bad for the animals. And Uwe Boll obviously, you know, jumped in the water and saved a dog.

VR: His films are considered bad. By critics, I mean. I liked some of them…

LK: I think they are bad, except for Postal. I think he said he was inspired to try to do something with a Troma flavor. But he had a much bigger budget…

VR: That’s what I’m getting at. Uwe Boll set up a company, his films are products that come from a corporation, even if a very small one, they are funded by banks… So, where’s the line of sacrifice for art? He knows that he will make a bad movie, because he’s doing three movies in Zaghreb in one sitting, for ten million dollars. And he says “Yeah, I know two of those wil be horrible horrible pieces of shit, but one will sell out on DVD.” So he accepts capitalist money and then sacrifices his art, but he’s still not getting, you know, a hundred million dollars, he’s getting probably what you could get if you wanted to… You could probably raise that budget.

LK: Yeah, I just don’t wanna work that way… I’ve had a good life, I’ve had my children, they’ve been to the best schools, I live in a good neighborhood… You know, I don’t need much. So I’d rather have artistic freedom and do what I want and be a bit of a shit-disturber, try to make a difference… My wife always says that to our children: just try to make a difference somehow. So I’m also the chairman of the Independent Film and Television Alliance, which is the trade association of the independent movie companies, and Uwe Boll’s company is a member of the association.

VR: Those are truly independent companies?

LK: They make indepentent movies. Independent movies are defined by movies that are financed independently, outside of the major studios. Some of them, like Twilight, are almost major studios, but are independently financed. So some of those movies, like Million Dollar Baby, that Clint Eastwood directed, are distributed by a major studio, but are independently financed. But most of our members are smaller than Troma, so we’re all together and we’re all lobbying… I got elected, I don’t get paid, I have no salary, but there is a staff who does gets paid, and I got myself elected to fight against Rupert Murdoch and the cartel that is controlling the media in the whole world. And in Washington we are lobbying to try to get more independent movies on television.

VR: What’s your plan to fight Rupert Murdoch? How do you fight the most powerful man in the media industry?

LK: Well, right now (March 2010, NdT) Comcast and NBC Universal want to merge, they’re trying to merge, but they need US government approval, and through our lobbyst we have been able to testify in Congress, and the Congress told Comcast and NBC “You must meet with lFTA”. So next week, March 25th, I’m gonna be meeting with the chairman of Comcast and a chairman of NBC Universal. And those guys would never ever talk to IFTA. For two years we wrote to all the heads of the studios saying to them: “It’s very unfair that independent movies are not being shown on television. This is blacklisting and we wanna meet with you.” We were ignored, but now we’re down in Washington and suddenly they ask to meet with us. So, you know, we have to be fighting against those guys, make a difference. It’s like Don Quixote to some extent. I agree with you, it’s probably hopeless, but it’s fight or die in my opinion. Most of the independent movie people are business men – in most cases it’s white Jewish business men, at least in the US – and they don’t want to fight. They want to live off the crumbs that fall from the table of Rupert Murdoch, and they’re worried that if we fight maybe they won’t get those crumbs anymore. And I’m saying those crumbs are not good enough and we need to fight, and there are lots of young people around the world who are very disappointed that they don’t get to see more of a diversity of art, and that they are governed by the art that is selected by Exxon Oil for public television, or the art that is selected by very corporate museums in New York. And they want to support independent art not just with the movies, but theater, paintings, even tooth paste, you know… Independent art and commerce have really been strangled during the Clinton years.

Nicola Bozzi: One last question. This year, which movies did you think it would be nice to remake Troma-style?

VR: Do you watch movies like that? Like, I could’ve done better? With a message…

LK: Most of mainstream movies I could’ve done better. As I mentioned, I just saw The Bounty Hunter. What a shit movie, what a shit script! They must have had 30 phone calls in that movie. And when you have a phone call in a script it’s just lazy writing… It’s lazy, it’s just stupid. I just had to see it last week, so that’s why it’s on my mind, and it’s just awful, it’s just so bad in every way. I don’t really look at mainstream movies to say how could I make them. Although I would like to do… You know Step Up? Those movies? Those Disney movies with teenagers dancing, and they’re trying to be really cool, they’re trying to have the right teenage clothing, but they fail, it’s total homogenized baby food. I would like to do one of those movies but with big fat people, only. I’d like to have the whole musical with big fat people dancing around, trying to be romantic and really cool, wearing those rapper hats over here, you know, the pants down to here, I would love that… But that’s the only time I ever thought about it, you know. I really don’t think about it. I did get interviewed by the LA Times about the Oscars, and you can go to that blog. I gave my opinion… It was a good interview actually, they gave very good questions, the guy was really impressive, ‘cause his questions were smart. You know, he was asking people like me how could you improve the Oscars, and who should be getting lifetime achievement awards, who doesn’t get it…

VR: And you said… I actually haven’t read that before, but a few days after I wrote a column for a paper about the Oscars – and how shameful it is that Kirk Douglas got the 50 Year Achievement in Cinema Oscar as a consolation prize – and two days later I read your interview saying basically the same thing. You mentioned Charlie Chaplin never got an Oscar…

LK: And when he was 83 years old they gave him a little award… Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro together gave the Lifetime Achievement award they presenteed to Elia Kazan, who is the devil. He’s Satan, he made names, he blacklisted people, he went forward voluntarily to ruin people’s careers in the 50s. And I don’t know why Scorsese or De Niro went in front of the billions of people that watch the Oscars to present the Lifetime Achievement… I don’t understand that, I think I mentioned that… They censored me a little bit in the LA Times piece, they did, but most of it was there. I said something about Polanski, I was saying that Observe and Report should get the Academy Award and I made some remark about the fact – I don’t know if you’ve seen it…

VR: It was marketed as a stupid comedy…

LK: Right, but it was really good. It was very dark, check it out. It was great. It had date rape in it. And I said: of course, a movie that has date rape is never gonna get the Oscar, unless it’s made by the pedophiliac Quaalud man named Roman Polanski. And they cut that out, and a couple of other remarks, but still they put in most of the ideas, so I thought that was pretty nice.

VR: Roger Corman got the Lifetime Achievement…

LK: Yes, he did with 500 people. He should have been by himself! But at least it’s a step, it’s like the health plan, it’s a small step…

VR: But he was considered a serious filmmaker, then at one point he became sort of a joke, making cheap movies…

LK: But he ddn’t direct, that’s the problem!

VR: Yeah, as a producer. And now they honor him with a Lifetime Achievement and he’s supposed to be a serious guy. Are you sometimes wondering… you’re well educated, you’re an extremely smart man, I look at what you’re saying and it’s somebody that’s educated. Do you sometimes feel bad that you’re not as appreciated?

LK: Yeah, I feel very bitter about it, absolutely.

VR: Comcast won’t meet with you because you’re making poop movies…

LK: Well, Comcast won’t meet with any of our members, so… They definitely won’t meet with me because of Troma, for sure. The only reason they’re meeting with me is that I’m the chairman of this trade association which is fucking them up, and they called the meeting to try to flatter us, maybe… But no, I’m extremely bitter, of course. It’s ridiculous…

VR: People laugh at you, “What is Troma?”
LK: Yeah, they don’t even know who we are, they haven’t heard of us… I ran into somebody recently, some big shot too, big shot. Never heard of Troma, never heard of Toxic Avenger… There’s four Toxic Avenger movies, a cartoon show, there were 200 companies making merchandise, there’s a Broadway musical – it’s in New York and Toronto… How can they not hear of Toxic Avenger? And Ralph Nader used Toxic Avenger in his campaign, the New York Times puts it in their editorials… And this was some kind of like major guy, he was like some big executive… So, that’s where we are. And the reality is we kind of don’t exist, you know, we’re in an alternate universe… And it’s great, I’m really happy that you’re so enthusiastic and so knowledgeable about it. It’s really heartening, you know. And the fact that this museum is doing the retrospective, it’s great. Makes me feel good.

VR: This is the compensation you get for being shunned out of Hollywood.

LK: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I’ve seen very successful movies and their directors that now are totally forgotten. If you look at 1983, when Toxic Avenger was premiered… Toxie is kind of a star, the Toxic Avenger is kind of famous… He’s probably much more famous than many of the movie stars who started in 1983. How many are still around? How many directors who may have had a big success in 1983, how many are still making movies today? Probably zero, you know. Who started in that year?

VR: Most of the big shots altogether haven’t made half the number of movies you have.

LK: Well, they also don’t last. It’s not their fault, they don’t keep going, it’s not like in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, you know… Those guys had very long careers, now the people making the decisions are agents and lawyers and accountants, they’re not movie moguls. Harvey Weinstein is the last of the movie moguls, he’s a real studio… he loves movies.

VR: Do you like him?

LK: I like him, but I mean I don’t know him well. I don’t wanna work for him, he’s a monster… but Louis B. Mayer was a monster, and Howard Hawks was a monster. He beat up his women, you know, but he was a genius…. It’s the other way around in my family, women beat me up. But, you know, Weinstein loves movies, it’s no question that he loves cinema.

NB: Is there any particular movie that you always kind of wanted to make and you didn’t make because of budget reasons?

LK: That’s a good question. Yes, I would love to make a really good musical. You know, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead has some singing and dancing, because it was my life-long dream, but i would love to make a classic. I’d like to make Pal Joey, which is a Rodgers and Hart musical. I would like to do a good job with it, because it’s really dark, it’s a really modern idea. I think it would be really interesting, and the music is just spectacular. It’s by Richard Rodgers, and the lyrics are so brilliant… And I think it would work today, but it would be expensive and the estate of Richard Rodgers would never permit it. I mean, I don’t care about it, I guess if I had a dream I would do that, and I think I would make it more explicit too, because it’s all about sex and it’s dark…

VR: Like you did with Tromeo and Juliet?

LK: Yes… Well, I would keep it more true to the art form. (vede un uccello?) Look who’s coming to see you… That could be the spirit of your grandmothers! I was in Guatemala last week. We stayed in a very remote area, but it was a resort – I didn’t know it, my wife booked it – which apparently was owned by Francis Ford Coppola. And they only had like twenty rooms, but they were on the lake, they were in the jungle, and monkeys and all these things, and you eat there because there’s no reastaurant, it’s inthe wilderness. We were having dinner, and in the middle of the roof suddenly an owl came in and perched up there. And the Guatemala waiters were like “Oh, what’s this, what’s this” And they asked me, because I look old “What does that mean, what does that mean”. They thought maybe it was the sign that someone would die, or maybe it was the visiting spirit of somebody who’s dead. But they were asking me for the wisdom, I didn’t know… But it was fun, it was interesting.

Thanks so much to Lloyd Kaufman for participating in the interview, and to Vuk Radic for sharing it!