Fandor Festival Podcast

Ep. 83: William Lustig, legendary filmmaker & founder, Blue Underground, Pt. 2

During his teenage years, Lustig avidly watched a huge volume of lowdown trashy exploitation fare at numerous 42nd Street grindhouse theaters in Manhattan and also worked as a movie theater usher in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After graduating from high school, he took a few film classes at New York University. In 1980, Lustig found himself at the center of a storm of controversy when he made the grim, gory and disturbing slasher sleaze splatter landmark "Maniac," which boasts an incredibly intense performance by the legendary character actor Joe Spinell as a vicious depraved psychopath and plenty of hideously graphic and gruesome make-up effects by genre icon Tom Savini. In 1982, Lustig followed up "Maniac" with the tough, gritty and exciting New York urban revenge opus "Vigilante." In 1988, he delivered another winner with the terrific "Maniac Cop," a violent horror action flick about an undead New York police officer on a killing spree which was the first of several cinematic collaborations with fellow maverick independent filmmaker Larry Cohen. Lustig followed up with the 1989 stirring action item "Hit List" and the suspenseful serial killer thriller "Relentless," starring Judd Nelson and Robert Loggia. In 1990, Lustig made the favorite of his films, “Maniac Cop 2,” which many consider superior to the popular original. Lustig's last film as a director to date was the nifty and enjoyable 1996 fright flick "Uncle Sam." Recently Lustig produced the well-received remake of “Maniac” starring Elijah Wood, and is now producing the reboot of “Maniac Cop.” Since 1997, William Lustig went on to initially produce DVDs for Anchor Bay and now currently runs the outstanding home entertainment label Blue Underground, which restores and re-releases popular and little seen cult movies and other grindhouse horror, thriller, action, and western films. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ep 82: Mark Mills, Best Selling Author of "The Cloud Revolution".

The team sits down for a discussion with Mark Mills, as part of the Sonoma Valley Authors Festival. Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science where he co-directs the Institute on Manufacturing Science and Innovation. He is also a strategic partner with Montrose Lane, an energy-tech fund focused on software. His new book, The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020s, has risen to #1 in Amazon’s business planning and forecasting rankings. In the book, Mills presents a convincing vision of a coming era of economic prosperity fueled by today’s radical advances in technology, data, and the Cloud. He explains how digital acceleration is changing the value of the physical economy and lays out a common-sense argument for optimism in our ability to grow and innovate, drawing comparisons with the tech revolution that drove the economic expansion of the 20th century and the widespread adoption of telephony, cars, power plants, and plastics. Mills’ previous books include Digital Cathedrals: The Information Infrastructure Era, and Work In The Age Of Robots, as well as The Bottomless, co-authored with Peter Huber, about which Bill Gates said: “This is the only book I’ve ever seen that really explains energy.” Mills cofounded Digital Power Capital, which invested in emerging technologies. He has been a technology advisor for Bank of America Securities, and was a director for a preeminent engineering firm that designed power systems for global datacenters. He has testified numerous times before Congress on energy and technology matters. Early in his career, Mills worked in the White House Science Office under President Reagan and provided science and technology policy counsel to numerous private-sector firms, the Department of Energy, and U.S. research laboratories. Prior to that, Mills was an experimental physicist and development engineer in microprocessors and fiber optics, earning several patents for his work. Mills holds a degree in physics from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ep. 81: Roger Love, vocal coach extraordinaire

The team sits down with the one and only, Roger Love! Roger Love is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on voice. No other vocal coach in history has been more commercially successful in both the speaking and singing fields. Roger has vocally produced more than 150-million-unit sales worldwide and written three top-selling books. Roger coaches singers such as John Mayer and Selena Gomez, as well as speakers like Anthony Robbins, and actors including Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Zoe Saldana, Keira Knightly, and Bradley Cooper. If you would like to take advantage of Roger's generous $50 gift for his coaching services, please go to rogerlove.com/winner ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ep. 80: Nikki Erlick, journalist & travel writer, NY Times Best Selling Author

The team sits down with Nikki Erlick, as part of the Sonoma Valley Authors Festival. Nikki's book debuted #6 on the NY Times Best Seller list. Nikki Erlick is a journalist and travel writer whose work has appeared online with New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, Indagare Travel, The Huffington Post, and Vox. Erlick’s eagerly anticipated debut novel, The Measure, will be published by HarperCollins in June 2022. Equally charming and thought-provoking, The Measure explores a philosophical question – “what if everybody on earth knew exactly how long they had left to live?” – with compassion and pragmatism, examining how the implications might trickle down into every area of modern life. Of her inspiration for writing The Measure, Erlick says: “During this past year of tremendous pain and upheaval, I found myself reflecting on the ways in which we measure our own lives and success and happiness, the way we measure the value of others, and the way we measure a society as a whole. All of these thoughts poured into this story of a world that so closely resembles ours—but with one powerful, poignant twist. As someone who has always turned to literature for comfort and guidance, I am in awe of so many authors whose works have inspired such deep empathy within me, and my greatest wish is that this story might accomplish the same.” ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ep. 79: Rebecca Halpern, Director of "Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter"

The team sits down with Rebecca Halpern, Director of "Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter." Rebecca Halpern From true crime and social justice docuseries that affect real world change to epic feature documentaries rooted in history and the arts and culture, Rebecca's work evokes emotion, and enlightens and empowers audiences. LOVE, CHARLIE marks Rebecca's directorial debut. Most recently, Rebecca wrote and produced a forthcoming feature documentary with the SpringHill Company. Prior to that, she served as the Co-Executive Producer of "Helter Skelter," a six-part documentary series about Charles Manson for Epix network from Executive Producer Greg Berlanti and Director Lesley Chilcott. Rebecca earned both her Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, where she also played on the varsity women's gold team. Rebecca also sits on the Board of Directors of FACETS in Chicago, and she mentors student athletes through Northwestern University's IMAP program. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.