The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 131

DECEMBER 3. 1989 LIFESTYLE THE RECORD L-3 IB-MODES: Troma Inc. is Hollywood on the Hudson After 15 years of scrambling, Troma has entered the mainstream and earned critical respectability, especially for its current "The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie." back and forth, both of us getting angry. "I didn't like the premise of a policeman playing Kabukiman, but they Troma must have had their reason. I didn't let my feelings be known.

I'm a little sensitive about police work. It's a serious business." Overall, however, Falco thought that Troma's "Kabukiman" "was probably the smoothest production I've worked on." Kaufman, who looks like a young Mel Brooks, is crammed into a crowded office with Herz and reams of Troma memorabilia, such as posters for the movies "Monster in the Closet" coming and "Blood Hook" was never like this you can't worm your way "The biggest phenomenon happening now is America and Japan. The two cultures are clashing and merging. It's really the story of the decade," said Kaufman, who majored in Asian studies at Yale. Kaufman sees the Japanese as adventurous and imaginative and plans to return to Tokyo, where Troma filmed some scenes of "The Toxic Avenger Part II." Troma has a half dozen projects in the works, including a western and an updated version of "The Prince and the Pauper." As for "The Toxic Avenger," which Kaufman describes as "Troma's Gone With the there will be a Part IV: "Mr.

Toxie Goes to Washington." From Page L-l topical issues, from amateur pro-! duction values to professional sensibilities. Though always profitable, they were often panned as adoles- cent home movies. But now after 15 years of scrambling, Troma has entered the mainstream and earned critical respectability, es- pecially for its current "The Toxic Avenger Part lit The Last Temp-; tation of Toxie." This year alone, there have been 15th-anniversary retrospective Tromanights" and "Tromathons" staged at film fes-! tivals in London, Munich, and Rome. Kaufman and his partner, Michael Herz, are a couple of savvy, successful, swing-by-the-heels guys who met 20 years ago as stu-; dents at Yale. Troma owns its own production offices in a four-story former bakery in Hell's Kitchen, on Manhattan's West Side, and maintains other facilities in Jersey City.

The company now boasts a catalog of 90 films, many of them in videocassette release. Joseph Friedman, executive director of the New Jersey film commission, compares the Troma Team's two gleeful achlockmeis-ters to the late Joseph Levine, the film promoter known in the industry as "Mr. Exploitation" who brought the Japanese "Godzilla" monster-movie craze to the United States in the 1950s. "I'd say Troma is probably the number-one company as far as working in the state," said Fried- I I hattan, Brooklyn, and Hoboken, the Troma Team gave Falco a cameo appearance as a truck driver who narrowly misses running down a clown on a tricycle. The clown is actually Kabukiman, a police detective (played by Fort Lee actor Rick Gianasi) who turns into a 16th-century Japanese actor with superhuman powers.

As Falco later described the scene: "I jump out of the truck and say, 'Oh, geez, what I'm making hand motions the whole bit and I'm looking to see where the clown went. "A few seconds later a kid, played by James Van Vladricken, comes running up to me with a lollipop in his hand and says, 'What did you do to my "I tell him, 'It wasn't me, kid. It was some I'm sitting on the truck's bumper looking disgusted. That's the last thing I want after running over a tricycle and almost hitting some clown is a kid giving me a hard time. 'Let me see your I say to the kid.

'Let me see your he says to me. And it goes man. "We're happy that they come over to New Jersey. They get cooperation and can make things a little more cheaply here. "When the commission was formed 10 years ago, what we wanted to do was attract low-budget film producers.

Those were the people who needed our help. So we made an effort to attract Troma. They are creative and clever." At $4 million, "Kabukiman" is Troma's most expensive movie to date. An entire kabuki theater was constructed at Stevens Institute in Hoboken. The movie is being partially underwritten by the Japanese company Gaga Communications Inc.

and will have its world premiere next spring at the Cannes Film Festival, according to Kaufman. Though Troma distributes a redubbed Kung Fu movie, "Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters," Kaufman promises that 'Kabukiman' is not a martial arts movie. It's totally different." In "Kabukiman," which finished filming last month in Man (f Police Lt. Tony Falco in "Kabukiman." MAGAZINES Sustain the spirit by giving periodically New York. $24.50.

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Finally, if you're puzzled by the notion of national magazines emanating from Red Oak, Iowa, and Boulder, these addresses represent so-called fulfillment houses that specialize in servicing subscriptions. The monthlies American Demographics. $58. P.O. Box 50246, Boulder, Colo.

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$12. P.O. Box 52469, Boulder, Colo. 80321-2469. Esquire.

$7.97. P.O. Box 11361, Des Moines, Iowa 50347-1361. Fame. $12.

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