Toxie review (Part 2).

And/or "Latest Acquisitions", two, and/or "Bargain Bin Bounty", four.

Toxie part 1.


The Toxic Avenger
21st Anniversary Golden Edition. 

So, as far as remembrance of the movie, I covered it pretty thoroughly last time.

Now, to the DVD features.

The film is in widescreen for the first time.
(On DVD; apparently there was a Laserdic in the 90's).

Commentary by Lloyd Kaufman, and this imaginary super-fan called "Lenny", who...I'm not sure if he's supposed to be a character from a movie I haven't seen yet, or what....
But...if you let it go, and go with it, it still has some cool information.

There's an intro by Kaufman that's just goddamned silly.

Second disk has all the juicy bits.
My favorites, were the cast interviews, and the trailers for all 4 flicks.

I have no intention of getting 2-3 but I like having the trailers for them as little time capsules to get nostalgic over.
Like having the trailer for 5 (along with the other 4) on Rocky 1 in the Rocky set.
(Neat little bit of trivia, the drunk that Rocky drags inside in Rocky 1 is Lloyd Kaufman).

Cast interviews have Slug, Toxie, Toxie's Mom, and Cigar-Face, and what they're all doing now.
Absent is Mark Torgl (Melvin), but they talk to him in "Citizen Toxie", so it's all good.

And then there's the one with Michael Herz that's informative at first, but then descends into silliness.

I..personally had no use for the fanfilm submissions, and "Toxic Avenger: The Musikill".
Meh.

Included also, is the into/outro for the laserdisc edition, that's as silly as the DVD intro.

Now, that little slogan "the best movies, and the best interactivity", is no bullshit, but I'll get more into that on "Citizen Toxie".

Both of these are region free, another plus, and another thing to love TROMA for.

Nice little set, "Citizen Toxie", has way more, but that's because they didn't think to do any "making of", stuff back when they did this flick.

The star of the show is the film itself here.
Which, is fine by me.


Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
2 disc collector's edition.

Okay, last time, I really didn't talk about the film enough.

So, the plot is, Toxie gets warped into a parallel universe, and switches places with his evil opposite, The Noxious Offender (Noxie), and hijinks ensue.
Sgt. Kabukiman (good and evil) adds to the festivities.

Gore and almost-porn are cranked to their highest levels as of 2000.
Holds up today.

Along the way, Columbine, the dragging death of James Byrd, plastic surgery, abortion, religion, the beef industry, The Phantom Menace, and the Oscars are satirized.

Guest stars include, Stan Lee (voice only), Ron Jeremy, James Gunn (director of Super), Eli Roth, Lemmy, Kevin Eastman, Julie Strain, Hank The Angry Drunken Dwarf, Corey Feldman (credited as "Kinky Finkelstein"), Mitch Cohen (the original Toxie, as another character), Mark Torgl (the original Melvin, as Evil Melvin), Dan Snow (Cigar-Face, as another character...who acts just like Cigar-Face), Lisa Gaye (Malfaire from Toxie 2-3, as another character), Bill Weeden (bad guy from Sgt. Kabukiman, as another character), the Sklar Brothers, and Lloyd Kaufman.

Beautiful film.
Quite possibly my favorite TROMA film of all time.
This was the instant mothafuckin' antidote to all the "Miserable Movies", and the latest "The Worst Of The Worst", and I think I can easily qualify this for another "Movie That Made Me High".

And, this might just be my favorite DVD of all time.

Here we get into the guts of it, TROMA makes excellent fucking DVDs.
Big studios, it takes an act of fucking congress to get all the features we want on an old title.
And we get double-dipped with a vanilla-edition for 10-20 years while we beg our guts out for it.

TROMA, they just have a guy at a PC, and they cram it full of everything you want.
There's no fucking maze of political/economic bullshit to go through.

And did I mention they're region-free?
Fuck yeah.
Region codes, more evil corporate bullshit that needs to be abandoned.
I always feel like nerds are absolute traitors for inventing that shit for them.

All right, so this one, disc 1, we've got 3 separate commentaries, deleted scenes (with optional commentary), outtakes, cast interviews, trailer, and a couple Easter eggs.

The menus are 3-D animated, and all fancy-shmancy, but easy to skip, as is the introduction.
Very easy navigation, no locking you in to commercials like fucking Hollywood DVDs.

Easter eggs are easy to find, just mash every arrow direction on every item.
Guaranteed at least one per page.

Pressing "menu", or "play", gets you right to the fucking movie without ANY bullshit if you don't want.
That they can be designed this way proves every suspicion we've all had that the shittily programmed ones are out of deliberate contempt, rather than incompetence.
They have to WORK at making DVD menus miserable.

Disc 2, the main attraction is "Apocalypse Soon", the making of, from pre-production to post-production, to premieres, and this by itself might be right up there with my favorite documentaries.

Up there with "Crumb", possibly better, up there with "Never Sleep Again", blows away pseudo-doc shit like "Brutal Massacre", and "For Your Consideration", and absolutely cremates "The Idiots", "Kids", and "Gummo".

Did I mention this DVD was the antidote to a lot of bad juju?

And it's all real (the doc).
Nothing staged, it's just TROMA sets are chaotic, and everyone involved is nuts.

The aforementioned Mark Torgl interview is in this.

This one is loaded with Easter eggs.
I can't even remember it all.
There's a nice metal video in there....
Oddly, there's an interview with Ron Jeremy that's exactly duplicated as an Easter egg in Disc 1.
That's the only "glitch", I can cite.

So, yeah, I guess that's all the tech stuff....

As an overall product, it's an absolute fucking dream come true.

I love the ever-living shit out of TROMA, and this reminded me of that.
It reminded me of everything I hate about "the system", and it strengthened everything I believe in.
Warmed the cockles of my heart in ways nothing from the mainstream ever has.

I echo the sentiments of one of the fans on Toxie 1 Disc 2, after he saw Toxie 1 as a kid, he said to himself "fuck normal movies, I just want to watch THIS...forever...just THIS".

I am SO fucking glad TROMA exists.

Now...I'm totally heroin craving all their other good ones.
"The First Turn On", "Class Of Nuke 'Em High", "Tromeo And Juliet", "Terror Firmer", "Poultrygeist", and...maybe "Redneck Zombies".

So, what the hell, let's plug them.

Here's TROMA.
Link.

Here's Lloyd's 'Roids (his ranty blog).
Link.

Here's the TROMA Youtube channel.
Link.

Here's Lloyd on AVGN.
Link.

Here's Lloyd being interviewed by James Rolfe (the AVGN).
Link.

Recap stuff-

• Happy belated 27th anniversary, The Toxic Avenger!
• Happy 24th anniversary, Toxic Avenger Part II! 
• Happy 23rd anniversary, Toxic Avenger Part III 

Coming up: November 2nd is the 12th anniversary of "Citizen Toxie".


And...that's the end.
Until "The Toxic Twins", comes out.