You keep a tight group around you at Troma, like John Waters’ Dreamlanders, do you watch each other?
No, I didn’t care for Waters’ movies, quite frankly. I tried to watch Pink Flamingos, but I didn’t get it. I mean, he has a wonderful body of work, but it’s all bourgeois, lapdog of the rich people. It’s not my world. I much prefer Warhol, Stan Brackage, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Chaplin, Roger Corman. Yes, Corman and I were in touch from the time I was at Yale. John G. Avildsen, who I worked with on Cry Uncle. Before he made Rocky, Avildsen made a pulpy, crappy, throwaway paperback book into a wonderful, wonderful, hilarious movie. It’s worth watching.
I worked on Rocky. I worked on a bunch of Avildsen’s movies and learned a lot from him. He was a fighter. He fought for what he wanted. Never mind that he made Rocky and The Karate Kid, and his movies made billions and billions of dollars. His movies are an inspiration for young people, great role models. Rocky is one of the greatest American films of all time, and you can actually show it today. You can’t show Gone with the Wind, apparently. You can’t show a Mel Brooks movie. But Rocky you can still show. How cool.
Then there’s the movies Avildsen got kicked off of, like Serpico and Saturday Night Fever, which I also worked on, and Howard Stern’s movie. There are probably a couple billion-dollar movies that Avildsen should have directed, and would’ve been a lot better if they kept him on. But I got no complaints on Saturday Night Fever. John Badham did an equally good job, and he’s also an important influence on me.
But John Waters, no. If anything, I’m jealous. I want to have that mustache that he has. Because of COVID I’ve grown a little beard, but I wanted to have that pencil mustache to have some fun with it. But my wife said absolutely not. For 20 years, she was the New York State Film Commissioner. She created the incentive which is the reason Spider-Man shot in New York, why 12 or 15 new studios were built in New York state, and created billions of dollars in new jobs, mainly in television series. She changed the world here. Then she moved up the food chain to producing #Shakeskeare’s Shitstorm with John Brennan, who was my assistant, and Justin Martel, who was my assistant years ago.
They, and other Toma alumni, are the creators of Joe Bob Briggs’ Drive-in Theater, which is the only decent show on Shudder. Other than that, Shudder’s not worth one second of your time. But that show was great. It’s for people who love movies, and who love independent movies. Movies that didn’t necessarily get outed by The New York Times when they were made, but which, indeed, are wonderful movies. Maniac, Maniac Cop, which we distribute, Frankenhooker, Monster in the Closet. Goddammit, Monster in the Closet is a brilliant PG-13 satire about Hitchcock. It’s got some stars in it, and it’s a great film, but unfortunately nobody’s heard of it.
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