Welcome back to another episode of Spun Today. In this episode, I dive into a creative review and breakdown of the film Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler. I pull out writing insights, character craft, and the power of blending personal history with big genre themes—sharing lessons any writer or creative can use to fuel their own work.
But that’s just the beginning. I also recount the unforgettable experience of seeing comedian, writer, and director Mo Amer live in New York City, and what it meant to meet a creative whose storytelling is as universal as it is personal.
Plus, I touch on big podcast news, including Marc Maron’s announcement that the legendary WTF podcast is coming to an end after over 1600 episodes and 16 years.
Whether you’re a writer seeking inspiration, a fan of genre-bending stories, or just someone looking to stay in the loop with creative culture, this episode is for you. So settle in—let’s explore the art of storytelling, the magic of live comedy, and the evolving world of podcasts, all through the ever-creative lens of Spun Today.
The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing & Random Rants, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
When he was like directing traffic a little further up, I tried making a right
and he comes running screaming, hey, hey, no, no.
It jumps in front of the car and he's like, go straight. Go straight.
Screaming at me at the top of his lungs. And then I'm like, but my
parking garage is right there. I need to park right there. And he
looks at me, I shit you not, at the top of his lungs, and just
(00:22):
says, then call Donald Trump. You got to call Donald
Trump right now. I was like, I was so like
taken. I was so taken back and my wife too.
And we were like, I was like, what Called down. What the
does he mean? Call Donald
(00:53):
Foreign
what is up folks? What's going on? And welcome to the Spun Today Podcast, the
only podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in
scope. I'm your host Tony Ortiz and I appreciate you listening.
In this episode I am going to break down
(01:14):
watching and my little recap and review of the film Sinners
along with bunch of writing insights that I took away
from myself that I wanted to show my fellow writers and creatives out there
that you may find useful as well. I'm also going to share
about meeting and getting to see
comedian, writer, director, creative Mo
(01:35):
Amer live, which was a super dope experience.
Definitely stick around for that. And I'm also going to share some
recent podcast news that has been making headlines, so stick
around for that. Although I feel a bit rusty,
it definitely feels good to get back in the swing of things here with consistent
episodes moving forward. I let you guys know last time
(01:58):
why it took a bit of a hiatus, but yeah, it definitely feels good to
be back with you fine folks. So before we get into all that good
stuff, please listen to this one way that you can really help support this
podcast if you so choose, and then we'll jump right into the
episode. Another great way for
you to help support the show and also take care of your
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Sinners is a film that debuted on
(03:25):
April 18, 2025 and I want to
shout him out right at the offset by writer
director Ryan Coogler. Definite,
definite shout out to him for such an
enjoyable experience on many levels that we will get into
shortly. And here's the official synopsis. Trying to leave
(03:48):
their troubled lives behind, twin brothers
return to their hometown to start again, only to discover
that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
And I think that little synopsis there definitely doesn't do the movie justice.
So let me flesh it out a little bit for you guys before I get
into all the how the Sausage was Made stuff and
(04:10):
writing insights that I want to share. So the twin brothers,
the Smokestack Twins, were played by Michael B. Jordan,
and throughout the film we find that they were gangsters in their
hometown of Mississippi that were both in the army together and
traveled the world during World War I. The film
takes place in Mississippi in the
(04:33):
early 1930s and they travel around the world as soldiers
and when they come back, settle in Chicago
and start running with Al Capone and his gang, allegedly. Then
ultimately when they return home to Mississippi, they have a
truckload of Italian wine and
Irish beer and a suitcase full of cash that they
(04:56):
intend to purchase a spot in in
Mississippi to turn into a juke joint or nightclub
with that inventory of liquor as their main source of what
it is that they can be selling, along with food, so on and so forth.
Now the troubled behind, the troubled past that they're leaving behind
is that in leaving Chicago,
(05:18):
we see news clippings of the Irish mob and Italian mobs
warring with each other. And it's set up in a way that
the Smokestack twins were essentially playing both
sides, rob them both, and in
doing so set them at odds with each other, with them thinking that
the other mob was the one that stole all their liquor and money.
(05:40):
And as they get back home, they are confronted
with dealing with their past, notably for
Smoke. His estranged wife Annie, played
by Wunmi Mosaku, was amazing.
And we find that they lost an infant child.
So we see him, you know, having to confront that grief and
(06:03):
part of him that he went away from. And then on
the side of Stack, most notably his love interest Mary,
played by Hailee Steinfeld, which was Also amazing
who he left behind, promised that he would return and clearly
never did until years later. And then a mix of a bunch
of other old friends and acquaintances,
(06:26):
which we meet throughout the movie and take them in with,
like, mixed reception, right? Because they were, like, notorious
in their hometown. So much so that folks are still, like, scared of just hearing
their names. But also had a handful of close folks that they ran with.
They then purchased the location. They had
this meeting set up with character by the name of Hogwood,
(06:50):
played by Dave Maldonado, that we later learned
was a grand wizard of the kkk on the low
spoiler alert. And he sells them this location for a bag of cash.
And one of my favorite lines in the movie, which I don't know why it
hit so hard, the smokestack twins are standing in front of the
place that they're going to buy. Hogwood is clearly late because Smoke
(07:13):
keeps looking at his clock and complaining, like, where is this guy? He shows
up nonchalantly. He asks them, are you
guys twins? And then Stack responds,
no, we cousins. Like, sarcastically and smiling
because obviously they're identical twins. And they wind up buying the place.
And they clearly tell Hogwood, you know, this is. Here's this
(07:36):
bag of cash. This is what we're paying for this in the property. Don't come
back here asking for more. Don't come back here with your KKK buddies. If we
ever see you guys across our property line, we're gonna shoot you. And then Hogwood
says, kkk, that doesn't even exist anymore. What are you guys talking about, you know,
playing at them? Then we find out later in the film, which I'll circle back
to with a bit more detail. But Hogwood has
(07:58):
been running the scam in selling this place to
black folks. Remember, this is 1930, 31
deep south Mississippi, well within the throes of the Jim Crow era.
A lot of tension, racist, racist tension going on. So
he's had this scam going on in that, you know, he sells it the same
place to some black folks. Then comes later that
(08:21):
night or the next day with his KKK buddies
to shoot and kill and hang them all. And then
they wash the place up, do it all over again. Now, the Smokestack twins
are obviously oblivious to this, but that's what Hogwood has going on.
Then, long story short, they wind up, you know, going
into town, meeting up with folks that they need to meet up with,
(08:44):
telling them their plan to open up this juke joint, which, again, is
essentially a nightclub. And this is. This is the business plan that they,
you know, came back to town with. And tonight's gonna be the grand opening. So
they're letting folks know in the town they are recruiting
talent for music playing folks to cook,
topple, making signage, so on and so forth. And then the story
(09:05):
culminates with that evening being a mix.
It culminates with three vampires.
Literal horror film, blood sucking
vampires. So not speaking metaphorically, although you can
look at it through the vantage point of race again
and pick up on the metaphor of the blood
(09:27):
and soul sucking vampires which happen to be white in the
film vers the the humans or the patrons
of the juke joint that evening, which were all black and how they eventually
all get turned. But these vampires find their way
into the juke joint, turn pretty much everybody that was there
and the rest of the night plays out in this
(09:50):
horror action film, fight for their lives
against all these vampires. So I think that fleshes out a little
bit. Although that two sentence synopsis that
I read for you guys earlier without giving away
too many spoilers, and I'll give you guys some additional details as
I go through some of the writing elements that I definitely want to share with
(10:13):
you guys. So first I want to speak of the origin
and inspirations for the film. Two of the main inspirations
were Ryan Coogler's uncle, who was a big blues
enthusiast and left Mississippi
for California back in the day. Another inspiration that he's
mentioned on multiple interviews was was the film From Dusk Till
(10:35):
Dawn. You can definitely see similar tones there.
So being partially inspired by his family, Coogler
infused his family history and musical heritage
into the script. The character, for example, by the name of
Sammy, played by Miles Catton, also amazing
breakout role for him, which plays the younger cousin of the
(10:58):
Smokestack twins, was named after Ryan Cooler's aunt
Sammy. And the legendary blues
singer Buddy Guy, which was one of his
uncle's favorites, actually plays the old man version of
Sammy that we see in the mid credits
post movie scene. And I just wanted to highlight a writing insight that
(11:19):
I definitely took away from that, which is using personal history
as creative fuel which then adds
authenticity and emotional depth to your characters.
I've definitely noticed that type of connection with my own writing
with feedback that I've gotten on stories or parts of stories
that folks have liked and also me just writing it and you know,
(11:42):
the level of satisfaction with myself after writing a story
that definitely has more personal history infused
into it. So adding that level of emotional depth
definitely helps to resonate the story and characters more.
Now, let's speak a little bit about music as a narrative device.
Because the score in the film was great. I definitely Shazammed a
(12:05):
song or two that added to my. My Go to playlist.
And for this film, Ryan Coogler partnered again with
Ludwig Goranson, which has been a longtime collaborator of his
since they met in film school at the
University of Southern California, AKA
usc. And they've collaborated on multiple films
(12:28):
from Fruitvale Station, Black Panther Creed
as well, if I'm not mistaken, which creates a unique
audio visual signature between the two. And I've seen a couple of
interviews with them both and you can see how fluid their friendship
is. And that chemistry bleeds back
onto what we take in as the audience and how
(12:49):
seamless that writing and directing matches up to
the scoring and music that plays such a significant role
in films in general. But definitely in this one. And I honestly never thought
of, like, that collaboration between, like, writer, director
and composer as much as I have with,
like, director and actor combos, which. Which I'll touch on later.
(13:13):
But it's absolutely an element that I appreciate much more now after
watching this film. And just for a bit, on Ludwig
Goranson, specifically, he's a
goat within his space. Even outside of
all the collaboration with Ryan Coogler and success that they've had together.
He did, for example, the score on the show
(13:36):
Community, starring Donald Glover. That was like his first, like, big show,
and more recently on Oppenheimer, the movie.
So that weight of his expertise and that, that range definitely
precedes him. And it's dope that he can play all instruments. He plays
guitar, bass, guitar, drums,
piano. He does vocals. And if you really want to geek out within
(13:59):
that vein, he works with a program called Digital
Performer, or at least he did in an interview that I saw when
he was doing the the Score four Community. I'm not sure if that's
still what he uses now, but that's definitely what he used then. And music
is so important in film, right? It's not just an aesthetic.
It helps to shape the mood, it drives the narrative, and
(14:21):
it acts as a character in the film, which
I've always heard said in many movies, but honestly, I personally
got that or understood that with this film. And it even
acts as like a spiritual force. For example, with there's
this voiceover in this great scene, this montage scene when the
(14:41):
juke joint is at its pinnacle of the night,
everybody's having a great time, singing, dancing, eating,
drinking. And there's this voiceover stating that
legend has it that Music. Music that's so good
has the ability to pierce the veil between the living
world and the dead world and between different periods
(15:03):
and times. And there's this Steadicam scene. I think
that's what it's called. Right. Like the handheld that goes around the room.
Nonetheless, there's this scene where we see different
historical and futuristic, or future, rather,
ancestors and future relatives of the folks that are
there also dancing and vibing out to their version
(15:25):
of that almost spiritual moment that each of the folks
are having there. And a writing insight that I took away from that is
to use music if, you know, in film and
screenwriting, but even in writing stories,
you know, short stories, books, novels, so on and so forth, which more so applies
to myself. You're not using music there necessarily,
(15:49):
unless you're writing in, like, background, like in an exposition way. Like
this is type of music that's playing in the background, which I guess we can
do. But for pros, you know, instead of using music using like
recurring motifs or ideas, not just for
style, but to support your theme, to support the tone of your
story, to support or show time shifts,
(16:10):
that's definitely a good application of that. Now let's talk a little bit about
character craft and dialogue. Because the performances
in. In this movie were the absolute heart of it. It
was great across the board. Let's start off with
Michael B. Jordan, which plays both Smoke and Stack.
(16:30):
They're the twin protagonists of the movie
and he absolutely knocks it out of the park. You
think you're seeing two different people and their brotherhood is. Is
layered. They have very different yet subtle
mannerisms and personalities. Smoke is calculated,
he's more business minded. Stack is more reactive
(16:53):
and led by his heart, or more emotional,
if you will. Smoke is also the protector. He's the worrier.
He's the one always looking after and thinking about Stack. And an
Easter egg for you guys that either haven't watched it or will re watch
it as I have for telling them apart, which I picked up on
on one of the breakdown videos that I'll definitely link to in the episode notes.
(17:16):
But a great way to tell them apart is that Stack is
usually wearing red. Something red. And he also smiles. So if
you see one of them smiling, odds, you know, throughout the whole film,
odds are, is that it's Stack and then Smoke. He's always
wearing blue and never smiles. Now, an interesting
dynamic that I wanted to point out as well, which ties to
(17:39):
that unique visual audio signature
that we spoke about earlier with Ryan Coogler, working consistently
with Ludwig Goranson is Ryan Coogler working
consistently with his star actor Michael B. Jordan.
So Coogler also directed Black Panther, where Michael B. Jordan
plays Killmonger. He directed Fruitvale Station, based on a true story,
(18:01):
also a great movie that I think I broke down on here years ago. But
I think that was their first collab together and also the Creed movies.
And in doing so they create this unique
collaborative signature that intermingles with
the written word and the theatrical expression
and ultimately what we see. And it made me think of other
(18:24):
great recurring director actor collabs like
Scorsese working with De niro and Leonardo DiCaprio
or Quentin Tarantino working with Samuel L. Jackson and
Christoph Waltz, for example. Now, Miles Catton,
I absolutely have to shout out. He plays Sammy Moore,
which again is the younger cousin and one of the main protagonists of the film.
(18:47):
And this was his very first acting gig. And
he is absolutely the breakout star of the film.
Not only did he act his ass off, but. But he's a really good singer.
Has been singing since he was a kid. And there's actually
a snippet of a video when he was really young
that went viral of him singing in the back of a car,
(19:09):
which I never saw at the time, but I found that that snippet of
him singing was used in the beginning of the
video montage to Jay Z's 444
music video is the very first clip of the
montage for that music video, which I thought was pretty dope.
And he's currently the background baritone vocalist
(19:32):
touring with Singer musician Her, which was the
person that actually convinced him to audition for this role.
Also, before auditioning for the role, he didn't play a lick of the
guitar and actually learned how to play it for the film. So it's not
like a double playing the guitar, it's actually him doing so.
Also, he's from Brooklyn, so Shout Out New York. Really dope and
(19:55):
excited to see what the future has in store for him.
Wunmi Musaku that I mentioned earlier, who plays Annie,
is the estranged wife of Smoke. She's
fantastic. She's kind of like the anchor and like the level
headed one in the movie. She has this.
She's also the spiritual influence in the movie. She
(20:16):
practices voodoo in the film, which as I
understand it, is like an offshoot of voodoo or vice
versa. But she's definitely into like her
spirituality and the other realm and definitely serves as the
spiritual guide throughout the movie. Especially when we get into the
intense vampire fighting scenes and stuff like that. Bo
(20:38):
and Grace Chow, played by
Yao and Li Jun Lee, respectively. They were
dope. They were the Asian American characters who were
known in that time, in the post slavery time. So the
Jim Crow south to there was a large Asian American,
Mexican American contingency brought in to the
(21:00):
states to replace the now illegal slave
labor because they were willing to work
for lesser wages and were also seen as not having
like a political power or political voice. And I'll get into a little bit
more of like the symbolism and subtext to their characters in a bit,
but just to round out a few of more of the actor shout outs
(21:23):
here, Hailee Steinfeld, which again plays Mary,
which is the love interest of Stack. Her backstory
is when she was younger, her mother took
in the Smokestack twins after their abusive father,
who we later find out Smoke wound up killing because he was. He was
abusing Stack and mostly and also him. She
(21:45):
took them in and raised them like her own. And Mary's white.
She's like 75% white. I think she said her
grandfather's mother or father was
black. She wasn't one of the, you know, KKK racist ones.
And she winds up being actually one of the first ones that were turned
(22:06):
by the three vampires that initially wanted to get in.
Delroy Lindo, which was part of like the comedic relief
and kind of more grounded and realism
characters, played the lifelong
musician and alcoholic Delta Slim.
I always remember him from his role in gone in 60 seconds in a line
(22:26):
that he says there when he catches Nicholas Cage, but then winds up letting him
go. So you that he understands why he came back. And he says his brother's
love is brother's love. And then last but certainly
not least, Jack o' Connell plays the head
vampire, Remic. He was also phenomenal.
So Orion also wrote in kind of this
(22:48):
backstory of this known ship
that washed up on shore in
Massachusetts. I forget if it was like the 1500s or 1600s or something
like that that was like full of blood and burned, but
no people on board. And it was a ship from Ireland. So
he kind of wrote it as what happened in that
(23:10):
ship all those hundreds of years ago was that this
Remic character, you know, killed everybody aboard that ship
and hasn't, you know, running around the Americas ever since.
One last thing that I wanted to say actually about the. The
dynamic of the twins is this scene that
definitely stood out to me with Smoke when he initially
(23:33):
goes into town looking for Beau and Grace
and he's driving the truck that has all the liquor in it. So he tells
this girl, this young girl that's there to guard the truck for
him, that he'll pay her 10 cents for every minute that's there.
And if anybody comes to the truck and tries to take something out of it,
just to ring the horn so it can come out. And it was like a
(23:54):
master class in subtle mentorship. Which also plays to
Smoke's dynamic in the film of being the
more, like, paternalistic of the brothers. The one that's always, like, looking out,
trying to, like, teach and show and help. And she's, like, super excited. She's like,
10 cents. Yeah, sure, I'll do it. And he's like, no, no, no, hold on
a second. You don't just say yes to the first number. And, you know, he
(24:15):
doesn't know this girl from a hole in the wall. He just sees her and
calls her over. He has this intimate moment with her and schools
her to, you know, not accept the first number. He's like,
we're talking numbers. And quote numbers always have to be
in conversation with each other, end quote. And I thought
that that line was dope. And then he's like, so when I say 10 cents,
(24:36):
you have to ask for more. And she's like, 25.
And then he says, 15, and that's my final offer. Or 20, and
that's my final offer. Something like that. And then she agrees. But
that very small scene shows how, like, these
details, even in tiny interactions like that, can reveal
character traits and continue to add on to
(24:58):
either the thematic message or how you're
layering your character. That's definitely a writing insight that I took away,
which was that little moments like that, you should let small
moments like even that bartering with the kid right there,
reflect the broader themes like empowerment and
mentorship or, you know, economic awareness that you
(25:20):
are intending to imbue within your character. It
doesn't all have to be, like, large, clear exposition.
It's actually even better if it's not, in my opinion, let people find
that kind of stuff. Now, let's speak to
symbolism and subtext in the movie. I really
liked how Coogler drew us in
(25:43):
to this world of the Jim Crow south, where racism and
systemic oppression are very prevalent throughout. But
it never felt forced. It was just part of the world.
And he sprinkled it in subtly, I thought, throughout the film
with scenes, for example, where we see the segregated
storefronts. So Beau and Grace,
(26:06):
which I mentioned earlier, they run two stores across the street from each other,
two grocery stores, and one is for the whites and one is for the
blacks. And looking deeper into that, you also
see the dynamic of what I touched on earlier with
Chinese Americans at the time being amongst the
immigrants that were brought in to sort of offset the lack
(26:29):
of having the free slave labor in the south and
how culturally they weren't fully accepted by either
side, blacks or whites, but also weren't fully
rejected either, which put them in a very unique situation to be able to
do things such as open up grocery stores and sell to
(26:49):
both sides. And he also showed it in the film
with scenes and shots with the sharecroppers who had quotas for
picking cotton and also chain gangs working on
the side of the road. And in particular, there's a scene where
he took on racism head on, where the twins pick
up their little cousin Sammy before the weekend
(27:12):
after, by the way, he's met his quota for picking
cotton by waking up early and working all morning. Sammy's this wide
eyed younger kid that looks up to his cousins,
torn between his love for music and playing the
blues and his father's take on
life and what he should be and what he shouldn't be. His father, who's a
(27:34):
preacher in a church, they pick up Sammy so he can be one of the
players in the juke joint that night. And on the way there,
Sammy's telling them and asking them to tell him
about Chicago. And he says, you know, tell me about
Chicago. I heard that there's no Jim Crow up there and that
black folks could just go wherever they want without any issues.
(27:56):
Again, speaking to the segregated South. And then one of the twins. I think
it was smoke, or maybe it was Stack, but I think it was smoke. You
know, more jaded by this point, by life and
experiences. He says, man, Chicago ain't nothing
but Mississippi with tall buildings instead of plantations. And
I thought that was the perfect encapsulation of how
(28:18):
Northern racism at the time was mirroring the South. And it just
showed how the oppression just doesn't change because of the setting, it
just changes form. This whole story, by the way, which leads to my
next writing insight, takes place within a 24 hour
period. Within one day. Yeah, it felt so like
layer and epic and like so much shit was going on. And the writing takeaway
(28:40):
that we can take from that is that tight frames, tight
time frames like that, they can enhance tension and
create a sense of urgency and really force characters into
like meaningful decisions quickly. Like
increases the pace of your story just has to. Because everything has
to happen within. Again, that tight time frame. And it was
(29:03):
crazy because it Felt like we got a whole movie
about family dynamics, about leaving home and then returning
to a place that you left, about confronting the past
about so much before we get the movie about the
vampires. And what was cool is how all the fantasy
elements, once we switch over to nighttime and vampires get
(29:25):
introduced, that whole fantasy element blended
with the real historical oppression. And the
vampires weren't just mythical creatures, but
metaphors for exploitation,
for surveillance, for control, systemic control.
So in that sense, their presence in the story, rooted in the
(29:47):
Jim Crow south, serves to magnify the horror
of the real historical injustices. And by
layering the supernatural element over
authentic historical drama, Ryan Coogler elevated the genre.
So he wound up using horror and fantasy not to escape that
history or take away from it, but to confront it and reframe
(30:10):
it. And that's definitely part of what made the film so great. Now,
one of the final scenes of the movie, because it felt like the movie ended
a couple different times or could have and would have been awesome, is this
Tommy Gun climax scene that I'm sure you saw, like, in the
trailers with Michael B. Jordan shooting atomicun, like, the
camera facing at him. So we learn from
(30:32):
Remic, the head vampire, when he's, like, negotiating with
Smoke and Annie and Delta Slim and everybody and Grace,
everybody who's still inside the juke joint. After
the vampires penetrated by using Mary, which went
out to speak to the vampires, who I didn't mention, but they tried to get
into the juke joint, they wind up getting turned away. You know,
(30:55):
the three white people. The juke joint was for, like, all the black folks to,
like, unwind. And they're like, you know, we're not down with that racist stuff.
You know, let us in. And, you know, vampires in. You know,
mythologically speaking, they have to be invited in order to get in,
right? They can't just, like, go in into a place, into your home, into
an establishment. You literally have to invite them in. So
(31:17):
part of Remick, you know, trying to negotiate his way in after,
you know, everybody knows what's going on. They know that they turned a whole bunch
of people that. That left the juke joint and are not
vampires. And there's only a handful of them left inside. Remic reveals how
every time he turns someone, like, he has, like, all their memories and all their
thoughts and. And everything, so that he tells
(31:39):
Smoke that the guy who sold them Hogwood, the guy
who sold them the juke joint, just plans to come back in the morning with
his KKK buddies and kill everybody. And that's where he gets
put on to the fact that it's this ongoing scam that Hogwood
has had going. So after the long night and the battle with the
vampires ensues, there's this really dope scene
(32:00):
with Michael B. Jordan, who has, you know, they
prepped for their night just in case they needed weaponry. So they have
like a Tommy gun, a bunch of handguns, grenades, a
bunch of ammunition. And he pretty much sets up
the Hogwart and his boys that come back, his KKK boys
that come back to get into the juke joint to like kill
(32:22):
everybody and light everybody up. And they try to get into the place, it's
closed. And then Michael B. Jordan comes out from behind
them and just mows them all down, shooting them
with his handguns, then winds up pulling out the Tommy gun and just has that
really dope, cathartic scene where after everything that he's been
through throughout the whole night, losing his brother staff to the vampires,
(32:44):
losing his wife, who he himself had to kill before she turned into
a vampire because that's what he promised her. When, you know, right before the battle
started with the vampires, just like unloads and takes it out on each and every
one of the KKK folks, fucking gets every last one of them,
uses the grenades. It's like a dope gunfight
scene. And it was like a form of like cathartic violent
(33:06):
justice. And a definite writing insight to take away from
that is that genre moments like that, like gunfights, they can carry
symbolic weight when it's earned through the character's
motivation and thematic buildup. There's
this other Easter egg that I wanted to leave you all with before I wrap
things up, which ties to Omar Benson Miller's
(33:27):
character, Kornbread, which was also a standout role in the
film. Be kind to one another. If you know, you know,
there's a scene when Remic has like all the vampires
that are turned at this point dancing outside to this
old timey Irish music. And something that I
noticed, which maybe it's just my own
(33:49):
projection, because every time I see Omar Benson Miller, I think of his
role in 8 Mile. But in that scene he's like
dancing with his hands in the air. I felt like it was an homage to
that scene in 8 Mile when they're like in a
cipher and he does that 10 freaky
girls, like, rap and dance,
(34:20):
that one. He winds up dancing the same way while he's doing like the.
The vampire dance in this movie. If intentional, I thought that was
dope, if not intentional. I still think it's dope and actually
take a writing insight from that, which is that when you layer
in references, even if you don't explain them, or especially
probably if you don't explain them, that rewards like really
(34:43):
close viewing or close reading people and it
deepens the world that you're building without the need
for the exposition. And in closing, just to wrap things up, I
wanted to say that Hoogler's stated goal with this movie was
to create a movie that people enjoy and are entertained
by, and I thought he did so on multiple levels,
(35:05):
regardless of how deeply you chose to analyze it.
Sinners was entertaining, it was genre mixing,
it was deeply layered with historical and emotional and
spiritual aspects to it, and I think his writing is
a masterclass in how to blend personal stories
with social themes and different genre devices
(35:30):
to reach broad audiences without the need to sacrifice
the depth and to my listeners out there, let me know in the comments
what character, moment or scene resonated most with you.
To my fellow writers out there, what personal truths or
cultural memories are you sitting on that could become
story fuel for whatever it is that you're working on? And like I mentioned
(35:53):
earlier, I'll also link in the episode notes to other
breakdowns like Jessica Clemens from New Rockstars,
a few Easter egg videos, and some great interviews that I watched
in preparation. This little recap and review Sinners is
a definite must watch. It's a breath of fresh air to the
movie industry in its originality and scope,
(36:15):
so definitely check it out in theaters if you still can, is definitely coming to
a streamer near you.
Getting to see and meet comedian,
writer, director Mo Amer
on his El Oso Palestino tour at town Hall
Theater, May 10, 2025. What
(36:38):
a dope experience. So I've been a Mohamer fan for
years, way before his Netflix show. I'm pretty sure I
learned about him just being a fan of stand up comedy.
And the way I remember it, it was those old
Ice House Chronicle podcasts for my podcast fan
OGs out there that Rogan and Brian Redband used
(37:01):
to do, and I remember them mentioning him as one of
those like great up and coming comics that frequent the Comedy
Store, so on and so forth. That's how I believe
I came to know who he was, but nonetheless was a fan of
his after seeing him on a few podcasts, checking out his
comedy specials. So I was really excited when he got his Netflix show
(37:24):
titled Mo, which I broke down the first season in
a prior episode of the sponsored podcast so you guys can
go check that out. And I definitely will be breaking down
season two, which aired earlier this year, probably
in the next episode of the Spot Today podcast. So definitely look out for
that. And my wife is also a fan. She loved the show as well.
(37:46):
So I copped these tickets once I found out he was going to be in
New York a few months back. And I got, which I
highly recommend, the meet and greet tickets.
It's like, the first couple rows. It costs extra, obviously,
but if you're a fan, it's definitely a dope experience
and folks can get seats within the first couple rows. And
(38:08):
it's like part of, like, the VIP meet and greet package.
Actually, the first time I was going to do that was
with Mark Norman tickets, and I bought
them way in advance. And then it coincided with
one of my wife's surgeries from last year. Like, she had surgery
like, a day or two before. That's why I wound up having to sell those
(38:31):
tickets, which was a bummer, but actually got more
than what I paid for them on the secondary market there. But,
yeah, I recommend going that route while you can, you know, for,
you know, a comic or someone that you're a fan of.
Anyway, so I caught these tickets months in advance. Day comes, my wife
and I are heading out there. I put the address of
(38:54):
parking garage that I booked tickets for or a spot in, rather
reserved a spot in, in advance. And it's taking
almost double the time, according to the GPS to get there.
It should take like an hour, like, from Queens to the city, 45 minutes to
an hour. It was taking like an hour and a half plus. Then I would
switch the address to the address of the theater
(39:15):
on the gps and the time it would take to get there
changed to, like, the 45 minutes to an hour that I expected.
And mind you, the parking garage was like, two
blocks away, literally. So I'm like, what the fuck? So then I just put
the address to the theater. I did it a couple times. I thought it was
just like, wigging out or something. And then I just wound up putting the address
(39:36):
to the theater. And I said, you know, when we get closer by, I'll switch
it. And, you know, maybe it's some sort of accident or I don't know
what. So we get close to there, and then we find out there's, like this
San Gennaro festival, or I don't know if it was that one, but one of
those festivals in the city where they closed down, like a full
avenue. And it was literally right around the theater, which
(39:56):
is Town hall theater, which is right around Times Square. So it's already a
packed busy area. And my
parking garage that I had booked was on the other side of that.
Hence why I was taking so fucking long just to go around
that, like, Street Avenue closed
Festival. So I'm like flipping out internally, like, fuck, fuck, we're
(40:19):
gonna be late now. What if they don't see this? And, you know, we don't
want to walk in on the middle of the show and, like, miss things and,
like, stressing out, you know, trying to get to the. To the freaking parking lot
garage, contemplating just parking at another one and taking the hit on
the spot that I reserved, but I couldn't find, like, any other ones.
And there was one point where there was like a. Those like,
(40:41):
crossing guard cops. And he was directing traffic.
And then I was making a right because they were allowing
the cars that were already on the avenue to keep going on the avenue,
but the cars that were on the street, which is where I was
to. They would have to continue going straight. But my parking garage was
literally to the right hand side on that block. So
(41:04):
when he was like directing traffic a little further up, I tried making a right.
And he comes running screaming, hey, hey, no,
no. Jumps in front of the car. And he's like, go straight, go
straight. Screaming at me at the top of his lungs. And then I'm like, but
my parking garage is right there. I need to park right there. And he
looks at me, I shit you not. At the top of his lungs, and just
(41:26):
says, then call Donald Trump. You gotta call Donald
Trump right now. I was like,
taken. I was so taken back and my wife
too. We were like. I was like, what? Call down.
Fuck does he mean, call Donald Trump? He's like, but
I was like, I just gotta park right there. Have a spot there.
(41:49):
And I'm trying to, like, communicate this to him. And he's like, no,
call Donald Trump. You gotta call Donald Trump. And I'm like, what the
fuck is he talking about? And then I look at two other cops,
like legit NYPD in full, you know, NYPD uniform look
like a Spanish girl, A Spanish, Spanish dude. And
I'm like. I look at them kind of like as like a saving grace. And
(42:11):
I'm kind of like, I gotta park right there. And. And the female cop
looks at me with the look of, you know what my thing is? They were
like, sorry, this dude was, like, irate.
And then at that point I just started laughing. I was like, can I call
Kamala Also like, I don't know what, like, I didn't even know how to like
interpret what the it was that he was meaning by you need to call Donald
(42:32):
Trump. So whatever. I wind up going straight,
then having to go like three avenues down. I think it was to be able
to make a right turn to then make another right turn to go. Then the
extra 20 minutes that it took or, or,
or more to get to our parking garage eventually.
So. And we're already a few minutes late. I'm like speeding
(42:55):
as fast as I could. And we're speed walking to the, to the theater
and going in right next to the theater. I see Sypha Sounds there, which I
recognized because when I went to the
Burke Kreischer Comedy Festival that he had in Forest Park
Theater, which I broke down here on the podcast the
previous episode. Sypha Sounds was the DJ for that show
(43:17):
and also does like a little stand up. You know, he hosts the event.
I saw him there and I was like, oh, cyph. I literally worked right. I
walked right by him. Could have given him £. I don't know why I didn't.
I was just like, oh shit. And kept walking because again,
I'm trying to get to inside. Then once I saw him outside,
I was like, he must be here, like to the same capacity I would imagine,
(43:37):
unless he's, you know, just here as a fan. But I figured he would be
hosting, which I didn't know before, and go
in and the theater's almost completely empty. I was like,
oh, so everybody's dealing with this like
traffic shit. So then at that point I was like, much more like,
all right, good, good. So the show starts a bit late
(43:59):
and the whole time I'm thinking I was like, yo, I hope this shit like
fills up. Because it was like empty, empty. And it was like way
past, you know, supposed to start at 8 or 7:30. And I think
it was like 8, 8 something. But then of course the show got
completely, completely packed, sold out and starts.
Cypher Sounds hosts. He's hilarious. And then
(44:19):
we have a writer from the Daily show, comedian,
or comedian slash writer from the Daily Show, Dina Hashem,
who opens up the show. She was hilarious. Then Hannibal Buress,
which I've been following for years, a fan of, definitely from, from
podcasts and stuff like that. We got to see him, the comic out of
Chicago. He comes out next. Then after that, Hasan
(44:42):
Minaj comes out where? Which we were like, what?
Holy shit. Definitely been a fan of his for years. You know,
huge comic. Was also on the Daily show has had his
own Netflix show. You know, a bunch of different standup
specials. Himself, great comic himself. And then a sypha sounds
comes on, and he says, you know, we got one more person before.
(45:03):
Before we bring out your boy Mo. Is it this. This guy
from Jersey? Let's just hear him out, and then we'll bring out your boy Mo.
So everybody's like, yeah, let's ago. And he
pretends he doesn't know how to pronounce his name. He goes, the guy's name is
John Stewart. And
Jon Stewart comes out. How sick is that? Jon
(45:26):
Stewart of the Daily show, comedian Jon Stewart, and of
countless movies. And we're right there, literally second row
from the stage the entire time. It was
so dope. And to boot, by the way, like, the whole time we were waiting
before, like, for the show to start. Like, after we did get there and get
to our seats, and we're, you know, waiting for the. The crowd to fill up,
(45:46):
for the venue to fill up, rather. There was, like, the sweetest lady and her
daughter next to us that was, like, I'm, like, kind of introverted, but,
like, she drove, like, the conversation. And me and my wife were both talking to
her, learned all about, like, her life. Her daughter's gonna go to NYU and this
and that. So that was just, like, a bonus. That was, like, super cool. We
actually felt bad afterwards. We didn't, like, get to say bye or anything like
(46:08):
that because folks kind of, like, split up. Once we got to, like, the vip,
then we, like, lost track of where she was at. She was super cool. And
then, of course, the cherry on top. Then Moe
finally comes out. The crowd loses their shit. He has a killer
set. We had such an enjoyable show. And
then since we. We have that VIP meet and greet package,
(46:31):
they tell you after, you know, they send you instructions, and after the show,
let the crowd to clear out. Just wait. Wait in your seats. And then
somebody's gonna come to usher us to wherever they're gonna do the meet and greet
at, which is in their. The comics, like, green room area.
So we wait a bit, probably like, 10, 15 minutes for everything to clear. And
at this point, there's another. Another show after hours. So since the show started late,
(46:53):
we're all like, are they still gonna do the meet and greet or, you know,
what's gonna happen? But testament to Timon and his team, it
definitely still had the meet and greet. Somebody came to get us, takes us to
the green room, which was, like, a really cool layout. So
kudos to the Town hall theater for that. And, you know,
everybody lines up. Mo comes into the room, and
(47:16):
at this point, somebody came around to like, unlock because
all the phones are in the yonder bags. They unlock it, we get our phones.
And then part of his team pretty much we give
them our phone when it's our turn to, like, say, what's up to
Mo? And take a picture. They take the picture for us to take a few
different pictures, show it to us, make sure we like it. And that's
(47:37):
essentially the meet and greet. And his staff is like, super friendly,
super nice. Again, I was expecting them to be kind of like rushing us and
a little pushy because, you know, they got to get the next show started.
But it was none of that at all. Like, super
patient with everybody that was there. My only regret is that
I didn't say two things that in retrospect
(48:00):
I would have wanted to. The first of which would be
to ask him for, like, a
book or doc or movie recommendation for
writers to see if he had any insight or something he could put me onto
there. And the second thing, which I thought of after the fact, was to
share the fact that, you know, because most of his audience is largely,
(48:22):
well, it was definitely a mixed crowd, but you have a lot of
Arabs, you know, that was like his core audience. But I wanted
to share and I was too much of a pussy to. To
do so, and also didn't want to be that guy holding up the line, you
know, trying to, you know, talk to him and keep people waiting and shit.
But I'll speak it into the universe just in case it
(48:44):
somehow reaches him one day. But I wanted to say that
my wife and I are first generation Dominicans, and
his show Mo, which is available on Netflix,
completely spoke to us and our experience. And
I just wanted to say kudos to him for creating something
that was so unique to his life and his experience,
(49:09):
yet universal enough at the same time that it resonates
with folks that aren't from the Palestinian experience.
So hats off to Mo. Definitely had a great, great
experience. If you have the chance, definitely check him out. You will definitely not
be disappointed. And if you're not able to, for whatever reason, see him in person,
he has a couple, I think two, maybe even three
(49:32):
specials on Netflix, and of course his series Mo.
Definitely check them out.
Podcast news. Podcast news. I wanted to share
that Marc Maron, one of the podcast ogs, one of the
podcast goats, is going to end the
WTF podcast after 16 plus
(49:55):
years and 1600 plus episodes.
Yes, I said that correctly 1600 plus plus episodes
he announced recently on a recent episode and got
picked up by my median is a bunch of headlines and articles,
a couple of which I will link to in the episode notes in case you
guys want to check them out in their entirety. But he announced that he
(50:17):
was going to end the show and just being burnt out while
also being completely satisfied with the work that he's done over the years.
Personally, I think he will come back after some R and
R. He even mentioned that, you know, it doesn't mean it's the last
time he's gonna be on a podcast. Or maybe he in the future might
redo some sort of like interview style show.
(50:41):
So personally I do think that he'll come back in the future and but if
he doesn't obviously teach their own and I hope he does
get the rest and relaxation that you may be looking for. And
Marin started his podcast back in 2009
according to a Guardian article,
after his radio show which was on
(51:02):
Air America had been canceled and he actually wound up using
the studio of that radio show to record his very first
episode of the WTF pod, which
he went on obviously to put out and then continue
for his 16 year run. And he wound up building
his own studio in his garage, famously where his
(51:25):
podcast studio is to this day. And he's definitely an OG in space.
He's one of the pioneers in
podcasting. When I think about the the podcasting OGs, I
think of Rogan, I think of Marc Maron, and I think
of Adam Carolla, all of which started around that same time in 2009.
And although there's like this bitter
(51:47):
angst to Marin, at least that's how I he's always
like come off to me like personality wise. I always liked his
interview style and his perspective in interviews. They're very
intimate and conversational and he would always lean
introspective, which I appreciate. He was also the first
podcaster to have a sitting president on a podcast.
(52:10):
Hit Obama back in the day, which literally went to his garage
again where he has his podcast. And
that just gave I remember at the time a
sitting president going on a podcast was just like put like
the stamp of legitimacy approval on
podcasts, which was then still like this little niche weird thing that
(52:32):
nobody listened to or not nobody, but that only
like cult followers listen to. So that was like really dope and it was a
great episode. One more recently Mohammer was on
which I spoke about earlier and I actually featured
as my podcast of the week in my
newsletter where I've featured in the past a bunch of different
(52:54):
WTF episodes, notably Ron Howard's episode,
Pete Davidson's episode, TA Nehisi Coates, and a
bunch more. And if you're listening and thinking, hey,
that sounds like a dope newsletter, great podcast recommendations. Where can I get
that? And then you can subscribe to my free
newsletter@spunter.com
(53:17):
subscribe Ryan Coogler was actually on as well,
but I actually haven't heard that episode yet, so definitely going to go check that
one out. But yeah, he's going to air the final episode, he says
sometime this fall, this year 2025. So have a few
more months of new episodes and a shitload of
back catalog that fans can definitely listen to in
(53:39):
the future. But shout out to Mark Marin and the
WTF podcast, Definitely one of the goats.
And that folks was episode 284 of the Sponsor
Day Podcast. Thank you very, very much for taking the time to
listen. I really appreciate it. I felt a bit rusty this episode, to be honest.
(54:00):
Getting back in the swing of things, I'm definitely aiming to continuing
to keep it consistent for the rest of this year. Moving forward.
My fellow writers and creatives out there, hopefully you are
able to glean something from it, specifically with
the writing insights that I pick up on when watching
shows or movies, so on and so forth that I share on here. Or maybe
(54:22):
it'll just pique your interest to want to watch something that I speak about.
Hopefully others are at least entertained by some of the content or at
the very least just helps you pass the time while you're at work
or driving or at the gym or whatever it is that you are doing when
you listen. Thanks again to each and every one of you for taking the time
to listen and I will check you guys out next time. Please stick around
(54:44):
for a couple of. Minutes so you can hear a bunch of different ways you
can help support this show if you so choose. I'd really, really
appreciate it. Peace.
What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today
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(55:06):
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(01:00:17):
I love you Aiden. I love you Daddy.
I love you Grayson.
When he was like directing traffic a little further up, I tried making a right
and he comes running screaming, hey, hey, no, no.
It jumps in front of the car and he's like, go straight. Go straight.
Screaming at me at the top of his lungs. And then I'm like, but my
parking garage is right there. I need to park right there. And he
looks at me, I shit you not, at the top of his lungs, and just
(00:22):
says, then call Donald Trump. You got to call Donald
Trump right now. I was like, I was so like
taken. I was so taken back and my wife too.
And we were like, I was like, what Called down. What the
does he mean? Call Donald
(00:53):
Foreign
what is up folks? What's going on? And welcome to the Spun Today Podcast, the
only podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in
scope. I'm your host Tony Ortiz and I appreciate you listening.
In this episode I am going to break down
(01:14):
watching and my little recap and review of the film Sinners
along with bunch of writing insights that I took away
from myself that I wanted to show my fellow writers and creatives out there
that you may find useful as well. I'm also going to share
about meeting and getting to see
comedian, writer, director, creative Mo
(01:35):
Amer live, which was a super dope experience.
Definitely stick around for that. And I'm also going to share some
recent podcast news that has been making headlines, so stick
around for that. Although I feel a bit rusty,
it definitely feels good to get back in the swing of things here with consistent
episodes moving forward. I let you guys know last time
(01:58):
why it took a bit of a hiatus, but yeah, it definitely feels good to
be back with you fine folks. So before we get into all that good
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Sinners is a film that debuted on
(03:25):
April 18, 2025 and I want to
shout him out right at the offset by writer
director Ryan Coogler. Definite,
definite shout out to him for such an
enjoyable experience on many levels that we will get into
shortly. And here's the official synopsis. Trying to leave
(03:48):
their troubled lives behind, twin brothers
return to their hometown to start again, only to discover
that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
And I think that little synopsis there definitely doesn't do the movie justice.
So let me flesh it out a little bit for you guys before I get
into all the how the Sausage was Made stuff and
(04:10):
writing insights that I want to share. So the twin brothers,
the Smokestack Twins, were played by Michael B. Jordan,
and throughout the film we find that they were gangsters in their
hometown of Mississippi that were both in the army together and
traveled the world during World War I. The film
takes place in Mississippi in the
(04:33):
early 1930s and they travel around the world as soldiers
and when they come back, settle in Chicago
and start running with Al Capone and his gang, allegedly. Then
ultimately when they return home to Mississippi, they have a
truckload of Italian wine and
Irish beer and a suitcase full of cash that they
(04:56):
intend to purchase a spot in in
Mississippi to turn into a juke joint or nightclub
with that inventory of liquor as their main source of what
it is that they can be selling, along with food, so on and so forth.
Now the troubled behind, the troubled past that they're leaving behind
is that in leaving Chicago,
(05:18):
we see news clippings of the Irish mob and Italian mobs
warring with each other. And it's set up in a way that
the Smokestack twins were essentially playing both
sides, rob them both, and in
doing so set them at odds with each other, with them thinking that
the other mob was the one that stole all their liquor and money.
(05:40):
And as they get back home, they are confronted
with dealing with their past, notably for
Smoke. His estranged wife Annie, played
by Wunmi Mosaku, was amazing.
And we find that they lost an infant child.
So we see him, you know, having to confront that grief and
(06:03):
part of him that he went away from. And then on
the side of Stack, most notably his love interest Mary,
played by Hailee Steinfeld, which was Also amazing
who he left behind, promised that he would return and clearly
never did until years later. And then a mix of a bunch
of other old friends and acquaintances,
(06:26):
which we meet throughout the movie and take them in with,
like, mixed reception, right? Because they were, like, notorious
in their hometown. So much so that folks are still, like, scared of just hearing
their names. But also had a handful of close folks that they ran with.
They then purchased the location. They had
this meeting set up with character by the name of Hogwood,
(06:50):
played by Dave Maldonado, that we later learned
was a grand wizard of the kkk on the low
spoiler alert. And he sells them this location for a bag of cash.
And one of my favorite lines in the movie, which I don't know why it
hit so hard, the smokestack twins are standing in front of the
place that they're going to buy. Hogwood is clearly late because Smoke
(07:13):
keeps looking at his clock and complaining, like, where is this guy? He shows
up nonchalantly. He asks them, are you
guys twins? And then Stack responds,
no, we cousins. Like, sarcastically and smiling
because obviously they're identical twins. And they wind up buying the place.
And they clearly tell Hogwood, you know, this is. Here's this
(07:36):
bag of cash. This is what we're paying for this in the property. Don't come
back here asking for more. Don't come back here with your KKK buddies. If we
ever see you guys across our property line, we're gonna shoot you. And then Hogwood
says, kkk, that doesn't even exist anymore. What are you guys talking about, you know,
playing at them? Then we find out later in the film, which I'll circle back
to with a bit more detail. But Hogwood has
(07:58):
been running the scam in selling this place to
black folks. Remember, this is 1930, 31
deep south Mississippi, well within the throes of the Jim Crow era.
A lot of tension, racist, racist tension going on. So
he's had this scam going on in that, you know, he sells it the same
place to some black folks. Then comes later that
(08:21):
night or the next day with his KKK buddies
to shoot and kill and hang them all. And then
they wash the place up, do it all over again. Now, the Smokestack twins
are obviously oblivious to this, but that's what Hogwood has going on.
Then, long story short, they wind up, you know, going
into town, meeting up with folks that they need to meet up with,
(08:44):
telling them their plan to open up this juke joint, which, again, is
essentially a nightclub. And this is. This is the business plan that they,
you know, came back to town with. And tonight's gonna be the grand opening. So
they're letting folks know in the town they are recruiting
talent for music playing folks to cook,
topple, making signage, so on and so forth. And then the story
(09:05):
culminates with that evening being a mix.
It culminates with three vampires.
Literal horror film, blood sucking
vampires. So not speaking metaphorically, although you can
look at it through the vantage point of race again
and pick up on the metaphor of the blood
(09:27):
and soul sucking vampires which happen to be white in the
film vers the the humans or the patrons
of the juke joint that evening, which were all black and how they eventually
all get turned. But these vampires find their way
into the juke joint, turn pretty much everybody that was there
and the rest of the night plays out in this
(09:50):
horror action film, fight for their lives
against all these vampires. So I think that fleshes out a little
bit. Although that two sentence synopsis that
I read for you guys earlier without giving away
too many spoilers, and I'll give you guys some additional details as
I go through some of the writing elements that I definitely want to share with
(10:13):
you guys. So first I want to speak of the origin
and inspirations for the film. Two of the main inspirations
were Ryan Coogler's uncle, who was a big blues
enthusiast and left Mississippi
for California back in the day. Another inspiration that he's
mentioned on multiple interviews was was the film From Dusk Till
(10:35):
Dawn. You can definitely see similar tones there.
So being partially inspired by his family, Coogler
infused his family history and musical heritage
into the script. The character, for example, by the name of
Sammy, played by Miles Catton, also amazing
breakout role for him, which plays the younger cousin of the
(10:58):
Smokestack twins, was named after Ryan Cooler's aunt
Sammy. And the legendary blues
singer Buddy Guy, which was one of his
uncle's favorites, actually plays the old man version of
Sammy that we see in the mid credits
post movie scene. And I just wanted to highlight a writing insight that
(11:19):
I definitely took away from that, which is using personal history
as creative fuel which then adds
authenticity and emotional depth to your characters.
I've definitely noticed that type of connection with my own writing
with feedback that I've gotten on stories or parts of stories
that folks have liked and also me just writing it and you know,
(11:42):
the level of satisfaction with myself after writing a story
that definitely has more personal history infused
into it. So adding that level of emotional depth
definitely helps to resonate the story and characters more.
Now, let's speak a little bit about music as a narrative device.
Because the score in the film was great. I definitely Shazammed a
(12:05):
song or two that added to my. My Go to playlist.
And for this film, Ryan Coogler partnered again with
Ludwig Goranson, which has been a longtime collaborator of his
since they met in film school at the
University of Southern California, AKA
usc. And they've collaborated on multiple films
(12:28):
from Fruitvale Station, Black Panther Creed
as well, if I'm not mistaken, which creates a unique
audio visual signature between the two. And I've seen a couple of
interviews with them both and you can see how fluid their friendship
is. And that chemistry bleeds back
onto what we take in as the audience and how
(12:49):
seamless that writing and directing matches up to
the scoring and music that plays such a significant role
in films in general. But definitely in this one. And I honestly never thought
of, like, that collaboration between, like, writer, director
and composer as much as I have with,
like, director and actor combos, which. Which I'll touch on later.
(13:13):
But it's absolutely an element that I appreciate much more now after
watching this film. And just for a bit, on Ludwig
Goranson, specifically, he's a
goat within his space. Even outside of
all the collaboration with Ryan Coogler and success that they've had together.
He did, for example, the score on the show
(13:36):
Community, starring Donald Glover. That was like his first, like, big show,
and more recently on Oppenheimer, the movie.
So that weight of his expertise and that, that range definitely
precedes him. And it's dope that he can play all instruments. He plays
guitar, bass, guitar, drums,
piano. He does vocals. And if you really want to geek out within
(13:59):
that vein, he works with a program called Digital
Performer, or at least he did in an interview that I saw when
he was doing the the Score four Community. I'm not sure if that's
still what he uses now, but that's definitely what he used then. And music
is so important in film, right? It's not just an aesthetic.
It helps to shape the mood, it drives the narrative, and
(14:21):
it acts as a character in the film, which
I've always heard said in many movies, but honestly, I personally
got that or understood that with this film. And it even
acts as like a spiritual force. For example, with there's
this voiceover in this great scene, this montage scene when the
(14:41):
juke joint is at its pinnacle of the night,
everybody's having a great time, singing, dancing, eating,
drinking. And there's this voiceover stating that
legend has it that Music. Music that's so good
has the ability to pierce the veil between the living
world and the dead world and between different periods
(15:03):
and times. And there's this Steadicam scene. I think
that's what it's called. Right. Like the handheld that goes around the room.
Nonetheless, there's this scene where we see different
historical and futuristic, or future, rather,
ancestors and future relatives of the folks that are
there also dancing and vibing out to their version
(15:25):
of that almost spiritual moment that each of the folks
are having there. And a writing insight that I took away from that is
to use music if, you know, in film and
screenwriting, but even in writing stories,
you know, short stories, books, novels, so on and so forth, which more so applies
to myself. You're not using music there necessarily,
(15:49):
unless you're writing in, like, background, like in an exposition way. Like
this is type of music that's playing in the background, which I guess we can
do. But for pros, you know, instead of using music using like
recurring motifs or ideas, not just for
style, but to support your theme, to support the tone of your
story, to support or show time shifts,
(16:10):
that's definitely a good application of that. Now let's talk a little bit about
character craft and dialogue. Because the performances
in. In this movie were the absolute heart of it. It
was great across the board. Let's start off with
Michael B. Jordan, which plays both Smoke and Stack.
(16:30):
They're the twin protagonists of the movie
and he absolutely knocks it out of the park. You
think you're seeing two different people and their brotherhood is. Is
layered. They have very different yet subtle
mannerisms and personalities. Smoke is calculated,
he's more business minded. Stack is more reactive
(16:53):
and led by his heart, or more emotional,
if you will. Smoke is also the protector. He's the worrier.
He's the one always looking after and thinking about Stack. And an
Easter egg for you guys that either haven't watched it or will re watch
it as I have for telling them apart, which I picked up on
on one of the breakdown videos that I'll definitely link to in the episode notes.
(17:16):
But a great way to tell them apart is that Stack is
usually wearing red. Something red. And he also smiles. So if
you see one of them smiling, odds, you know, throughout the whole film,
odds are, is that it's Stack and then Smoke. He's always
wearing blue and never smiles. Now, an interesting
dynamic that I wanted to point out as well, which ties to
(17:39):
that unique visual audio signature
that we spoke about earlier with Ryan Coogler, working consistently
with Ludwig Goranson is Ryan Coogler working
consistently with his star actor Michael B. Jordan.
So Coogler also directed Black Panther, where Michael B. Jordan
plays Killmonger. He directed Fruitvale Station, based on a true story,
(18:01):
also a great movie that I think I broke down on here years ago. But
I think that was their first collab together and also the Creed movies.
And in doing so they create this unique
collaborative signature that intermingles with
the written word and the theatrical expression
and ultimately what we see. And it made me think of other
(18:24):
great recurring director actor collabs like
Scorsese working with De niro and Leonardo DiCaprio
or Quentin Tarantino working with Samuel L. Jackson and
Christoph Waltz, for example. Now, Miles Catton,
I absolutely have to shout out. He plays Sammy Moore,
which again is the younger cousin and one of the main protagonists of the film.
(18:47):
And this was his very first acting gig. And
he is absolutely the breakout star of the film.
Not only did he act his ass off, but. But he's a really good singer.
Has been singing since he was a kid. And there's actually
a snippet of a video when he was really young
that went viral of him singing in the back of a car,
(19:09):
which I never saw at the time, but I found that that snippet of
him singing was used in the beginning of the
video montage to Jay Z's 444
music video is the very first clip of the
montage for that music video, which I thought was pretty dope.
And he's currently the background baritone vocalist
(19:32):
touring with Singer musician Her, which was the
person that actually convinced him to audition for this role.
Also, before auditioning for the role, he didn't play a lick of the
guitar and actually learned how to play it for the film. So it's not
like a double playing the guitar, it's actually him doing so.
Also, he's from Brooklyn, so Shout Out New York. Really dope and
(19:55):
excited to see what the future has in store for him.
Wunmi Musaku that I mentioned earlier, who plays Annie,
is the estranged wife of Smoke. She's
fantastic. She's kind of like the anchor and like the level
headed one in the movie. She has this.
She's also the spiritual influence in the movie. She
(20:16):
practices voodoo in the film, which as I
understand it, is like an offshoot of voodoo or vice
versa. But she's definitely into like her
spirituality and the other realm and definitely serves as the
spiritual guide throughout the movie. Especially when we get into the
intense vampire fighting scenes and stuff like that. Bo
(20:38):
and Grace Chow, played by
Yao and Li Jun Lee, respectively. They were
dope. They were the Asian American characters who were
known in that time, in the post slavery time. So the
Jim Crow south to there was a large Asian American,
Mexican American contingency brought in to the
(21:00):
states to replace the now illegal slave
labor because they were willing to work
for lesser wages and were also seen as not having
like a political power or political voice. And I'll get into a little bit
more of like the symbolism and subtext to their characters in a bit,
but just to round out a few of more of the actor shout outs
(21:23):
here, Hailee Steinfeld, which again plays Mary,
which is the love interest of Stack. Her backstory
is when she was younger, her mother took
in the Smokestack twins after their abusive father,
who we later find out Smoke wound up killing because he was. He was
abusing Stack and mostly and also him. She
(21:45):
took them in and raised them like her own. And Mary's white.
She's like 75% white. I think she said her
grandfather's mother or father was
black. She wasn't one of the, you know, KKK racist ones.
And she winds up being actually one of the first ones that were turned
(22:06):
by the three vampires that initially wanted to get in.
Delroy Lindo, which was part of like the comedic relief
and kind of more grounded and realism
characters, played the lifelong
musician and alcoholic Delta Slim.
I always remember him from his role in gone in 60 seconds in a line
(22:26):
that he says there when he catches Nicholas Cage, but then winds up letting him
go. So you that he understands why he came back. And he says his brother's
love is brother's love. And then last but certainly
not least, Jack o' Connell plays the head
vampire, Remic. He was also phenomenal.
So Orion also wrote in kind of this
(22:48):
backstory of this known ship
that washed up on shore in
Massachusetts. I forget if it was like the 1500s or 1600s or something
like that that was like full of blood and burned, but
no people on board. And it was a ship from Ireland. So
he kind of wrote it as what happened in that
(23:10):
ship all those hundreds of years ago was that this
Remic character, you know, killed everybody aboard that ship
and hasn't, you know, running around the Americas ever since.
One last thing that I wanted to say actually about the. The
dynamic of the twins is this scene that
definitely stood out to me with Smoke when he initially
(23:33):
goes into town looking for Beau and Grace
and he's driving the truck that has all the liquor in it. So he tells
this girl, this young girl that's there to guard the truck for
him, that he'll pay her 10 cents for every minute that's there.
And if anybody comes to the truck and tries to take something out of it,
just to ring the horn so it can come out. And it was like a
(23:54):
master class in subtle mentorship. Which also plays to
Smoke's dynamic in the film of being the
more, like, paternalistic of the brothers. The one that's always, like, looking out,
trying to, like, teach and show and help. And she's, like, super excited. She's like,
10 cents. Yeah, sure, I'll do it. And he's like, no, no, no, hold on
a second. You don't just say yes to the first number. And, you know, he
(24:15):
doesn't know this girl from a hole in the wall. He just sees her and
calls her over. He has this intimate moment with her and schools
her to, you know, not accept the first number. He's like,
we're talking numbers. And quote numbers always have to be
in conversation with each other, end quote. And I thought
that that line was dope. And then he's like, so when I say 10 cents,
(24:36):
you have to ask for more. And she's like, 25.
And then he says, 15, and that's my final offer. Or 20, and
that's my final offer. Something like that. And then she agrees. But
that very small scene shows how, like, these
details, even in tiny interactions like that, can reveal
character traits and continue to add on to
(24:58):
either the thematic message or how you're
layering your character. That's definitely a writing insight that I took away,
which was that little moments like that, you should let small
moments like even that bartering with the kid right there,
reflect the broader themes like empowerment and
mentorship or, you know, economic awareness that you
(25:20):
are intending to imbue within your character. It
doesn't all have to be, like, large, clear exposition.
It's actually even better if it's not, in my opinion, let people find
that kind of stuff. Now, let's speak to
symbolism and subtext in the movie. I really
liked how Coogler drew us in
(25:43):
to this world of the Jim Crow south, where racism and
systemic oppression are very prevalent throughout. But
it never felt forced. It was just part of the world.
And he sprinkled it in subtly, I thought, throughout the film
with scenes, for example, where we see the segregated
storefronts. So Beau and Grace,
(26:06):
which I mentioned earlier, they run two stores across the street from each other,
two grocery stores, and one is for the whites and one is for the
blacks. And looking deeper into that, you also
see the dynamic of what I touched on earlier with
Chinese Americans at the time being amongst the
immigrants that were brought in to sort of offset the lack
(26:29):
of having the free slave labor in the south and
how culturally they weren't fully accepted by either
side, blacks or whites, but also weren't fully
rejected either, which put them in a very unique situation to be able to
do things such as open up grocery stores and sell to
(26:49):
both sides. And he also showed it in the film
with scenes and shots with the sharecroppers who had quotas for
picking cotton and also chain gangs working on
the side of the road. And in particular, there's a scene where
he took on racism head on, where the twins pick
up their little cousin Sammy before the weekend
(27:12):
after, by the way, he's met his quota for picking
cotton by waking up early and working all morning. Sammy's this wide
eyed younger kid that looks up to his cousins,
torn between his love for music and playing the
blues and his father's take on
life and what he should be and what he shouldn't be. His father, who's a
(27:34):
preacher in a church, they pick up Sammy so he can be one of the
players in the juke joint that night. And on the way there,
Sammy's telling them and asking them to tell him
about Chicago. And he says, you know, tell me about
Chicago. I heard that there's no Jim Crow up there and that
black folks could just go wherever they want without any issues.
(27:56):
Again, speaking to the segregated South. And then one of the twins. I think
it was smoke, or maybe it was Stack, but I think it was smoke. You
know, more jaded by this point, by life and
experiences. He says, man, Chicago ain't nothing
but Mississippi with tall buildings instead of plantations. And
I thought that was the perfect encapsulation of how
(28:18):
Northern racism at the time was mirroring the South. And it just
showed how the oppression just doesn't change because of the setting, it
just changes form. This whole story, by the way, which leads to my
next writing insight, takes place within a 24 hour
period. Within one day. Yeah, it felt so like
layer and epic and like so much shit was going on. And the writing takeaway
(28:40):
that we can take from that is that tight frames, tight
time frames like that, they can enhance tension and
create a sense of urgency and really force characters into
like meaningful decisions quickly. Like
increases the pace of your story just has to. Because everything has
to happen within. Again, that tight time frame. And it was
(29:03):
crazy because it Felt like we got a whole movie
about family dynamics, about leaving home and then returning
to a place that you left, about confronting the past
about so much before we get the movie about the
vampires. And what was cool is how all the fantasy
elements, once we switch over to nighttime and vampires get
(29:25):
introduced, that whole fantasy element blended
with the real historical oppression. And the
vampires weren't just mythical creatures, but
metaphors for exploitation,
for surveillance, for control, systemic control.
So in that sense, their presence in the story, rooted in the
(29:47):
Jim Crow south, serves to magnify the horror
of the real historical injustices. And by
layering the supernatural element over
authentic historical drama, Ryan Coogler elevated the genre.
So he wound up using horror and fantasy not to escape that
history or take away from it, but to confront it and reframe
(30:10):
it. And that's definitely part of what made the film so great. Now,
one of the final scenes of the movie, because it felt like the movie ended
a couple different times or could have and would have been awesome, is this
Tommy Gun climax scene that I'm sure you saw, like, in the
trailers with Michael B. Jordan shooting atomicun, like, the
camera facing at him. So we learn from
(30:32):
Remic, the head vampire, when he's, like, negotiating with
Smoke and Annie and Delta Slim and everybody and Grace,
everybody who's still inside the juke joint. After
the vampires penetrated by using Mary, which went
out to speak to the vampires, who I didn't mention, but they tried to get
into the juke joint, they wind up getting turned away. You know,
(30:55):
the three white people. The juke joint was for, like, all the black folks to,
like, unwind. And they're like, you know, we're not down with that racist stuff.
You know, let us in. And, you know, vampires in. You know,
mythologically speaking, they have to be invited in order to get in,
right? They can't just, like, go in into a place, into your home, into
an establishment. You literally have to invite them in. So
(31:17):
part of Remick, you know, trying to negotiate his way in after,
you know, everybody knows what's going on. They know that they turned a whole bunch
of people that. That left the juke joint and are not
vampires. And there's only a handful of them left inside. Remic reveals how
every time he turns someone, like, he has, like, all their memories and all their
thoughts and. And everything, so that he tells
(31:39):
Smoke that the guy who sold them Hogwood, the guy
who sold them the juke joint, just plans to come back in the morning with
his KKK buddies and kill everybody. And that's where he gets
put on to the fact that it's this ongoing scam that Hogwood
has had going. So after the long night and the battle with the
vampires ensues, there's this really dope scene
(32:00):
with Michael B. Jordan, who has, you know, they
prepped for their night just in case they needed weaponry. So they have
like a Tommy gun, a bunch of handguns, grenades, a
bunch of ammunition. And he pretty much sets up
the Hogwart and his boys that come back, his KKK boys
that come back to get into the juke joint to like kill
(32:22):
everybody and light everybody up. And they try to get into the place, it's
closed. And then Michael B. Jordan comes out from behind
them and just mows them all down, shooting them
with his handguns, then winds up pulling out the Tommy gun and just has that
really dope, cathartic scene where after everything that he's been
through throughout the whole night, losing his brother staff to the vampires,
(32:44):
losing his wife, who he himself had to kill before she turned into
a vampire because that's what he promised her. When, you know, right before the battle
started with the vampires, just like unloads and takes it out on each and every
one of the KKK folks, fucking gets every last one of them,
uses the grenades. It's like a dope gunfight
scene. And it was like a form of like cathartic violent
(33:06):
justice. And a definite writing insight to take away from
that is that genre moments like that, like gunfights, they can carry
symbolic weight when it's earned through the character's
motivation and thematic buildup. There's
this other Easter egg that I wanted to leave you all with before I wrap
things up, which ties to Omar Benson Miller's
(33:27):
character, Kornbread, which was also a standout role in the
film. Be kind to one another. If you know, you know,
there's a scene when Remic has like all the vampires
that are turned at this point dancing outside to this
old timey Irish music. And something that I
noticed, which maybe it's just my own
(33:49):
projection, because every time I see Omar Benson Miller, I think of his
role in 8 Mile. But in that scene he's like
dancing with his hands in the air. I felt like it was an homage to
that scene in 8 Mile when they're like in a
cipher and he does that 10 freaky
girls, like, rap and dance,
(34:20):
that one. He winds up dancing the same way while he's doing like the.
The vampire dance in this movie. If intentional, I thought that was
dope, if not intentional. I still think it's dope and actually
take a writing insight from that, which is that when you layer
in references, even if you don't explain them, or especially
probably if you don't explain them, that rewards like really
(34:43):
close viewing or close reading people and it
deepens the world that you're building without the need
for the exposition. And in closing, just to wrap things up, I
wanted to say that Hoogler's stated goal with this movie was
to create a movie that people enjoy and are entertained
by, and I thought he did so on multiple levels,
(35:05):
regardless of how deeply you chose to analyze it.
Sinners was entertaining, it was genre mixing,
it was deeply layered with historical and emotional and
spiritual aspects to it, and I think his writing is
a masterclass in how to blend personal stories
with social themes and different genre devices
(35:30):
to reach broad audiences without the need to sacrifice
the depth and to my listeners out there, let me know in the comments
what character, moment or scene resonated most with you.
To my fellow writers out there, what personal truths or
cultural memories are you sitting on that could become
story fuel for whatever it is that you're working on? And like I mentioned
(35:53):
earlier, I'll also link in the episode notes to other
breakdowns like Jessica Clemens from New Rockstars,
a few Easter egg videos, and some great interviews that I watched
in preparation. This little recap and review Sinners is
a definite must watch. It's a breath of fresh air to the
movie industry in its originality and scope,
(36:15):
so definitely check it out in theaters if you still can, is definitely coming to
a streamer near you.
Getting to see and meet comedian,
writer, director Mo Amer
on his El Oso Palestino tour at town Hall
Theater, May 10, 2025. What
(36:38):
a dope experience. So I've been a Mohamer fan for
years, way before his Netflix show. I'm pretty sure I
learned about him just being a fan of stand up comedy.
And the way I remember it, it was those old
Ice House Chronicle podcasts for my podcast fan
OGs out there that Rogan and Brian Redband used
(37:01):
to do, and I remember them mentioning him as one of
those like great up and coming comics that frequent the Comedy
Store, so on and so forth. That's how I believe
I came to know who he was, but nonetheless was a fan of
his after seeing him on a few podcasts, checking out his
comedy specials. So I was really excited when he got his Netflix show
(37:24):
titled Mo, which I broke down the first season in
a prior episode of the sponsored podcast so you guys can
go check that out. And I definitely will be breaking down
season two, which aired earlier this year, probably
in the next episode of the Spot Today podcast. So definitely look out for
that. And my wife is also a fan. She loved the show as well.
(37:46):
So I copped these tickets once I found out he was going to be in
New York a few months back. And I got, which I
highly recommend, the meet and greet tickets.
It's like, the first couple rows. It costs extra, obviously,
but if you're a fan, it's definitely a dope experience
and folks can get seats within the first couple rows. And
(38:08):
it's like part of, like, the VIP meet and greet package.
Actually, the first time I was going to do that was
with Mark Norman tickets, and I bought
them way in advance. And then it coincided with
one of my wife's surgeries from last year. Like, she had surgery
like, a day or two before. That's why I wound up having to sell those
(38:31):
tickets, which was a bummer, but actually got more
than what I paid for them on the secondary market there. But,
yeah, I recommend going that route while you can, you know, for,
you know, a comic or someone that you're a fan of.
Anyway, so I caught these tickets months in advance. Day comes, my wife
and I are heading out there. I put the address of
(38:54):
parking garage that I booked tickets for or a spot in, rather
reserved a spot in, in advance. And it's taking
almost double the time, according to the GPS to get there.
It should take like an hour, like, from Queens to the city, 45 minutes to
an hour. It was taking like an hour and a half plus. Then I would
switch the address to the address of the theater
(39:15):
on the gps and the time it would take to get there
changed to, like, the 45 minutes to an hour that I expected.
And mind you, the parking garage was like, two
blocks away, literally. So I'm like, what the fuck? So then I just put
the address to the theater. I did it a couple times. I thought it was
just like, wigging out or something. And then I just wound up putting the address
(39:36):
to the theater. And I said, you know, when we get closer by, I'll switch
it. And, you know, maybe it's some sort of accident or I don't know
what. So we get close to there, and then we find out there's, like this
San Gennaro festival, or I don't know if it was that one, but one of
those festivals in the city where they closed down, like a full
avenue. And it was literally right around the theater, which
(39:56):
is Town hall theater, which is right around Times Square. So it's already a
packed busy area. And my
parking garage that I had booked was on the other side of that.
Hence why I was taking so fucking long just to go around
that, like, Street Avenue closed
Festival. So I'm like flipping out internally, like, fuck, fuck, we're
(40:19):
gonna be late now. What if they don't see this? And, you know, we don't
want to walk in on the middle of the show and, like, miss things and,
like, stressing out, you know, trying to get to the. To the freaking parking lot
garage, contemplating just parking at another one and taking the hit on
the spot that I reserved, but I couldn't find, like, any other ones.
And there was one point where there was like a. Those like,
(40:41):
crossing guard cops. And he was directing traffic.
And then I was making a right because they were allowing
the cars that were already on the avenue to keep going on the avenue,
but the cars that were on the street, which is where I was
to. They would have to continue going straight. But my parking garage was
literally to the right hand side on that block. So
(41:04):
when he was like directing traffic a little further up, I tried making a right.
And he comes running screaming, hey, hey, no,
no. Jumps in front of the car. And he's like, go straight, go
straight. Screaming at me at the top of his lungs. And then I'm like, but
my parking garage is right there. I need to park right there. And he
looks at me, I shit you not. At the top of his lungs, and just
(41:26):
says, then call Donald Trump. You gotta call Donald
Trump right now. I was like,
taken. I was so taken back and my wife
too. We were like. I was like, what? Call down.
Fuck does he mean, call Donald Trump? He's like, but
I was like, I just gotta park right there. Have a spot there.
(41:49):
And I'm trying to, like, communicate this to him. And he's like, no,
call Donald Trump. You gotta call Donald Trump. And I'm like, what the
fuck is he talking about? And then I look at two other cops,
like legit NYPD in full, you know, NYPD uniform look
like a Spanish girl, A Spanish, Spanish dude. And
I'm like. I look at them kind of like as like a saving grace. And
(42:11):
I'm kind of like, I gotta park right there. And. And the female cop
looks at me with the look of, you know what my thing is? They were
like, sorry, this dude was, like, irate.
And then at that point I just started laughing. I was like, can I call
Kamala Also like, I don't know what, like, I didn't even know how to like
interpret what the it was that he was meaning by you need to call Donald
(42:32):
Trump. So whatever. I wind up going straight,
then having to go like three avenues down. I think it was to be able
to make a right turn to then make another right turn to go. Then the
extra 20 minutes that it took or, or,
or more to get to our parking garage eventually.
So. And we're already a few minutes late. I'm like speeding
(42:55):
as fast as I could. And we're speed walking to the, to the theater
and going in right next to the theater. I see Sypha Sounds there, which I
recognized because when I went to the
Burke Kreischer Comedy Festival that he had in Forest Park
Theater, which I broke down here on the podcast the
previous episode. Sypha Sounds was the DJ for that show
(43:17):
and also does like a little stand up. You know, he hosts the event.
I saw him there and I was like, oh, cyph. I literally worked right. I
walked right by him. Could have given him £. I don't know why I didn't.
I was just like, oh shit. And kept walking because again,
I'm trying to get to inside. Then once I saw him outside,
I was like, he must be here, like to the same capacity I would imagine,
(43:37):
unless he's, you know, just here as a fan. But I figured he would be
hosting, which I didn't know before, and go
in and the theater's almost completely empty. I was like,
oh, so everybody's dealing with this like
traffic shit. So then at that point I was like, much more like,
all right, good, good. So the show starts a bit late
(43:59):
and the whole time I'm thinking I was like, yo, I hope this shit like
fills up. Because it was like empty, empty. And it was like way
past, you know, supposed to start at 8 or 7:30. And I think
it was like 8, 8 something. But then of course the show got
completely, completely packed, sold out and starts.
Cypher Sounds hosts. He's hilarious. And then
(44:19):
we have a writer from the Daily show, comedian,
or comedian slash writer from the Daily Show, Dina Hashem,
who opens up the show. She was hilarious. Then Hannibal Buress,
which I've been following for years, a fan of, definitely from, from
podcasts and stuff like that. We got to see him, the comic out of
Chicago. He comes out next. Then after that, Hasan
(44:42):
Minaj comes out where? Which we were like, what?
Holy shit. Definitely been a fan of his for years. You know,
huge comic. Was also on the Daily show has had his
own Netflix show. You know, a bunch of different standup
specials. Himself, great comic himself. And then a sypha sounds
comes on, and he says, you know, we got one more person before.
(45:03):
Before we bring out your boy Mo. Is it this. This guy
from Jersey? Let's just hear him out, and then we'll bring out your boy Mo.
So everybody's like, yeah, let's ago. And he
pretends he doesn't know how to pronounce his name. He goes, the guy's name is
John Stewart. And
Jon Stewart comes out. How sick is that? Jon
(45:26):
Stewart of the Daily show, comedian Jon Stewart, and of
countless movies. And we're right there, literally second row
from the stage the entire time. It was
so dope. And to boot, by the way, like, the whole time we were waiting
before, like, for the show to start. Like, after we did get there and get
to our seats, and we're, you know, waiting for the. The crowd to fill up,
(45:46):
for the venue to fill up, rather. There was, like, the sweetest lady and her
daughter next to us that was, like, I'm, like, kind of introverted, but,
like, she drove, like, the conversation. And me and my wife were both talking to
her, learned all about, like, her life. Her daughter's gonna go to NYU and this
and that. So that was just, like, a bonus. That was, like, super cool. We
actually felt bad afterwards. We didn't, like, get to say bye or anything like
(46:08):
that because folks kind of, like, split up. Once we got to, like, the vip,
then we, like, lost track of where she was at. She was super cool. And
then, of course, the cherry on top. Then Moe
finally comes out. The crowd loses their shit. He has a killer
set. We had such an enjoyable show. And
then since we. We have that VIP meet and greet package,
(46:31):
they tell you after, you know, they send you instructions, and after the show,
let the crowd to clear out. Just wait. Wait in your seats. And then
somebody's gonna come to usher us to wherever they're gonna do the meet and greet
at, which is in their. The comics, like, green room area.
So we wait a bit, probably like, 10, 15 minutes for everything to clear. And
at this point, there's another. Another show after hours. So since the show started late,
(46:53):
we're all like, are they still gonna do the meet and greet or, you know,
what's gonna happen? But testament to Timon and his team, it
definitely still had the meet and greet. Somebody came to get us, takes us to
the green room, which was, like, a really cool layout. So
kudos to the Town hall theater for that. And, you know,
everybody lines up. Mo comes into the room, and
(47:16):
at this point, somebody came around to like, unlock because
all the phones are in the yonder bags. They unlock it, we get our phones.
And then part of his team pretty much we give
them our phone when it's our turn to, like, say, what's up to
Mo? And take a picture. They take the picture for us to take a few
different pictures, show it to us, make sure we like it. And that's
(47:37):
essentially the meet and greet. And his staff is like, super friendly,
super nice. Again, I was expecting them to be kind of like rushing us and
a little pushy because, you know, they got to get the next show started.
But it was none of that at all. Like, super
patient with everybody that was there. My only regret is that
I didn't say two things that in retrospect
(48:00):
I would have wanted to. The first of which would be
to ask him for, like, a
book or doc or movie recommendation for
writers to see if he had any insight or something he could put me onto
there. And the second thing, which I thought of after the fact, was to
share the fact that, you know, because most of his audience is largely,
(48:22):
well, it was definitely a mixed crowd, but you have a lot of
Arabs, you know, that was like his core audience. But I wanted
to share and I was too much of a pussy to. To
do so, and also didn't want to be that guy holding up the line, you
know, trying to, you know, talk to him and keep people waiting and shit.
But I'll speak it into the universe just in case it
(48:44):
somehow reaches him one day. But I wanted to say that
my wife and I are first generation Dominicans, and
his show Mo, which is available on Netflix,
completely spoke to us and our experience. And
I just wanted to say kudos to him for creating something
that was so unique to his life and his experience,
(49:09):
yet universal enough at the same time that it resonates
with folks that aren't from the Palestinian experience.
So hats off to Mo. Definitely had a great, great
experience. If you have the chance, definitely check him out. You will definitely not
be disappointed. And if you're not able to, for whatever reason, see him in person,
he has a couple, I think two, maybe even three
(49:32):
specials on Netflix, and of course his series Mo.
Definitely check them out.
Podcast news. Podcast news. I wanted to share
that Marc Maron, one of the podcast ogs, one of the
podcast goats, is going to end the
WTF podcast after 16 plus
(49:55):
years and 1600 plus episodes.
Yes, I said that correctly 1600 plus plus episodes
he announced recently on a recent episode and got
picked up by my median is a bunch of headlines and articles,
a couple of which I will link to in the episode notes in case you
guys want to check them out in their entirety. But he announced that he
(50:17):
was going to end the show and just being burnt out while
also being completely satisfied with the work that he's done over the years.
Personally, I think he will come back after some R and
R. He even mentioned that, you know, it doesn't mean it's the last
time he's gonna be on a podcast. Or maybe he in the future might
redo some sort of like interview style show.
(50:41):
So personally I do think that he'll come back in the future and but if
he doesn't obviously teach their own and I hope he does
get the rest and relaxation that you may be looking for. And
Marin started his podcast back in 2009
according to a Guardian article,
after his radio show which was on
(51:02):
Air America had been canceled and he actually wound up using
the studio of that radio show to record his very first
episode of the WTF pod, which
he went on obviously to put out and then continue
for his 16 year run. And he wound up building
his own studio in his garage, famously where his
(51:25):
podcast studio is to this day. And he's definitely an OG in space.
He's one of the pioneers in
podcasting. When I think about the the podcasting OGs, I
think of Rogan, I think of Marc Maron, and I think
of Adam Carolla, all of which started around that same time in 2009.
And although there's like this bitter
(51:47):
angst to Marin, at least that's how I he's always
like come off to me like personality wise. I always liked his
interview style and his perspective in interviews. They're very
intimate and conversational and he would always lean
introspective, which I appreciate. He was also the first
podcaster to have a sitting president on a podcast.
(52:10):
Hit Obama back in the day, which literally went to his garage
again where he has his podcast. And
that just gave I remember at the time a
sitting president going on a podcast was just like put like
the stamp of legitimacy approval on
podcasts, which was then still like this little niche weird thing that
(52:32):
nobody listened to or not nobody, but that only
like cult followers listen to. So that was like really dope and it was a
great episode. One more recently Mohammer was on
which I spoke about earlier and I actually featured
as my podcast of the week in my
newsletter where I've featured in the past a bunch of different
(52:54):
WTF episodes, notably Ron Howard's episode,
Pete Davidson's episode, TA Nehisi Coates, and a
bunch more. And if you're listening and thinking, hey,
that sounds like a dope newsletter, great podcast recommendations. Where can I get
that? And then you can subscribe to my free
newsletter@spunter.com
(53:17):
subscribe Ryan Coogler was actually on as well,
but I actually haven't heard that episode yet, so definitely going to go check that
one out. But yeah, he's going to air the final episode, he says
sometime this fall, this year 2025. So have a few
more months of new episodes and a shitload of
back catalog that fans can definitely listen to in
(53:39):
the future. But shout out to Mark Marin and the
WTF podcast, Definitely one of the goats.
And that folks was episode 284 of the Sponsor
Day Podcast. Thank you very, very much for taking the time to
listen. I really appreciate it. I felt a bit rusty this episode, to be honest.
(54:00):
Getting back in the swing of things, I'm definitely aiming to continuing
to keep it consistent for the rest of this year. Moving forward.
My fellow writers and creatives out there, hopefully you are
able to glean something from it, specifically with
the writing insights that I pick up on when watching
shows or movies, so on and so forth that I share on here. Or maybe
(54:22):
it'll just pique your interest to want to watch something that I speak about.
Hopefully others are at least entertained by some of the content or at
the very least just helps you pass the time while you're at work
or driving or at the gym or whatever it is that you are doing when
you listen. Thanks again to each and every one of you for taking the time
to listen and I will check you guys out next time. Please stick around
(54:44):
for a couple of. Minutes so you can hear a bunch of different ways you
can help support this show if you so choose. I'd really, really
appreciate it. Peace.
What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today
podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a
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(55:06):
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(01:00:17):
I love you Aiden. I love you Daddy.
I love you Grayson.
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