Scott Holleran: Freelance writer, Journalists, Ayn Rand fan

Martin Lindeskog (Gothenburg, Sweden) interviews freelance writer, journalist, and Ayn Rand fan, Scott Holleran (California). Focusing mainly on movies and culture.

To listen, download, or podcast this interview now: CLICK HERE

Scott’s blog: ScottHolleran.com
(Includes lots of Scott Holleran’s interviews, articles, film and book reviews.)

Topics discussed or touched on during this interview  include …

• Being production assistant for the Leonard Peikoff radio show
• Has been a journalist for 18 years (including with Los Angeles Times, and Philadelphia Enquirer)
• Reluctantly set up his website and blog about a year ago – persuaded by friends.
• About the Oscars (a “painful experience”) – Are they indicative of today’s culture? Partially. “Depraved pictures [are] being celebrated, given Awards”.
• Slum Dog Millionaire – Academy Awards, Best Picture 2009 (didn’t like it personally, but “people see movies very differently”)
• Gran Torino (“got shafted by the Oscars this year”) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood – very compelling, worth seeing. Read Scott’s review here (halfway down the page).  imdb link.
  

  "Worth seeing"

• Documentary, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life – includes interesting details about Ayn Rand’s years in Hollywood. Read Scott Holleran’s interview with Michael Paxton who wrote and directed this Oscar nominated documentary. Purchase @ Amazon.
• Atlas Shrugged movie.
  Click here for news updates. Click here to read Scott Holleran’s 2008 interview with practicing Catholic, Michael Burns of Lionsgate, who bought the movie rights. Michael Burns says of the novel’s railroad executive, Dagny Taggart, she is “… probably one of the greatest heroines of literature.”

  Excerpt from that interview:

  Scott Holleran: Is it true you attended Ayn Rand’s memorial service when she died in 1982?

  Michael Burns: It was the winter of 1982 and I had just started work for Merrill Lynch, beginning my Wall Street career and I went to her wake, which was incredibly well attended. I just went because I had read about her [death] in the New York Times and it was sort of open and, you know, you want your funeral or your wake to take place on a really dreary day and it was—it was almost like a movie set. There were people from all walks of life and I would guess the majority didn’t agree with many of the things that she stood for – yet they were there paying homage to her mind and her strong belief in something. I went by myself. I was 22 years old.

  

  Angelina Jolie wants to play "the greatest heroine of literature" - Dagny Taggart, in Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand)

• Thumbs up: Frost/Nixon, Milk
• Favorite picture for 2008: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (“… a splendid, larger-than-life, piece of grand entertainment”)
• Chocolat, by Swedish Director Lasse Hallström
  Interviewed several times: Casanova, An Unfinished Life. The Hoax
  

  Lasse Hallström, Swedish Director: "My favorite living motion picture director" ... Chocolat, The Hoax, Casanova, and much more.

• Admiration for Earl Hamner Jr, creator of The Waltons TV show (210 episodes), creator of Falcon Crest (134 episodes), writer of 8 episodes of The Twilight Zone, etc. Check his iMDb listing. Read Scott’s interview here.
• How most of Scott’s favorite movies are the old “Classics”.
• Currently enrolled in the Objectivist Academic Center, first year writing class
• And lots more!

Sponsors for this show:

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To listen, download, or podcast this interview now: CLICK HERE

SOLID VOX™ - “Discover the power of ideas!” (A PRODOS project)

Guest: Edward Cline
Novelist, author of the acclaimed Sparrowhawk series.

Ed Cline, author of the Sparrowhawk adventure novels talks about his work and ideas.

Topics covered include …

What inspired Ed Cline to become a novelist? About his first professional novel, Whisper the Guns. The unpublished novel starring the hero from Whisper the Guns, Merritt Fury. The use of “British English.”

“Sparrowhawk?? for the blind … why isn’t Ed allowed to hear it? The historical aspects of “Sparrowhawk??: how far did Ed Cline go to gather his background information for the novel? How did gaps in the historical record help in the writing of the story? Interesting insights into Eighteenth Century names. What did the word “freak?? mean in the 14th/15th centuries?

The readership of “Sparrowhawk.?? About the sixth and final book in the series, which is next to be published.

Sales figures. How would Edward Cline like (and not like) to see his series produced for the movies or television?

Ed Cline’s website: EdwardCline.com

Book 1: Jack Frake Book 2: Hugh Kenrick

Book 3: Caxton Book 4: Empire

Book 5: Revolution Book 6: War

Listen, podcast, or download this interview

Listen, download, or podcast this mp3 file

Some of the cartoons discussed during this interview:

A Dream Becomes a Nightmare

The development of Core Curriculum ….

This sketch was done by Allen Forkum.

This further development was done by John Cox.

Allen Forkum says:

“… you can see some subtle differences (e.g., John experimented with larger type on the apple). The biggest difference is that John came up with the excellent idea of integrating the word “hate” into a holes of the safety razorblade, as opposed to my original idea, which was merely a label.”

And here’s the final drawing:

Core Curriculum

Down from the Mountain
(Showing Dan Rather being challenged by the blogosphere.)

And here is the Egoist himself – Martin Lindeskog – at Blue Chip Cafe – just as he’s preparing to speak with Allen Forkum. See the framed picture of a Cox and Forkum cartoon in the shelf above him?

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