The MacGuffin is a weekly podcast exploring the world of film. Topics include new releases, film festivals, independent filmmakers, and pretty much anything worth talking about in the world of film. Have something you are interested in having discussed?

HOST
Spencer Fornaciari

Spencer was born and raised in New Mexico. He grew up with the many great films of the 1980’s before having his world rocked after seeing The Usual Suspects. He moved to Washington State to go to the University of Washington, and upon graduation began working in Seattle’s independent film community. Since then he has become a core team member on Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival, the communications director of IFP/Seattle, and the producer of the MacGuffin Film Podcast and Backroom Comics Podcast. Any free time he currently has is split between working on film projects and watching films.

WRITERS
Chad Eng
Chad(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

An Illinois-born transplant to Minneapolis, Chad began his infatuation with terrible films as a child watching Kung Fu Theater religiously back in the 80’s. From there, USA Network’s “Up All Night” fueled his passion for combining gratuitous nudity, awful plots, and painful acting – thank you Rhonda Shear. In recent years, Chad has hosted numerous “Bad Movie Nights” both in Minnesota and in Illinois. These potluck-driven parties have led an incredible number of people to appreciate the values of such films as “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter”, “Bloodcar”, “For Your Height Only”, “Bikini Bloodbath”, and “Executive Koala”.

Chad continues to augment his film collection, and is not opposed to writing emails and letters to directors requesting copies of films that were never published. Chad is currently pursuing an MBA in Marketing and when he has time, enjoys watching painful movie recommendations, watching roller derby, eating unhealthy food, listening to music, and playing disc golf.

Brandi Sperry
Brandi(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Brandi grew up in a house where the TV was always on, usually tuned to Turner Classic Movies. She is one of those people who worries about kids these days not appreciating black and white films. Brandi attended Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, where she began writing seriously about movies while taking film history classes. Now back in Seattle, she works in education when she’s not writing something, watching something, or rearranging her Netflix queue.

Allen Almachar
Allen(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Allen was born in the Philippines but was raised in America thanks to the United States Navy. His earliest memories of movies came with such undisputed classics such as the Indiana Jones and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogies, or anything with Jean-Claude Van Damme. His love for film sparked after watching Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, a film he cites as “the movie that made me love movies.” Since then, he has developed a passion for film that has yet to be relinquished, watching movies as far back as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, to Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron, and everything in between.

He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Washington, but knows that the world of film is his true calling. When he’s not writing for the Macguffin website or making his own terribly-made video projects, Allen loves to play video games, play his guitar, and dance, not shying away from letting people know that he once auditioned for Step Up 3D.

Edward Davidson
Ed(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Ed Davidson is a Seattle native. So of course, the crappy weather has made him spend countless hours in a darkened room watching anything at all that is projected or televised. He loves old stuff like “The Thin Man” movies (damn, Myrna Loy was hot), loves watching “Lost” (damn, Evangeline Lilly is hot), and has an unhealthy obsession with “Star Trek” (damn, Patrick Stewart is hot). He has proudly watched every movie that has won the Best Picture Oscar, and his lifetime goal is to have watched every film in the book “1001 Movies To Watch Before You Die”. Ed currently lives in Shoreline with his wife, 2 daughters, 2 dogs, 2 gerbils, and some incredibly large raccoons that pop out from under his deck like something on “The Munsters”. He has newly discovered snowboarding, soccer, and why Charles Bronson doesn’t suck as much as he had always assumed.

He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Drama from the UW back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and works for a large NW based software company (but not the one you are thinking of).

Benjamin Nason
Benjamin(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Born and raised in the suburbs of Seattle, Benjamin Nason grew up loving film. The first film experience he remembers is seeing, The Empire Strikes Back in the theater, and was forever changed by the experience. As a child Ben would spend many hours creating stories with his action figures then displaying them in scenes that he would capture on a camera. Once he was of age to work, Ben took on a job at the local video store where a large inventory at his disposal led to a real passion for watching film. While action films have always been his favorite, Ben enjoys everything from the trashiest exploitation film to the subtlest art house drama. With a love of books, especially studies on film, and a love for writing, it only seemed natural to combine the two with the love of movies and write about film himself. By examining the medium, the things we love, the things we hate, and why it makes us feel those ways, we can come to perhaps a better understanding of ourselves and how we fit into culture and society.

When he is not writing about film, Ben spends his time writing comic books, already having self-published a comic called, The Serpent Whispered, and dabbling in screenplays, perhaps even one day he may write a novel or two.

Mark Jones
Mark(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Mark was born in Bristol in the UK but has lived in a small place called Yateley for most of his life. He’s currently at Oxford University, making his way towards a degree in English language and literature. He spends much of his time watching, making and writing about films. The MacGuffin Podcast asked him to join their team after reading his posts on his own film blog. He’s not sure what he wants to do when he leaves university, though something to do with film seems pretty fun apparently.

Benjamin Rendall
Benjamin(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Ben was born in Wisconsin, attended Wartburg College in Waverly, IA. He got a degree in History, more importantly in college and became intrigued with the Academy Awards and branched off from there looking to find great films. Later he got a library degree and now works at the Minneapolis Central Library. He is  still an avid Oscarwatcher and film and television fan. He currently lives in Minneapolis, MN with with his cat Hannah and has a girlfriend/editor, Andrea.

Adelaide Blair
Adelaide(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Adelaide was born in Southern Oregon and has lived to tell the tale. She has a BFA in printmaking and painting and an MBA from the University of Washington. Back in the 70s when cable only gave you an extra 3 channels or so, one of those stations was a Bay Area channel that produced a show called Creature Features with Bob Wilkins. She credits this program and a steady childhood diet of Abbott and Costello, Doris Day, Cary Grant, and Peter Cushing for teaching her to love movies. Also, she saw Star Wars during its original theatrical run at a drive-in. When she is not watching movies, she is making paintings about prehistoric sharks and giant squids in space.

Kevin Barney
Kevin(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Kevin Barney was born and raised in Virginia, where he grew up on monster movies and Twilight Zone marathons. It didn’t take long for him to realize he wanted to be a writer. In college, his first stage play was produced. After several more stage plays and a few short films, he relocated to Los Angeles where he received his MFA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute. In the past few years, he has optioned one of his scripts and been hired to rewrite several other scripts. He is also a judge at the Shriekfest Film Festival and an avid runner.

VIDEO EDITOR
Greg Thomas
Greg(at)MacGuffinPodcast(dot)com

Growing up in the Sacramento Valley of California, Greg spent most of his youth watching lots of movies in syndication and reading about the rest via MAD magazine spoofs. Wanting to get out of the small college town he was raised in, he jumped ship and fully transplanted himself into Washington, with no desire to leave.

Bored with his day job, he joined the Seattle True Independent Film Festival staff in 2008 to keep his evenings interesting. When even that wasn’t enough, he ended up at the University of Washington, and instead of studying math like he planned, ended up graduating with a degree in Cinema Studies in 2009. It was a surprise to everyone, yet no one.

Greg is the kind of person who has an opinion about everything, is willing to share it, and would love to hear why you disagree with him. Nowadays, he spends his time getting as much as he can out of Netflix Instant, re-reading his books because he has too many, and editing the MacGuffin on the weekends. He works for the Internet, and while he often feels like he is on the pulse of it, he is also prone to .