devil-worshipping international conglomerates: eat your heart out!
14 April 2003
Tonight LLoyd Kaufman got his lifetime achievement award. Afterwards there was a presentation of 'Apocalypse Soon' which I expected to be very raunchy (like the extras on Troma's War DVD), but turned out to be incredibly educational and entertaining as well. 135 minutes of perseverence by Kaufman, cut from a gruesome production in which eleven people got sacked and the cameraman hired back again (then trashed), an M16 didn't work, a stuntman had to be paid for jumping from a stunning 3 feet high onto two-feet-high cushion, actresses suddenly don't want to take their shirts off (you can't do that to a Troma movie) and lots of other mind-boggling problems. If this is a fake story about a troubled production merely to make the featured movie sell, then i don't know what's real anymore.

If you don't consider the quality of the featured movie, then I'd have to say 'Apocalypse Soon' is better than 'Hearts of Darkness' in which case i have to rate it 10/10 and i will. Just a pity they don't show how Kaufman fires all those crew. I still hope the Hollywood companies (read: the devil-worshipping international conglomerates) see this and realize they've been beaten once and for all by Troma. The editing is ingenious, as is the camera-work. Even Michael Herz's (Joe Fleishaker?) corpulence surpasses Marlon Brando's! It's hard to admit, but I don't think a 135 min docu about The Lord Of The Rings would be THIS interesting.

These 135 minutes are simply worth it and confirmed that Kaufman (also see Terror Firmer) indeed has achieved a lot. BTW, the lifetime achievement award formerly went to Paul Verhoeven (Soldaat van Oranje, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct) and Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator, Society, Beyond Re-Animator) and Dario Argento (Phenomena, Suspiria, Profondo Rosso).
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