Texas became the unlikely location for a reunion of two key figures in the history of New Jersey film as Kevin Smith and Troma Entertainment president Lloyd Kaufman crossed paths Thursday at the El Paso Film Festival.
MovieMaker was chatting away with Kaufman at an El Paso film production hub, the Rio Grande Outpost, when Smith, who had just finished recording a podcast upstairs, popped in to praise Kaufman.
The conversation he walked in on was a wide-ranging one: In addition to discussing his Troma cult classics, like The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ‘Em High and Tromeo and Juliet, Kaufman jumped from subjects like giving James Gunn his first job, to growing up with Oliver Stone, to the time Hitler’s favorite filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, came to stay with Kaufman’s Jewish family. (He remembers that she didn’t seem to have a problem with his family being Jewish, but that she did have “strong B.O.”)
Then Smith slid into the room to say hi to one of his heroes, telling the New York-born Kaufman how much it meant to him that he shot 1984’s The Toxic Avenger in New Jersey. The film takes place in fictional Tromaville, New Jersey, and shot in many New Jersey locales.
“I’ll never forget being a kid and watching the Eyewitness News and watching them talk about a movie studio that was like, right across the river — the first superhero from New Jersey,” Smith recalled.
The Toxic Avenger tells the inspiring story of a gym mop boy who is transformed into a powerful hero after being dunked, in a tutu, in a barrel of toxic waste.
“You were the first independent filmmaker I’d ever heard about,” Smith said. “And it lodged in my head. It was a point of f—ing pride: ‘Oh, they’re not doing this out of the Hollywood. They chose New Jersey for Toxic Avenger.’ All of that meant something — you helped people feel seen in our part of the world, and particularly, like, captured my imagination at a young age. I was flag-waving early on.”
He added: “I only get to do my s— because you did yours.”
A new Toxic Avenger is out now with Peter Dinklage, but that may not be the most powerful sign of Troma’s influence on our modern pop culture: Gunn’s Superman was a summer blockbuster, and he’s the co-head of DC Films. But he got his start writing on Tromeo and Juliet after working as Kaufman’s assistant in the ’90s.
Also, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone got their first feature film credit for Tromeo’s Cannibal: The Musical. Now South Park is more relevant than other, gathering a barrage of headlines every week for its mockery of the second Trump Administration.
Lloyd Kaufman Receives the El Paso Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Smith later repeated his praise for Kaufman onstage in El Paso’s vast, gorgeous Plaza Theater, as the El Paso Film Festival presented Kaufman with its first lifetime achievement award before a special showing of the original Toxic Avenger.
Smith tried to queue him up to take credit for giving early breaks to Gunn and others, but Kaufman demurred. Instead, when asked about his past collaborators, Kaufman quipped: “Ron Jeremy.”
Kaufman has made a career out of pushing limits and not worrying about who’s offended – The Toxic Avenger features a child being deliberately run over, egregious cheesecake, and many slurs — and he still speaks his mind.
When he started riffing on Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, Smith interjected: “Are we still f—ing talking about that? Let’s keep it to the here and now,” to audience laughter.
Smith also brought the discussion around to Tower Productions, one of the teams that works out of the Rio Grande Outpost, to praise DIY filmmakers everywhere.
“It’s kind of like what I found here with the Tower Productions kids, man — a bunch of folks came together as a film collective, and they’re doing it. They’re not waiting for f—ing permission, man. I’ve thought about Troma for my entire fucking career, because Lloyd and Troma laid the track upon which my train has run for f—ing many years,” Smith told the El Paso audience.
He continued: “Some of the first reviews about Clerks referenced, believe it or not, The Toxic Avenger, because the two movies were micro budgeted. And that was legitimacy to somebody like me, and still is to this day.”
The El Paso Film Festival, one of MovieMaker‘s 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee and 25 Coolest Film Festvivals, continues through Saturday.
Main image: Lloyd Kaufman and Kevin Smith at the Rio Grande Outpost. MovieMaker.