The Cynthia Manion Show

Sabrina Mendoza: She Found The Toxic Avenger as a Kid. Now She Edits Lloyd Kaufman's First Noir.

Connect with Sabrina Mendoza: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/felonybologna/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sabrina.u.mendoza/ Short film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKZoAzggS0 Troma Entertainment: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tromateam/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TromaEntertainment Sabrina Mendoza found Troma the way a lot of kids find a lifelong calling. Late at night, on the internet, in the early days of Netflix streaming. Under the horror section she saw Cannibal the Musical and The Toxic Avenger, and after she watched Toxie she knew. Every movie should be made like this. Years later, she walked up to Lloyd Kaufman at Comic-Con, told him he was her inspiration, and was promptly asked to show him her work. She was too nervous. He handed her his card. She never followed up. It took a pandemic, a Brandon Bassam Q&A, a chance meeting with Garrett Sullivan over matching cigarette cases, and a slow, patient climb from showing up unpaid at the Troma office to becoming the editor and assistant director on Lloyd's first film noir, The Power of Positive Murder. In this episode of The Cynthia Manion Show, Sabrina takes Cynthia inside all of it. Two years of editing in the coldest room at Troma. The summer of 2024 shooting upstate in Port Jervis. The moment Lloyd sat her down and asked her to make this baby with him. Running Tromadance and the 3,900 submissions that came through this year. Tromathon at the Mahoning Drive-In. Her own short films Coast to Coast AM, Are You Winning Son?, and Vlog 37 Ecuador. And the Edgar Allan Poe anthology Lloyd has now blessed her to direct. When Cynthia asked what she would say to the artist sitting at home tonight with a camera, an idea, and no permission, her answer was instant: "Shoot something right now. I dare you. I dare you. Make a five minute short right now. I'll even give you a prompt. Give me a movie about taking out the garbage. Do something with that." Subscribe to The Cynthia Manion Show: https://cynthiamanion.com/ #cynthiamanionshow #SabrinaMendoza #Troma #LloydKaufman #IndieFilm #DIYFilmmaking #Tromadance #IndependentCinema #ThePowerOfPositiveMurder

Lloyd Kaufman: 53 Years of Troma, The Toxic Avenger, and Your Favorite Director's Favorite Director

Connect with Lloyd below! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unclelloydkaufman/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tromateam/ Troma Now (streaming): https://watch.troma.com/ Troma Direct (store): https://tromadirect.com/ Before James Gunn, before Trey Parker and Matt Stone, before Samuel L. Jackson's first movie, before Marisa Tomei's first movie and Vincent D'Onofrio's first movie, there was Lloyd Kaufman. Lloyd went to Yale to study Chinese. He walked into a dorm room with a black-and-white portable TV, met a film fanatic named Michael Hertz, and a few years later the two of them founded Troma Entertainment. Fifty-three years on, Troma is the longest-running independent movie studio in history. Lloyd and Michael have each been married to the same wife the entire time. In this episode of The Cynthia Manion Show, Lloyd walks through the moment at the Yale Film Society when a Jack Benny / Ernst Lubitsch film (To Be or Not to Be) made him decide to give what he had to the world. He talks about the early-career run that included Rocky in Philadelphia and Saturday Night Fever in New York, the three mentors who shaped Troma (John Avildsen, Stan Lee, and Roger Corman), and the 1984 shoot of The Toxic Avenger in Hell's Kitchen where Cynthia was chased down a hospital corridor by Toxie alongside very uncooperative spray-painted pet shop rats. Four decades later, the two of them hugged in person for the first time at Creature Feature in Gettysburg. We also get into the new $50 million Toxic Avenger with Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon, his daughter Charlotte Kaufman's Oscar-nominated documentary The Alabama Solution on HBO, Lily Hayes Kaufman's Occupy Cannes (10 years in the making, executive produced by Roger Corman), and Troma Dance, the 28-year-old festival inspired by Trey Parker that runs September 4-6 in New York City with free entry, free admission, and no VIP policy. "I'm most proud that I have the same partner for more than 50 years and also the same wife too. That's a big deal." Subscribe to The Cynthia Manion Show: https://cynthiamanion.com/ #cynthiamanionshow #lloydkaufman #troma #toxicavenger #independentfilm #jamesgunn #treyparker #cultclassic

Phylis Eagle-Oldson: She Walked Into Cable in 1971. Now Her Students Are on the News Every Night.

Connect with Phylis Eagle-Oldson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phylis-eagle-oldson-5868914/ Emma L. Bowen Foundation: https://www.emmabowenfoundation.org/ Phylis Eagle-Oldson walked into the cable industry in 1971 at age 22. She did not know what cable was. She answered a Sunday ad in the Washington Post, met Marty Malarkey, the first president of the National Cable Television Association, and was hired on the spot. That moment opened a 35-year career across the entire arc of modern American media. She spent nineteen years at NCTA, then became President and CEO of the Emma L. Bowen Foundation in 1999. In sixteen years she doubled corporate partners, drove a 400% increase in paid internship opportunities, and raised more than $6 million in grants. Nearly 80% of her fellows are now working in the industry. She watches ABC News most nights because four of her Bowen kids are on it almost every night. In this episode of The Cynthia Manion Show, Phylis takes Cynthia inside the boardroom when Ted Turner pitched CNN, the renovation she ran floor by floor at NCTA, the cable entrepreneur Bill Bresnan and the fruit basket he sent to her father's hotel room in Sault Ste. Marie, the woman behind the Foundation, and what is still left to do. When asked what she wants her legacy to be, her answer was simple: "I have a box of every single note any one of my Emma Bowen students sent me, all in alphabetical order. That's my legacy right there. You talk about you're having a bad day. All you have to do is open that box and you're in good shape." Subscribe to The Cynthia Manion Show: https://cynthiamanion.com/ #cynthiamanionshow #PhylisEagleOldson #EmmaBowenFoundation #MediaDiversity #CableIndustry #Mentorship #Leadership #Legacy

Rear Admiral (Ret.) Paul Becker: Leadership Is a Process, Not a Title (And Here's What That Really Means)

Connect with Paul: Website: https://TheBeckerT3Group.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul83becker Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul83becker X: https://x.com/BeckerT3Group Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebeckert3group/ Rear Admiral Paul Becker spent 33 years in the US Navy leading people through peace, crisis, and combat. Then he was diagnosed with Stage IV bone marrow cancer and applied the same framework he used to lead teams through war to survive it. In this episode of The Cynthia Manion Show, Paul shares what three decades of notebooks distilled into three words: Teamwork, Tone, and Tenacity. The Naval Intelligence Community honored that framework in 2016 by naming a new leadership award in his honor. He also shares the Afghanistan moment when he had to tell fire-breathing naval aviators they could not strike their target because there were families in the pass, the combat deployment he almost missed because he failed his pre-deployment evaluation, and why he believes leadership is not a title but a process. "It is a process of working with others to influence them to achieve a positive common goal. Anyone can manage. Leaders change things."

Brian Shoop: He found acting on a bank statement. Then he ended up on a Scorsese set.

Connect with Brian: Website: https://www.brianshoop.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brian.shoop.90 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brian.shoop.90 IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0794865/ Brian Shoop did not find acting in a classroom or on a childhood stage. He found it in a bank statement. A notice tucked inside his monthly statement mentioned auditions for a play at the Broken Arrow Community Playhouse. He went. He got cast as the lead. And something that had been dormant in him his whole life suddenly sprang to life. He was already in his 30s, with two boys to raise and a family counting on him in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So the dream waited. He kept working, kept providing, snuck off for the occasional commercial when he could, and put acting on hold until his sons left for college. He was 47 when he finally went all in. And his first major film role was in The Rookie, the story of the oldest rookie in professional baseball. In this episode of The Cynthia Manion Show, Brian shares the full story behind a career that now spans over 50 credits, including a principal role in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, where he worked alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Brendan Fraser on a set so quiet between takes you could hear Scorsese giving his notes in a whisper. He talks about his recurring role in Taylor Sheridan's Tulsa King, accidentally calling Adam Scott by his last name on the Severance set, what Kelsey Grammer is like between takes on Jesus Revolution, and what Glenn Morshower's Extra Mile Workshop gave him that no amount of credits ever could: the belief that he belonged in the room. He is 75 years old, just finished four auditions across four cities, and has no intention of stopping. His parting words say everything: "Don't worry about age. That's just a number. And the experience I thought was going to be a huge deficit? It hasn't been."