#278 – Unveiling Themes and Characters in The Penguin Series and Perfect Days as well as a GOATs doing GOAT $hit Addition
Welcome to Episode 278 of the Spun Today podcast! I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and if you're into writing, creativity, and uncovering layers of storytelling, then you're in for a real treat. In today's episode, we dive deep into three captivating segments that will both entertain and enlighten you.
First off, we're breaking down the fascinating HBO series "The Penguin," exploring the character arcs, narrative devices, and key writing takeaways that make this gritty crime drama a standout. Then we turn our attention to "Perfect Days," a beautiful slice-of-life film that examines the routines and hidden depths of a seemingly simple life. Last but not least, we celebrate another inductee into our Spun Today "Goats Doing Goat Shit" list, spotlighting the remarkable achievements of businessman and philanthropist Charlie Munger.
Whether you're an aspiring writer or just love dissecting the craft of storytelling, we've got something for you. Stick around to learn, get inspired, and maybe even pick up a few tips to enhance your own creative journey. Thanks for tuning in, and let's get started!
The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.
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Links referenced in this episode:
The Penguin: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15435876/
Perfect Days: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27503384/
Chris Stuckmann’s The Best Movies of 2024: https://youtu.be/oCZM6UoZdOQ?si=mYrpJPYKI03Hkseq
Charlie Munger: How to Make Your First $1 Million (5 Steps): https://youtu.be/Jj9DNvGc_lY?si=9foCWblZAzVie5iT
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TRANSCRIPT
Tony Ortiz [00:00:00]:
That scene in and of itself. It like underscores his moral descent into just pure evil. And it also highlights a common writing trope and narrative narrative convention that we often see in the the stories of villains, which is them severing all the personal ties that they have, severing those ties and it becoming a turning point for them to become the absolute worst versions of themselves.
Tony Ortiz [00:00:46]:
What's going on folks? 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. This is episode 278 of the Spun Today Podcast and in this episode I'm going to break down watching the Penguin series. I'm also going to share about watching a beautiful little slice of life film by the name of Perfect Days. And last but certainly not least, I am going to add yet another inductee into the Spun Today Goats Doing Goat Shit list. Stick around to find out who made the cut this time. But before we get into all that good stuff, as always, wanted to give you all a profound thank you for taking the time to listen to this show. I hope you're enjoying it as much as I enjoy putting it out, and at the very least hope it helps you pass some time throughout your busy days.
Tony Ortiz [00:01:46]:
Your support means a ton. It's definitely motivating for me and helps to keep the lights on here at the proverbial Spun Today Studios. If you'd like to support the Spontane podcast, here is one quick way that you can do just that, and then we'll jump right into the episode.
Tony Ortiz [00:02:06]:
Another great way for you to help support the show and also take care of your foundational health is by going to spontane.com support and clicking on my affiliate link for Athletic Greens, aka AG1. One scoop of AG1 in your water helps to fill nutrient gaps, promote gut health, and support whole body vitality. Just One serving delivers a comprehensive blend of nine products, a multivitamin, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, adaptogens, and more, all of which work together for the strongest foundation for better health. I personally take AG1 and really appreciate the peace of mind of knowing that my foundational health bases are covered even when I know I'm not eating as healthily as I should be. Also, by using my affiliate link@ sponsaid.com support you will get one free year of vitamin D3 as well as five AG1 travel packs absolutely for free. Again, go to spontane.com support and click on the banner for AG1.
Tony Ortiz [00:03:12]:
The Penguin I'm going to tell you guys all about this amazing series. I'm going to share my favorite takeaways in terms of like, dialogue and scenes and background to the creation of the show itself, and also break down certain writing devices used within the series as a takeaway to my fellow writers out there.
Tony Ortiz [00:03:30]:
Spoiler alert.
Tony Ortiz [00:03:31]:
There will be spoilers. So if you haven't watched the series, which I highly recommend that you do, and you're not into spoilers, definitely skip past this segment. But if you've watched the series or if you don't mind spoilers, please stick around so the Penguin is an HBO original series that was released in 2024 and as we like to do here in the Spun Today podcast, I would like to first and foremost shout out the writers. The character of the Penguin was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. This show specifically was created, developed and written by Lauren Lefranc, with additional writing credits going to and apologies in advance for butchering anyone's name. Vladimir Gibson, Erica L. Johnson, John McCutcheon, Shea Agbona, Nick Town, and Noel Valdivia. Shout out to each and every one of the writers that put this series together.
Tony Ortiz [00:04:35]:
And here's the official synopsis. Following the events of the Batman, which is the film that was released in 2022, Oz Cobb, aka the Penguin, makes a play to seize the reins of the crime world in Gotham. Now, very interestingly, which I feel sets the tone for the show, the Penguin, which we all know as one of the iconic villain characters within the Batman universe, this takes place within that same world of the Batman, specifically the Batman film where Robert Pattinson played Batman. It's that specific Penguin character, that same character. And the series actually picks up, I believe like two weeks after where the film ended. But very interestingly, there's only two mentions of Batman throughout this entire series. In the very, very beginning, we hear a mention of him during a news reporting that's speaking to a terrorist attack orchestrated by the Riddler where bridges and tunnels and dams were exploded and very large flooding ensued. And there's one mention of Batman there helping to rescue folks that are that are in need.
Tony Ortiz [00:05:46]:
Then at the very, very very end, before the series or the season fades to black, there is a bat signal shown in the sky. Besides that, everything in between zero to do with Batman, which by the way, I am personally a fan of. But it was really cool to see them take this direction and not rely on that iconic character Batman to kind of like lift the show. And it made it like something else completely Entirely. And you've probably heard it referred to and compared to, for example, shows like the Sopranos. And it's definitely more leaning in the direction of that type of show than a superhero show or film because it has to do with this, you know, organized crime underbelly of Gotham City. And it's really cool to explore that world from, from that vantage point. So first, I want to touch on a couple of themes that we see throughout the show.
Tony Ortiz [00:06:51]:
Privilege versus hunger is a throughline theme in the show. We have the contrast of the Falcones, which are the number one, two, depending on the episode, throughout the series. Organized crime family in Gotham, the ones that are quote, unquote, born full. And then you have characters like Oz who fought their way and scrapped their way up to and for everything that they have. So on one side you have the privileged side, you have the mob families, which are at the top of, again, this organized crime world, the Falcones, the Moronis. But you also have within that group of the privileged, the crooked cops that are on the take, the corrupted politicians and folks like that. Then on the flip side, characters like Oz, AKA the Penguin, Vic, which we'll learn more about later, Squid, and all the smaller gangs and cliques, which are the underlings of those powerful mob families, but the ones that are like nickeling and diming. And also on the hunger side of that equation, you have poor civilians which are, you know, just trying to live their lives in these crime ridden neighborhoods, the folks that are addicted to the drugs being sold, so on and so forth.
Tony Ortiz [00:08:12]:
And this dynamic shapes and motivates the actions of each of the characters that we get to know where the privilege, for example, take a blind eye to the people that they addict with their drugs and turn a blind eye to the people that die due to the related violence associated with them and, and their criminal enterprises. Because to them it's just a bottom line profit motive thing, right? And that profit and accumulation of it is what allows them to hold on to their privileged lifestyles. Then on the flip side, you have the have nots, if you will, which are driven by the hunger to become part of that privileged group. And they're willing to do anything and everything to get to that level, including lying and cheating and stealing and murder. Key takeaway for my fellow writers out there related to this theme is that as writers, we can craft compelling disparities like this between groups of folks with varying levels of privilege to heighten the conflict and deepen the characters that we create. A dope line that I want to share from the series is relating to this theme is when Oz Cobb, speaking with Vic, tells him that in relation to the Falcones, you know, kind of like badmouthing them behind their back, says that they don't even know what they got because they always had it. Never hungry, Born full. Another theme we see play out throughout the series is family and legacy.
Tony Ortiz [00:09:45]:
And we see a lot of different family dynamics throughout the series and start to learn how each of those dynamics influence the characters and their respective character arcs. For some, family is an anchor, a sense of strength, and for others, it becomes a weakness. And you'll see as the series goes on how that dynamic even switches within characters themselves. For example, the character of Oz, AKA Oz Cobb, AKA Oswald Cobb, AKA the Penguin, which is our main character of the series, he has a really strained but loving, caring relationship with his mother, his mother, Francis Cobb, played by Deidre O'Connell. And it's in the sense that he looks after her. She's older, and we see that she. She's ill, she's on a lot of medications, she has some sort of dementia going on, and he's. She, rather, is the only person that he's, like, really soft with.
Tony Ortiz [00:10:49]:
And we also realized very early on that he's motivated by a desperate need for her approval. And he uses that approval as, like, a strength to drive his ambition. And we see that play out in a myriad of different ways throughout the series. And later, we're going to see how that relationship in and of itself is rooted in a deep betrayal. Kevin Bray, who directed episodes 106 and 107, he highlights this juxtaposition within the character of Oz of how despicable of a person Oz is, contrasted with how soft and caring he is with his mom. Now, another character in the series who definitely explores this theme of, like, family and legacy is Sophia Falcone, played by Kristen Melody. And on the flip side, Sophia grew up idolizing her family and putting them up on a pedestal. And she was desperately seeking her father's approval, and she really wanted to be seen as an equal.
Tony Ortiz [00:11:48]:
Her father, Carmine Falcone, played by Mark Strong, was the head of the Falcone family, and he has two kids that we know of. Alberto Falcone, played by Michael Zegan, who is the heir, apparently, to take over the family in his father's absence. But we later find that he's a bit of a loser. And Sophia. But Sophia is the one that's sharp. She's the one that could lead the family forward into the future, but she's a female and that's not how things work in the mob. So she's both seeking her father's approval while at the same time trying to overcome this, you know, customary hurdle of the male son is the one that takes over the family business. But this whole family dynamic that she has completely gets flipped on its head when she's betrayed by her father and the family after uncovering something unfavorable about her props.
Tony Ortiz [00:12:44]:
And he uses his influence and crooked controls to get her arrested and sentenced to Arkham insane asylum and ultimately frames her for the murder of like nine or 11 women that he himself seems to have killed. And now her yearning, like, for the family and to be loved by the family and seen as like a strong, strong enough figure to take over the family business, that yearning for family becomes a weakness for her. And ultimately what she wants is nothing to do with her family and just to burn the entire legacy to the ground. And that's what her character, from this perspective of family and legacy theme wrestles.
Tony Ortiz [00:13:30]:
With throughout the series.
Tony Ortiz [00:13:32]:
And we also see throughout the series how both Oz, Sophia and other characters that we're going to meet are layered characters throughout the series, meaning they're not two dimensional characters, you know, like, I'm possessed by the devil and just want to do evil for evil's sake type characters. Each of them exhibit traits of humanity and also ruthlessness. They show love and also complete callous disregard for life. And these type of gray characters, morally gray characters, are the ones that resonate most with audiences. So that's definitely a takeaway for my.
Tony Ortiz [00:14:09]:
Fellow writers out there.
Tony Ortiz [00:14:10]:
So a little bit more about Oz, our main character, let's speak about his characterization through action or his. The representation of his character. So most characters are going to have an internal want or need versus an external want or need. Oz's internal desire is validation mainly from his mother, but also from the higher ups within the organization, his peers. He wants to be loved and respected. His external drive is to become the kingpin and just take over everything, which in and of itself is in contrast to that internal desire of validation and being loved and stuff like that. Because he has to be, you know, a ruthless, don't give a fuck who's in my way type of person to become the kingpin. And that definitely helps to layer the character.
Tony Ortiz [00:14:58]:
And that need for validation that he has definitely makes him more relatable as a character. Now, a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there is that we can learn how to create more complex characters by introducing this type of internal versus external Conflict and use those to help drive our characters decisions within the stories that we create.
Tony Ortiz [00:15:21]:
So Oz is part of the Falcones, right?
Tony Ortiz [00:15:23]:
He's a worker, he's not family, and he's not a made man. He starts off actually as Sophia's driver, but he has this underlying ambition, this external drive to take over it all. And early on, we get a glimpse of how duplicitous and unhinged he can be. For as calculated as we learned that he is when very early on he winds up killing Albert Falcone in like, a fit of rage, which is again, the heir apparent who is about to take over the family after his father's assassination. And episode after episode throughout the series, we see how Oz begins to rise and take over things by joining up and then double crossing anyone and everyone that'll work with him on anything. But also by manipulating the smaller gangs that were always stuck in. In fighting and positioning them against the Moronis when it was convenient for him, and then the Falcones when it was convenient for him. And kind of playing like this double agent role within this criminal underbelly to sort of divide and conquer.
Tony Ortiz [00:16:33]:
This is a crazy scene, actually, where he goes to visit Salvatore Maroney, played by Clancy Brown, who's in prison and the head of the Maroni crime family. And he does his little, like, teaming up and manipulation there. Winds up setting up for him to get shanked in prison, and then on the outside, burns his wife and son alive when they have this, like, drug trade gone awry and just does so with. With this, like, dead behind the eyes look and smirk on his face. But that's a little bit about how we see his internal verse, external desires.
Tony Ortiz [00:17:08]:
At play throughout the series.
Tony Ortiz [00:17:10]:
Now flipping back to Sophia. So she goes to Arkham Asylum. She's there for, I want to say, 10 years or so. She comes back out and she has been obviously betrayed by her entire family. Her father's now dead. Her brother was the only one that, you know, visited her while she was in there. You know, didn't know about how the father was gonna frame her and kind of like stuck, stood by her. So she trusted the brother, but everyone else in the family turned their back on her and all see her as this, like, batshit crazy serial killer, essentially, that killed, you know, allegedly seven or nine people.
Tony Ortiz [00:17:49]:
Now when she's back, she finds out that the. Her uncle assumed the role of head of the family because again, the. The father was assassinated and the brother was killed. Alberto, although she doesn't know that. Nobody knows that. They just Think he's MIA because, again, he was a bit of a loser. He was on drugs. The only one that knows that he's dead is Oz at this point.
Tony Ortiz [00:18:12]:
And also Vic, which I'll circle back to in a bit. But she comes out, you know, she has this chip on her shoulder. She's, you know, playing nice with everyone, but at the same time, can't wait to give them all a you. She's kind of sort of feeling out who she can trust, who she can't, while also feeling that that position of running the family is rightfully hers. Because that's another thing before the whole framing thing. And when the. The father turned his back on her, he actually told her that he was considering not letting the son take over and instead putting her in charge, even though it goes against, like, all the customs and stuff like that, but that he's powerful enough to make it happen and that he knows that she's the rightful heir to the throne. So one of the alliances that she made early on was with Oz, her ex driver, who also was the person that knowingly or unknowingly at the time, betrayed her by telling her father, his boss, that Sophia, you know, learned about some of these murders and was speaking to a reporter about it, which is why the father turned his back on her, essentially.
Tony Ortiz [00:19:16]:
But they formed this, you know, little trepidatious type of alliance. Trepidatious?
Tony Ortiz [00:19:21]:
Is that a word?
Tony Ortiz [00:19:22]:
And Oz, true to being Oz, uses, you know, whatever leverage he has in any given situation to get in the situation or out of the situation, so on and so forth. Now, one of the things Oz knows is that Johnny Beatty, played by the great Michael Kelly, who is the underboss of the uncle who took over the family. The uncle being Luca Falcone, played by Scott Cohen. Johnny Viding is having an affair with the boss's wife. So in an attempt for Sophia to get what she wants, which is, you know, breaking up and taking over the family and ask to get what he wants, which is, you know, he's still on his personal divide and conquer thing, but now Sophia is back in the picture, so he has to play nice. And also, she's kind of sniffing around because she knows that Alberto, who's been missing for days, the last person that he saw was Oz. So he uses this information about Johnny Viti, which he was kind of keeping in his back pocket, to blackmail him and essentially get the family to turn on Uncle Luca and support them in a coup. Essentially, Johnny, they.
Tony Ortiz [00:20:34]:
They literally walk into the hotel room in the middle of Them and, you know, kick the wife out. And there's a hilarious line that Oz says because Johnny vd, He. He just starts talking, you know, in his, like, assertive underboss tone, while he's, like, in bed naked. And Sophia and Oz walk in the room, and he goes, you guys say one word of this to Luca. And then Oz cuts him off, like, very nonchalantly and laughing and says, what? Your ghost will haunt me? That line was incredible. And then essentially they manipulate Johnny Viti into getting all the soldiers behind him in favor of Sophia to cut out Uncle Luca. And after doing so right there at the table where everybody's there to have this meeting, she pops Vidi in the head, just shoots him in the head. No need for him anymore.
Tony Ortiz [00:21:32]:
He's gone. And then she goes on to change the family name to her mother's maiden name. Her mother, who she also suspects that she. Her mother supposedly hung herself. But now with all these other women that were strangled and hung, that hung themselves, that she got framed for, she strongly believes that her father killed the mother. And, you know, just to honor the mother, goes back to the mother's name, changes the family name to the mother's maiden name, which was Gigante. Now, all that happens, I believe, slightly off sequence. I don't remember if this happens right after or right before, but essentially there's this, like, big family get together where all the family's there.
Tony Ortiz [00:22:17]:
Oh, it was before. It was before, actually. So before that happened, with her popping Vidi at the table and taking over the family, there's this big family get together at the house. Uncle Lucas there, you know, all the wives, cousins, kids. She winds up taking the vents from, or like the exhaust from the boiler and putting into the central air vent of the house and then walking out the house and essentially the next morning going back in, and the entire family is dead from gas. From the quote, unquote, gas leak poisoning, which was a brilliant, ruthless move, and to Sophia's ruthlessness. So this is a bit of her, you know, characterization by action, killing her entire family through this gas poisoning just highlights how, like, cold and calculated in nature she is. And his way, from a creative perspective, just, you know, actions speak louder than words type of situation.
Tony Ortiz [00:23:17]:
Now, in terms of, like, symbolism and metaphors I wanted to touch on, related to that is the gas poisoning can be seen as kind of a metaphor for her life and how she felt within that family, how she felt suffocated, how she felt like she was in a toxic, you know, family environment and dynamic and A key takeaway for my fellow writers is using actions as metaphors for the different relationships and themes that we're going for. The director of episodes 104 and 105 did something super interesting that I found I had never heard of before and I found to be, like, a really impressive, like, visual storytelling technique. And as. So as Sophia's character, the arc of her character goes from, you know, it's completely privileged living off the family person being bred to potentially take over, to getting flipped on its head, being backstabbed and just evolving into the chaos that was her time at Arkham Asylum, to coming back, getting her vengeance, and essentially taking over control of the family.
Tony Ortiz [00:24:28]:
They visually showed that arc by switching.
Tony Ortiz [00:24:33]:
From handheld cameras to steadicams and dollies. Now, the handheld cameras, they're a little bit more, like, shaky and kind of give the impression of, like, chaos going on, whereas steadicams and dollies are completely still. No shaking, but kind of shows the audience an angle of calm, of control, which is what the director was aiming for to indicate how, you know, she's out of the. The chaotic time in her life and now she's in complete control of her surrounding and situations. And I thought that was, like, really cool. On the flip side, with Oz, whenever they shot scenes with him, he's dealing with this, you know, gritty, unpredictable underworld, backstabbing, people making deals. They continue to use the handheld cameras with him. And when you watch the series, if you.
Tony Ortiz [00:25:24]:
If you notice that it's a pretty cool, again, visual storytelling technique. Now, a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there that we can think of is how can we mirror that type of technique but with writing prose. So, for example. Or an example can be changing the tone and pacing of a sentence to reflect what we're going for. So if we want to depict, like, chaos and, you know, craziness going on, write shorter, choppier sentences versus if we want to depict a sense of calm and control, have, like, longer, more flowing, calm language and prose. Now switch to one of my favorite characters of the series, Victor Aguilar, played by Renzi Felice. So in the very beginning, when. When Oz kills Alberto Falcone, he's completely alone in his nightclub.
Tony Ortiz [00:26:26]:
That's closed down. When he does so now when he leaves and, you know, he's working on, working through rather, how to hide the body, how to get rid of the evidence. And like that, he's going towards his car and he sees a bunch of kids trying to steal his rims. Remember, remember the setting of Gotham. You just had these like massive floods that happened that they mentioned in the beginning where Batman was busy, you know, helping, trying to save people. And Gotham is this gritty, dirty, dingy, dark, poverty stricken neighborhood. And these kids are, you know, stealing rims, trying, trying to make some money. Oz comes out and confronts them.
Tony Ortiz [00:27:09]:
They all start running away. He shoots at them, misses, but catches one kid. That kid is Victor Aguilar. He's about to kill him outright. But Victor, he's like super nervous. He's like, please don't shoot me. And Oz sees that he has a stutter and kind of has like a bit of an affinity for him because Oz himself is or has rather a handicap. He has like this up foot that makes him wear this like metal brace on, on his shoe to kind of sort of straighten it out as much as he can to walk, but he walks with a limp.
Tony Ortiz [00:27:45]:
Hence, you know, that's how they created this character of the Penguin, you know, this waddling character instead of like the, you know, overly dramatic caricature that was Danny DeVito, although I love that movie also Batman Returns. But you know, in that movie they made the Penguin, this like half man, half penguin person that was born with flippers and a human head. And you know, they didn't go that route in this series. Again, much more realistic. He just has this, this waddle in the way that he walks and this beak like nose, this huge scar on his face and you know, hence the AKA Penguin that some folks call him. So he decides not to kill him outright and makes him help him get Alberto Falcon's body and put it in the trunk of his car. Then he makes Victor drive his car while he's in the passenger seat and has his, you know, keeps his gun on Victor, you know, takes his wallet, looks up his name, his address, and they go to like stash the body, get rid of it somewhere. And his intent is to kill Victor after he's done with that.
Tony Ortiz [00:28:51]:
You know, he was just going to use him to, to hide the body. But Victor flips out, pleads with him, says he can help him. He'll, he'll work for him, please not kill him, he won't tell anybody, so on and so forth. And you know, kind of appeals to that, to the humanity in, in Oz. And Oz decides to let him live and essentially becomes Oz's protege, which he also likes having because again, he wants this feeling of, you know, feeling powerful, having people look up to him, admire him, you know, work for him. And he kind of has that in Victor, you know, through fear versus love, but, you know, has it nonetheless. Now, later on in the series, we meet Victor's family, which definitely seemed Dominican. It's the first time that I've ever heard Sioma on screen, which to the uninitiated, Xioma is like, short for vendicionma obedisio mami, which is when our Dominican culture, and I'm sure other Latinos as well, it's a, like, a sign of respect for your elders and close family, whether it be your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles.
Tony Ortiz [00:30:01]:
You say Wendy Siogma or AKA Siogma, and they'll ritualistically respond, God bless you. So you're like, asking for their blessing, and then they say, may God bless you. And Victor, you know, he walks in his house. It's the first thing he says, yo Ma. And I'm like, oh, he's Dominican. And then I found that the creator, Lauren Lefranc, she's actually half Mexican. And when she originally wrote the character Victor, she wrote him as Mexican and gave him the last name Aguilar, which is a family name of hers. Then when they cast Renzi, which is Dominican, to the role, to honor his heritage, she made the character half Mexican and half Dominican.
Tony Ortiz [00:30:41]:
And it was cool to hear, to hear that. It definitely adds some cultural authenticity to the character. It made me resonate more with the character, and that's definitely a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there, right? Explore while you're creating your characters, how you can incorporate different cultural elements or dialogues that just make your character more relatable. Now juxtapose that to my guy, Peoples from Shaft back in the day, played by Jeffrey Wright, which actually was Jeffrey Wright, who actually played Commissioner Gordon in the Batman film that this series, you know, takes place within the. The same world. Rather, he played this character called Peoples from Shaft, which was dope to see. He portrayed a Dominican dude, a drug dealer from Washington Heights. You see mad Dominican flags everywhere.
Tony Ortiz [00:31:41]:
And he did a really good job. Jeffrey Wright, by the way, one of my favorite actors, probably like top 10. But in this character, you know, did you know he had the accent down in certain spots and things that he would say which were, you know, culturally. Culturally relevant. But then there were certain things where the accent would break and certain things that he would say to it that it was kind of like, wait, what? And that type of thing definitely takes.
Tony Ortiz [00:32:05]:
You out of it.
Tony Ortiz [00:32:06]:
So it's definitely a good takeaway to, you know, make sure that you add elements and. And dialogue from specific cultures that you're looking to represent. So definitely good on. On Lauren Le Frank for that. And we also find out from the series that Victor lost his entire family, his mom, his dad, his sister, in those floods caused by the Riddler's terror attack. And from a writing technique or, like, construct perspective, we see the Riddler terror attack and ensuing floods from the very first opening news report that we see on the tv that. That gets cut away from it, like, subtly foreshadows the tragedy of Victor's family, which is another key takeaway for my fellow writers out there. We can consciously seed elements of our story earlier on to then create this emotional type of payoff later on.
Tony Ortiz [00:33:02]:
So we learned about the flooding.
Tony Ortiz [00:33:03]:
We learned about, you know, a lot of tragedy happened in the very beginning. And then it's paid off emotionally when we find out that in those floods that were previously mentioned, Victor's entire family drowned and died, which definitely informs his character and the decisions that we see him make. I also want to highlight dialogue specifically as a way to give our characters distinctive voices. There's a scene where Oz takes Victoria to, like, a fancy restaurant for. For lunch. And what he says has nothing to do with anything from, like, a plot perspective. He doesn't move the story forward in that way, but it definitely adds subtext and further layers the character. And essentially, they order tacos.
Tony Ortiz [00:33:48]:
They come back, he takes a bite, spits it out because there's cilantro on it. And he specifically asked not to have cilantro. But the way he says it is, he tells the waiter, you might as well put a fucking bar of soap in my mouth. Or maybe it was Vic ordered the food for him and he forgot to tell him to hold the cilantro or something like that. But he says those words, and there are people, maybe some of the folks listening to this, some people who, you know, love or hate cilantro. The folks that hate it taste cilantro differently. They taste it as, literally soap. Like, it tastes like soap versus folks like myself who actually enjoy cilantro.
Tony Ortiz [00:34:25]:
You know, it doesn't taste like soap at all, but it kind of adds that context to his character of, you know, he's one of those soap cilantro people, which, again, has nothing to do with anything, but does layer and, you know, add a little complexity to the character, a little context to him. And a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there is to practice writing dialogue that could exhibit, you know, this type of subtext or, like, character quirks. Now in this series also, which I like and enjoy, there's a bunch of flashback scenes and they help fill in the gaps of the characters lives that we see. You know, we. We know certain things have happened to them, but don't know the details of it. Similar to, you know, Victor's families, like Mia, we don't know what happened to them. And then we later find out through a flashback scene that they died in the flood, like that type of thing. Similarly, we know that Oz's brothers died and we have no idea why until we get to episode seven and it's revealed that Oz as a kid is like this really jealous kid in terms of his mother's attention.
Tony Ortiz [00:35:36]:
He wants and needs more attention than his brothers. And he kind of resented his brothers whenever they got any attention from the mom. He wanted her all to himself. And they wind up going to like these underground tunnels that they used to play, like hide and seek in and stuff like that. And it started raining, so, you know, to wait out the rain, they decide to go into these tunnels and play for a while. Long story short, the two other brothers hide somewhere where Oz can't go because of the handicap that he has with his leg. Like, he has a hard time going like up and down like ladders to like catch them. And then he gets pissed off at them and he's like, oh, you guys went there on purpose because, you know.
Tony Ortiz [00:36:16]:
I can't go there.
Tony Ortiz [00:36:17]:
And they were like, no, we, we didn't. We were just trying to hide. And he winds up, out of spite, just locking them in there. And then he goes home and tells the mom that they went to the movies, the other brothers, meanwhile, he knows where they are. And the rain intensifies and these tunnels get filled with water when it rains. And essentially he's at home, you know, with the mom, completely happy to have all her attention and being completely conscious of the more it rains, the more chance there is that these guys are gonna fucking drown. But he is okay with that because then all the attention from the mom will go to him. Now the actor that played the young Oswald Cobb Ryder Allen said that from his perspective, this is the moment that he rises into the villain that he is in present day.
Tony Ortiz [00:37:11]:
And that he feels a bit of guilt though, in what he did, but that he like emotionally takes care of that by caring for his mom. That's his way of trying to like, make up for what he did. Now ultimately, you know, after the mourning and the depression and stuff like that, that came from, you know, losing to your children once they found that they did drown, the mom winds up Piecing together that it was Oz that was responsible for them drowning and that he may not have wanted them to drown or known for sure that they were going to drown, but that he did let it happen and didn't say where they were in time for them to, you know, be able to be saved. And what's crazy is that, you know, she saw this as, like. Just like, who is. This is the devil that's living in my house. This little kid who's acting like nothing happened, literally killed both his brothers or caused their deaths. And she doesn't know what to do.
Tony Ortiz [00:38:10]:
So she turns to the local mob boss at the time that she kind of worked for in terms of, like, doing. Doing his books, like, doing some accounting stuff for him. She confides in him on what happened and ultimately agrees that she was gonna go out with. With him, with the son, take him out to that gangster's club, show him a good night, and then tell him to go home with the gangster guy. And then the gangster guy was gonna pretty much kill young Oz. But then she winds up backing out at the last moment and not going through with that. And she holds on to this throughout the entire series, throughout the. His entire life growing up.
Tony Ortiz [00:38:48]:
She holds on to the fact that she knew what he did, but never tells him that she knew. And then he, on the opposite side, holds on to the fact of what he did and never letting her know what he did, even though obviously she knows. And as a little kid, he kind of. He gave her, like, mad lavia, like, told her, like, mad shit of how he's going to become somebody one day and he's going to get her a penthouse and he's going to do it all for her. And that becomes, like, the seed of this driving motivational force to, like, please his mom and, you know, become this kingpin to be able to live up to that promise that he makes to his mom.
Tony Ortiz [00:39:27]:
Something else I took away from this series is the complication of relationships. The deliberate complication of relationships. So the closest thing that Oz has to a love interest in the series is with a character called Eve Carlo, played by Carmen Ijogo. She's like, the head prostitute of this, like, ring of women. And Oz pays her to kind of sort of have her in that girlfriend type role. It's a transactional relationship from her side and by definition, from his as well. But they do have a bit deeper of a bond, and their relationship winds up evolving into something even creepier towards the end. But there's a scene in the series where Eve meets Sophia for the first time.
Tony Ortiz [00:40:20]:
Sophia is doing everything she can to, like, track down, you know, once she's betrayed for, like, the umpteenth time by Oz, to track down where Oz is and where he's hiding out. She lands eventually on Eve, his quote unquote girlfriend.
Tony Ortiz [00:40:34]:
Eve is terrified of Sophia because of.
Tony Ortiz [00:40:36]:
The whole, you know, the hangman woman Persona that precedes her. You know, this serial killer that hung and killed nine or 11 women. And, you know, via pillow talking, Oz confides in Eve, and he. She knows a bunch of his business. Sophia shows up to her apartment. She thinks she's for sure dead. But in their conversation, Sophia winds up clarifying that she's not the hangman, that she was framed by her father, and the whole backstory, but most importantly, highlighting that Oz knew that all along.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:11]:
Eve felt betrayed by this because that's.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:12]:
Something that Oz kept from her to kind of sort of keep her scared of Sophia for whatever reasons. And because of that betrayal, she winds up offering up Oz, letting Sophia know where he's hiding out and where he is. And that, to me, from a writing.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:29]:
Perspective, which is a key takeaway for.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:31]:
My fellow writers out there, is that sometimes it makes sense just to complicate things, complicate relationships. Make a left when you think the relationship is going right. That helps ratchet up the tension and just keeps folks engaged, you know, makes richer, more dynamic characters and storylines. You create conflicting loyalties and betrayals, and.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:53]:
It just raises the stakes.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:55]:
So Sophia then winds up using that information to track down where Oz is hiding out and where he's hiding his mom. Winds up kidnapping the mother to draw Oz out to come save his mom, but winds up in doing so, setting the scene for, like, a huge emotional climactic moment throughout the series, or in the series, rather, where a lot is brought to light. Before we get there, though, is the whole hilarious line that the mom, Francis.
Tony Ortiz [00:42:30]:
Her character, says to Sophia, which is.
Tony Ortiz [00:42:33]:
Did you bring me here to feed me or are you gonna kill me then? So Sophia gives this, like, monologue about her family and betrayal and stuff like that, and how she's a Gigante now, not a Falcone. And then Francis defiantly responds, what are you gonna do next? Dye your hair pink and get a ass tattoo that'll really show your dad? Which is a funny line in and.
Tony Ortiz [00:42:58]:
Of itself, but also speaks to, like.
Tony Ortiz [00:43:01]:
The psyche of Sophia because she, in many ways, is rebelling against her father. But the scene that I was speaking to earlier that this ultimately sets up is where Sophia forces the hand of both the mom and of Oz to confront each other in terms of those truths that they've been holding all their lives. On one hand that Francis knew all along that Oz was responsible for the deaths of his brothers, her other two sons, and that she really thinks that.
Tony Ortiz [00:43:35]:
He'S a piece of shit.
Tony Ortiz [00:43:37]:
And then on the flip side, Oz having to come to that realization that she knew all along, plus that she was planning to get him killed for doing so. And it's this huge emotional climactic moment that ultimately result in the mom stabbing Oz in the stomach while also having like this trauma induced stroke. And a fight breaks out and they. Oz ultimately picks up his bomb, runs out of there and gets away. What's really cool about that scene is that it takes place at a fictional club where the mom, once upon a time took Oz, young Oz, to show him like a nice night out, which is where she was gonna have the, the gangster guy take him home and kill him, which is now, you know, run down and abandoned.
Tony Ortiz [00:44:31]:
Monroe's, it's called.
Tony Ortiz [00:44:32]:
But that was filmed here in Queens in Richmond Hill, an area that I'm familiar with. It's like a town two over for me, right there on Leffords and Jamaica Ave. For anybody who's familiar with the area, it's like where that old theater slash bingo hall slash flea market place was or is. That's what, that's what they used to shoot. And you can, if you pause the scene, you can see like when he gets into his car and like screeches off and it shows a little bit of like the storefronts and stuff. You see the J Train, you see Alfie's Pizzeria, which I've eaten at a bunch of times, I used to work around there. It's just like really cool to see. Now let me pause for a minute and shout out the acting in the series.
Tony Ortiz [00:45:20]:
Across the board. Phenomenal. The mom, Francis Cobb is so believable in being a tortured soul that has this kid that she knows to be evil, losing her other two sons, having to shoulder the burden of raising him anyway. Depicting these bouts of like, dementia and, and slipping in and out of, of lucid, lucidness, lucidity.
Tony Ortiz [00:45:46]:
Victor Aguilar's character that he plays with.
Tony Ortiz [00:45:49]:
With the lisp and just does a phenomenal job, knocks it out the park. In being the mentee of Oz that steps up to the plates, willing to do anything, but is hesitant to do so at the same time and wants to prove himself. Sophia Falcone, who Plays this cool, creepy, calculated, yet unhinged, mysterious kind of character. And by the way, her flashback scenes of her, like, getting committed into Arkham Asylum when you start meeting all the other inmates within the asylum, the crazy ladies. Fucking wow.
Tony Ortiz [00:46:27]:
They are like such disturbed, tortured, crazy characters.
Tony Ortiz [00:46:33]:
And then we have the cherry on top of the entire series. Oz Cobb, played by Colin Farrell. Colin Farrell is so good in this. The prosthetics are so good in this that I knew after watching the Batman, or found out, rather, after watching the Batman, the film, that Colin Farrell was the one that played Penguin in the smaller role that he had in that film. And I was blown away. Then I forgot again that Colin Farrell played that role, remembered again when watching the series, and was equally blown away. That's how good he fucking is in this series. And the prosthetics, by the way, were created by Mike Marino, who.
Tony Ortiz [00:47:15]:
There's montages of this online that you guys can check out, but they have Colin Farrell in makeup for three hours each. And every time they have to add the makeup. And that's. Now they have it down to a science of the three hours. But before, it was like many hours more in time, you know, they get. They get better at doing it and more used to it and, you know, whittle it down to three hours. But that's how long it takes to transform Colin Farrell into the Penguin, into Oz. And Colin Farrell himself says that the show definitely would not exist if it weren't for Mike Marino and.
Tony Ortiz [00:47:50]:
And the mastery of what he did with these physical manifestations of this character and just his accent and his mannerisms. He has to win some. Whatever the top tier award, which I guess it would be like an Emmy for a show, is. He has to win that. That totally is. There's a funny episode of JBP Shout out to the Joe Budden podcast, where.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:13]:
They'Re speaking about the show. Like, when it first came out, and.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:17]:
I think it was like, ish and.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:18]:
Ice or Parks or a few of.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:21]:
Them, they were all talking about it because they all watched it, and a few of them were like, you know, Colin Farrell was, like, really dope in it, so on and so forth. And Joe Button is a little lost. He's like, I haven't seen that episode, though. You know, don't spoil it or whatever.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:34]:
And like, what episode?
Tony Ortiz [00:48:35]:
What are you talking about? With Colin Farrell?
Tony Ortiz [00:48:36]:
I haven't seen him.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:37]:
And they were like, Colin Farrow is Penguin.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:40]:
And he just.
Tony Ortiz [00:48:41]:
And Joe's just fucking mind blown. That's how ill Colin Farrell is in this and how he disappears into this character. Now at the end of the series, before I wrap up, huge spoiler coming. There's a shocker scene that happens which ties to Oz's characterization that we spoke about earlier and how he's becoming, you know, the worst parts of himself. He's delving deeper into that after seemingly getting away with everything, getting his way, dividing and conquering and being at landing at the top of the game, he finds himself at a hospital where his mom, he finds out, is going to be in a vegetative state, but she's still alive after the stroke. He's going to survive from the stab wounds. Victor's there, finds him, you know, his right hand man. They're going to be on top of the world.
Tony Ortiz [00:49:40]:
Their plan to take over is bearing fruit finally. And then while sitting in a park by the water, Oz puts his arm around Vic, tells him that they're family and that family is strength, but that it's also a weakness and that he can't go. He can't take him where he's about to go, and he strangles and kills Vic. That scene, in and of itself, it, like, underscores his moral descent into just pure evil. And it also highlights a common writing trope and narrative convention that we often see in the. The stories of villains, which is them severing all the personal ties that they have, severing those ties, and it becoming a turning point for them to become the absolute worst versions of themselves.
Tony Ortiz [00:50:32]:
And by the end of the series.
Tony Ortiz [00:50:34]:
Our main character Oz, you know, gained that external want of becoming the kingpin, but he absolutely lost the internal want of his mom's validation because she's, like, stuck in a vegetative state. He buys the penthouse and has her in a hospital bed, you know, completely immobile, just like with her eyes open, being fed by a home attendant looking out of a window, and you see.
Tony Ortiz [00:51:02]:
A tear drop from her eye.
Tony Ortiz [00:51:04]:
So he got the external want, lost the internal want, and he got himself a Rolls Royce. He has the penthouse. And from a symbolism and metaphor perspective, the penthouse represents Oz's like, climb to power. But it loses that meaning of what it was supposed to mean because he lost that validation from his mom because she's in a vegetative state. And it's interesting from a writing perspective how we can use settings like that to symbolize either successes or failures or some sort of personal transformation. And last but certainly not least is.
Tony Ortiz [00:51:38]:
A touch of speculation.
Tony Ortiz [00:51:40]:
What I think they're setting up for season two, which I hope they do. In the historical character of the Penguin, you know, he was this villain that he became this like person of the people. Then he ran for political office a la Pablo Escobar. And they kind of set the stage for his political ambitions because they said things that I remember as a slogan, I believe from Batman Returns, which is Oz Cobb, a man of the people. Somebody said that he also had, you know, he walked through city hall and he was looking at the mayor, like in awe or the mayor elect. And he was also wheeling and dealing with the city councilman. So I feel like they're kind of setting the stage for that to be like a major through line in. In season two.
Tony Ortiz [00:52:28]:
Then something super interesting that just came out of left field for me. Sophia winds up back in Arkham. Oz gets her locked up and framed again.
Tony Ortiz [00:52:38]:
And so she's essentially out of the.
Tony Ortiz [00:52:40]:
Way from his perspective. She gets a letter while in Arkham from her quote unquote half sister whose name is Selina Kyle. Selina Kyle, historically in the Batman series is Catwoman. So I think she's going to factor into to the next season as well. And that, folks, was my little recap and review of the HBO original series the Penguin. I highly recommend it. And it's streaming now on hbo. Max.
Tony Ortiz [00:53:14]:
Perfect Days is a beautiful slice.
Tony Ortiz [00:53:17]:
Of life movie by Wim Wenders, which explores the beauty and tragedy of a minimalist existence. First and foremost, shout out to Chris Stuckman, who has a great YouTube channel where he breaks down all types of movies. This was on his top 10 list of movies for 2024 and it piqued my interest. So I checked it out and definitely appreciated it.
Tony Ortiz [00:53:42]:
Also, shout out to Chris for that.
Tony Ortiz [00:53:45]:
Phraseology of slice of life movie. I had never heard that term before. As soon as he said it, I knew exactly what it meant and instantly.
Tony Ortiz [00:53:54]:
Applied it to a bunch of movies.
Tony Ortiz [00:53:55]:
And shows and stuff like that that I've seen. So think of movies that are, I wouldn't say plotless, but that not much is going on. Like there's not a firm beginning and end and climax, but picture like a person's life, you know, full life and us.
Tony Ortiz [00:54:13]:
You get to see a slice of that life.
Tony Ortiz [00:54:15]:
A random point within their lifetime is the beginning and then it ends at a certain point and you have a lot of unanswered questions. That's a slice of life style movie, which this one is. And it resonated with me as a writer and from a writing perspective because it inspired to like reflect on routine and consistency and just different ways of storytelling in general. In my little recap and review here, I'm going to speak about different themes in the film. Characterization, symbolism, narrative devices used, and as always, some practical writing lessons and advice for my fellow writers out there. But first, as we like to do here on the Spun Today podcast, let's shout out the writers. Perfect Days was written and directed by Wim Wenders, with an additional writing credit to Takuma Takasaki. Shout out to the writers that put this film together.
Tony Ortiz [00:55:16]:
Here is the official synopsis. Hirayama cleans public toilets in Tokyo, lives his life in simplicity and daily tranquility. Some encounters also lead him to reflect on himself. So in the movie it follows the life of our main character Hideyama, played by Koji Yakusho, who is a janitor that cleans public toilets in Tokyo. In Japan. We follow him throughout his day and then the next day and then the next in a way that allows us to see a few things. He's not a person of many means. He seems to find like joy and happiness in simple things, whether it be photographing trees or reading a good book.
Tony Ortiz [00:56:02]:
He's very methodical and repetitive in what he does from the moment he wakes up, he folds his car a very specific way. Wakes up at the exact same time, drinks the same iced coffee beverage from the same vending machine every single day before going to work, and takes immense pride in what he does. What's interesting about the narrative device of this slice of life approach is that it's really observational in style. There's not a lot of dialogue going on, not a lot of speaking, and it emphasizes small, everyday, mundane moments as opposed to like dramatic plot lines and plot points. And a key takeaway for my fellow.
Tony Ortiz [00:56:47]:
Writers out there is that this style.
Tony Ortiz [00:56:50]:
Of storytelling can help create the intimacy that you feel when watching this film by focusing on these seemingly minor details that kind of reveal deeper truths about the characters that we're following. One of the themes that we see in this film is the main character living on his own terms. He lives this modest life as a janitor and we see this deep personal choice to live simply to have a very minimalistic existence. And a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there, something I definitely took away from this is just thinking about how characters choices, however unconventional they may be, help define their identity and communicate backstory for those characters.
Tony Ortiz [00:57:40]:
Because as the viewer, I felt like.
Tony Ortiz [00:57:41]:
I knew a lot about him without knowing anything besides just following his routine on a day to day basis, which made me think of another theme that we see throughout the film, which is routine and like the beauty that you can find in that. And it reminded me of this Japanese concept of shokunin, which I believe I first heard or learned what that was in the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which is a great doc if you haven't seen it. But it's a concept essentially of pursuing perfection through repetition. There's an interesting duality there between the beauty of mastery that comes with repetition versus the monotony of routine which comes with repetition. And I really appreciated his almost stoic existence. But on the other hand, I also couldn't help but feel sadness for how isolated and alone he seemed. And a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there is that there's an interesting way to embody philosophical ideas like stoicism, for example, within characters to help explore the tension within those ideas. Now switch gears to the characterization of our main protagonist here.
Tony Ortiz [00:59:02]:
He had this very modest, outer, outward facing life, but his inner world seemed.
Tony Ortiz [00:59:10]:
To be the complete opposite of that.
Tony Ortiz [00:59:12]:
He has tons of books, and he would routinely go to the library or a bookstore and take out these books that he would read every single night. Again, in the same exact way, the same exact routine. But it's books on, like, highbrow poetry and deep philosophical books about life that you wouldn't necessarily expect a janitor to be into. And he has this eclectic taste in music and has a ton of cassettes. That's what he listens to his music on, and VHS tapes as well. So he seems to, like, technologically be locked in the past somehow with books and cassette tapes for music, chess tapes for visual verse. His professional life, where, you know, he uses his own gadgets and tools and different solutions to do his work of cleaning bathrooms. And that all adds to the depth of the character and makes him multi dimensional.
Tony Ortiz [01:00:16]:
And that's a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there to add complexity to your characters by giving them passions or hobbies that you wouldn't expect to go with them. So one thing that does happen that disrupts his. His life as it normally goes, is that his niece shows up at his doorstep and she.
Tony Ortiz [01:00:39]:
He has.
Tony Ortiz [01:00:39]:
He hasn't seen her in a while, seemingly because he's like, oh, my God, you've grown so much. And she essentially ran away from home, you know, beefing with her mom, some, like, teenage angst type of thing going on. And she winds up spending a couple days with him and going to work with him. And they have, like, a nice, loving relationship. But you clearly know that they're estranged, or at least he is from her mother, which is his sister. A couple days later, the mom shows.
Tony Ortiz [01:01:06]:
Up to pick her up.
Tony Ortiz [01:01:07]:
And you can tell that the mom is very well off financially. She has a driver, they're coming in this fancy car, she's like, well dressed. And we get a touch of insight into his backstory that could inform why he is the way he is, why he's living the life the way he's living it. And apparently there's some sort of unresolved conflict with his father. And the sister tells him, you know, he's not like before. You know, he's very, very ill now, you should go see him. And you know, he, he denies to do so, but we don't get much more than that in terms of resolution with what happened between them. What's the issue?
Tony Ortiz [01:01:51]:
And it was interesting to me from.
Tony Ortiz [01:01:52]:
A writing perspective that you can use relationships to add unresolved tension to a character or to the backstory of the character without completely providing the details of it, without the exposition. And just that single interaction between him and his sister is the only interaction they have in the movie. A few lines of dialogue helped convey like decades of emotion and trauma that our main character has been dealing with. And then we get kind of a little bit more clarity of why he's such a perfectionist maybe when it comes.
Tony Ortiz [01:02:29]:
To his work, why some of his colleagues, you know, just do like a random wipe down job.
Tony Ortiz [01:02:34]:
And he is using mirrors and making.
Tony Ortiz [01:02:37]:
Sure every tiny dot or speck of.
Tony Ortiz [01:02:39]:
Anything is completely cleaned from every bathroom that he cleans. And it's like the public restrooms themselves are being used metaphorically. He takes pride in taking care of and cleaning these overlooked spaces. Maybe he feels overlooked himself within his life, within whatever issue happened with his pops. And to contrast between the spotless bathrooms versus his messy seeming personal life.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:08]:
That could also be why he is so nostalgic from a technological perspective. He uses cassette tapes for his music, the VHS tapes for video.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:18]:
He has a camera that he uses and every day at lunch he takes a picture of this tree. And the camera is a film camera. And he goes on weekends when he does his laundry to go develop the film.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:29]:
Then he takes the film, goes home.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:31]:
And in Serial Killer ish passion like logs the photos in these boxes that.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:38]:
He has the, adds the date on.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:40]:
And he has tons of boxes with.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:42]:
Like years worth of dates, all of.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:44]:
Which have pictures of the same tree.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:47]:
They he takes a picture of every.
Tony Ortiz [01:03:49]:
Day at work when he takes his lunch break. But he's kind. It kind of shows him being like angered to that time period of, you know, cassette tapes, VHS, etc. And how he may have something unresolved there in the past or some sort of attachment to the past that he doesn't want to let go of. His routine is definitely symbolic of discipline, but also of obsession or of isolation. From a writing perspective, we may be able to show that same type of thing by repetition of prose, by repeating dialogue and reinforcing that same type of.
Tony Ortiz [01:04:28]:
Routine that we see visually in this.
Tony Ortiz [01:04:29]:
Film, but on paper. And this is the type of story that kind of holds a mirror to the audience. It makes us, as the viewers, reflect on our own lives, on our own routines, on our own values, which is definitely a creative way to foster engagement from your audience.
Tony Ortiz [01:04:45]:
You could definitely take parts of his life and how dedicated he is with.
Tony Ortiz [01:04:49]:
His work as like, the symbolism behind his work is how he expresses himself personally, how he exhibits his pride in what he does. It adds definitely that symbolic or thematic weight to an otherwise everyday task. And last but certainly not least, another great takeaway for my fellow writers out there, which I didn't think I would personally like if I thought of it objectively prior to seeing this film, but it's just the open ended backstory. Like after watching the film, you still don't know exactly what happened with his dad, what's the dynamic with the sister? And that somehow gave like a depth to the character without having to explain it. And from a writing perspective, we can attempt that in purposely leaving gaps within our character's history so that the audience can fill it. And in doing so making them more intriguing and relatable to each individual audience member because they're going to fill it with their own thoughts and biases. And I thought that was done interestingly. And that, folks, was my little recap and review of the film Perfect Days, which came out in 2023.
Tony Ortiz [01:06:06]:
Streaming now on Hulu. Goats Doing Goat. This is the segment of the Spontane podcast where I like to highlight goats within their respective fields. Goats, the acronym greatest of all time that go above and beyond in some way or do something. I just think it is cool. Impressive dope, worthy of praise if you will. And this episode's inductee into the Goats Doing Goat shit list is none other than businessman, renowned investor and philanthropist Charlie Munger.
Tony Ortiz [01:06:41]:
RIP to Charlie.
Tony Ortiz [01:06:42]:
I recently read Charlie Munger's biography, which I'm gonna do a breakdown of, but it's called Young Charlie's Almanac or Charlie's Almanac which corroborated this story. But this story actually comes from a great video that I'll link to in the episode Notes by the Investor center, which is titled Charlie Munger, how to make your first million in broken down in five steps, Charlie Munger, for those of you who don't know, may know the name Warren Buffett. You know his financial investment wizard, multi billionaire, the Oracle of Omaha. Charlie Munger is his partner in Berkshire Hathaway.
Tony Ortiz [01:07:25]:
But I decided to add Charlie to.
Tony Ortiz [01:07:27]:
The spontane goats doing goat shit list because something that he did early on, which just in my opinion, highlights his framework of out of the box thinking that seems to have served him well throughout his lifetime. So he started off as a kid working in a grocery store for 20 cents an hour, which was actually Warren Buffett's grandfather's grocery store. He was a hardworking kid, winds up becoming a lawyer. And one thing that he does so geniusly is that he decides not just to charge his clients for his legal services, but but he gives them the option to, instead of paying him in cash, paying him money to pay him in equity stakes of their young companies and then being, you know, strapped for cash or, you know, as young businesses usually are, many of them wind up taking that route. But his equity stake in those businesses means ownership, means that as those companies grow, he gets that percentage of money from them in perpetuity, forever. When those companies sell, if they sell, he gets that percentage of the sale because he owns the company or a portion of them as opposed to just taking the one time fee for his legal services. And apparently he did that with several different companies while he was a lawyer. And I just thought that to be.
Tony Ortiz [01:09:04]:
A genius out of the box move.
Tony Ortiz [01:09:06]:
That many folks wouldn't think to do, many folks would rather have the money up front instead of the ownership, which could backfire if the company goes to zero. He could lose money. You know, he'll never get paid for those legal services, but I'm sure enough of those companies made it or became profitable or sold that it made up for any of the ones that did not. And because of that, I wanted to add Mr. Charles Munger, aka Charlie Munger, officially, to the goats doing goat shit.
Tony Ortiz [01:09:40]:
Welcome, sir.
Tony Ortiz [01:09:41]:
And RIP. And that, folks, was episode 278 of the Spun Today podcast. Thank each and every one of you for taking the time to listen. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I definitely had fun putting it together. I tried to enrich my recaps and reviews that I normally do with highlighting as many pieces of writing advice or just dissecting the different narratives and writing choices implemented not just for my fellow writers out there, but for myself to kind of further my education within this writing game. And also of course for folks that just find that kind of how the sausage is made type of information interesting as I do, there's a few ways you can help support the Spun Today podcast if you so choose. One of the ways is Follow me on Social Media Fun today on everything IG, Facebook, Twitter, slash X, YouTube, so on and so forth at Spun Today.
Tony Ortiz [01:10:41]:
Visit my support page where you can see my merch and all types of affiliate links@spun today.com support and here is a bit more about a few different ways that you can help support the.
Tony Ortiz [01:10:52]:
Pod if you so choose.
Tony Ortiz [01:10:54]:
I'll check you guys out next time.
Tony Ortiz [01:10:56]:
Peace. What's up folks?
Tony Ortiz [01:11:00]:
Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a few ways you can.
Tony Ortiz [01:11:07]:
Help support the show.
Tony Ortiz [01:11:08]:
You can support the Spun Today podcast financially by going to spuntoday.com for forward/ support. There you will find a couple different ways that you can do just that, some of which will actually not even cost you a dime. Such as using my Amazon affiliate link. When you go to sponsorate.com support you'll see my affiliate link to Amazon. Click on it and it will take you to Amazon's website where you can do your shopping like normal. This will not cost you anything extra, but Amazon will pay me for driving.
Tony Ortiz [01:11:39]:
Traffic to their website.
Tony Ortiz [01:11:40]:
If you'd like to support the podcast more directly, you can do so by becoming a patron@spuntodate.com support. You'll also find my Patreon link. This is where creators such as myself can be paid directly by patrons like you. You can either make a one time donation or schedule recurring donations if you so choose. There are also different tiers of support and depending on which you decide to go with, you'll also receive some perks in return so such as early access to content, free digital copies of my books, free bookmarks, etc. That is again by supporting via my Patreon link available@ sponsorday.com support similar to Patreon at that same location. You'll also find my Ko Fi link as well as my Buy me a coffee link. They work very similar to Patreon and are different ways that you can help support the show financially.
Tony Ortiz [01:12:30]:
And last but certainly not least, you have the good old fashioned PayPal donation button. Any which way that you choose to support is Greatly appreciated. It all helps me do more of what I love, which is writing and podcasting.
Tony Ortiz [01:12:42]:
Again.
Tony Ortiz [01:12:42]:
Go to spunteray.com support. You can also support the Spontane podcast by rating and reviewing the show. Wherever it is that you're listening to this episode.
Tony Ortiz [01:12:53]:
I'd really appreciate it because it really does help.
Tony Ortiz [01:12:56]:
Also, follow me on all socials Spun Today on X, formerly known as Twitter, Punt Today on Instagram and puntaday on YouTube where you'll not only find full length episodes of the podcast, but also chopped up clips and additional content. And of course you can follow the Facebook page at facebook.com forward/spun today. Another way you can help support the Spun Today podcast and also upgrade that stale wardrobe of yours is by going to spun today.com sponsor support and clicking on the banner for Stitch Fix. Once you do, you'll enjoy a $25 discount to your first purchase. And the way Stitch Fix works is pretty cool. I use it and I've never been disappointed. You'll set up a profile. You'll put in all the sizes for your clothes as well as all the different brands and types of clothes that.
Tony Ortiz [01:13:48]:
You like to wear.
Tony Ortiz [01:13:49]:
It's really simple and intuitive to set up. They'll show you pictures and pretty much give you a thumbs up or thumbs down option on if you would wear something or not. And you get to select all the brands that you already are used to wearing. With this information, there are thousands of passionate trend setting stylists will curate a.
Tony Ortiz [01:14:08]:
Stitch Fix box for you.
Tony Ortiz [01:14:09]:
They'll send you five items that you get to preview before they mail it to you and you'll get to select based on the image if you like it or not. If not, they'll replace it with something else and if so, they'll mail it to you absolutely for free. You can try everything on and you have a few days to send everything back or keep the stuff that you want to keep. Then you can use that $25 credit that I mentioned towards your purchase of those items again to freshen up your wardrobe and also support the Sponsor Day podcast. Go to sponsorday.com support and click on my affiliate link Banner for Stitch Fix and enjoy your $25 credit.
Tony Ortiz [01:14:44]:
Do you want to start your own podcast?
Tony Ortiz [01:14:47]:
Have a great show idea that you.
Tony Ortiz [01:14:48]:
Want to get out into the masses but don't know quite how to get it from your head out into the world?
Tony Ortiz [01:14:53]:
Well, here's how.
Tony Ortiz [01:14:55]:
Use the podcast host Libsyn. That's who I use to bring the Spun Today podcast to you. And now you can use them the same way. Using the promo code spun spun, you can open up your Libsyn account today and get two months of free podcast hosting.
Tony Ortiz [01:15:13]:
Here's how it works.
Tony Ortiz [01:15:14]:
Once you record your show, you upload it to your Libsyn account where you can fill in your episode notes, upload your podcast art, and schedule when you want your episodes to release. Once you do that, Libsyn will take.
Tony Ortiz [01:15:27]:
Care of the rest.
Tony Ortiz [01:15:29]:
They'll distribute your show to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and all the other podcasters that you choose instantaneously and seamlessly. Again, go to Libsyn.com and use the promo code SPUN S P U N to get 22 months free. Or use the affiliate link that's in the episode notes. Again, that's libsyn.com promo code spun. Take that great podcast idea from out of your head and put it out into the world.
Tony Ortiz [01:15:58]:
And as always, folks, substitute the mysticism with hard work and start taking steps in the general direction of your dreams. Thanks for listening. I love you Aiden. I love you Daddy.
Tony Ortiz [01:16:25]:
I love you Grayson. I love you Daddy.