Tom's Top 3: January 27, 2026
Coogler's Cortados
Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays, where I highlight three pieces of content (Podcasts/Shows/Songs/Articles/etc.) that I found interesting or noteworthy from the prior week.
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[Podcast] Proximity Media - Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler: The Official SINNERS Interview!
Sinners, my favorite movie of the year, broke the record for most Academy Awards nominations, with 16. Those nominations include Best Actor and Best Director nods for this podcast’s two guests: Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler.
This dynamic duo talk through their relationship, creative process, and—believe it or not—coffee. I was overjoyed to learn that Coogler is a big coffee aficionado, and I found it endearing that he makes lattes for his crew as an act of service on set.
I was most impressed by the lengths that the two went to make sure Sinners was authentic. In order to convincingly play twins, MBJ kept a diary of both of the characters to understand their mental states, wore different sized shoes to physically cue how fast each character should move, and consistently filmed one character’s parts earlier in the day so that his energy levels matched each character’s personality.
I also listened to a different podcast with a different Proximity Media all-star, Sinners producer Sev Ohanian. During that interview, Ohanian recommended the YouTube account “ponysmasher.”
With a bizarre name like that, my interest was piqued.
The creator behind ponysmasher is actually David F. Sandberg, a prolific horror director who also shepherded the Shazam! franchise. In these two videos, Sandberg uses his experience on Shazam! to illustrate how directors have to remain flexible and find creative ways to solve problems.
I love videos like these that pull back the curtain on the filmmaking process, and I appreciate how candid and aboveboard Sandberg is.
[YouTube] Frequent Miler - Bilt Cash: Couponization to the Max
Last week, I wrote about the release of the new Bilt 2.0 cards. Since then, Bilt has announced the many, many uses for Bilt Cash, their monopoly money. The press release itself is longer than a CVS receipt.
Unfortunately, my hope of saving up Bilt Cash to ball out on some free hotel stays were dashed… kind of.
Turns out, there is a limit on the amount you can use in one go. Oh well.
On the bright side, one new use-case emerged that is actually pretty good. You can use $200 of Bilt Cash to unlock a “Point Accelerator” for $5,000 of spend. So if you have the Bilt Palladium card, you can earn 3x back on everything. You can do this a total of five times throughout a year, so I plan on maxing out this benefit for a total of 25,000 additional Bilt points.
It might not be the most lucrative use of Bilt Cash, but it seems more straightforward and easier to use than the other options.
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