Month: September 2026

Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 21

Posted on by PHIL19

If we know anything after almost 20 years of podcasting, it’s that people love hearing “production meetings on the air”! If that’s true, then what a show we have for you, with not one, but THREE production meetings – two of genuinely hilarious varieties and the third pertaining to movies like Backrooms, Exit 8, Universal Language and the television series “Severance”. In between those meetings, Dean and Phil share the thoughts of a loyal listener and roll up their sleeves to roast almost everybody involved in the “will they or won’t they” Paramount/Skydance merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The glory of the once great Paramount Pictures gets re-visited using the all-time Hollywood classic Sunset Boulevard and the just-released season finale of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 4 as the gateway for this exploration. Come for the analysis, stay for the story about Phil stealing something! As if that all weren’t enough, Dean and Phil go deep on a perplexing television movie from 1974, its famous writer, its all-star cast, and its legendary cinematographer. Finally, Stop! That! Train! gets fully appraised.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 20

Posted on by PHIL19

Hindsight, like this episode, is 20/20 (Year 20 Episode 20, get it?) and so Dean and Phil begin this week’s show with a clip from the long-running ABC news magazine show “20/20” from the mid-1980s and remark upon just how contemporary those clips sound! From there, the upcoming “Blade Runner 2099” television series gets previewed and the latest in the lawsuit surrounding Paramount’s on-hold merger with Warner Bros. gets analyzed (and laughed about). Phil wants to know why Dean isn’t watching the terrific “Lanterns” on HBO. The brilliance of director Zach Cregger and the success of his new Resident Evil get appraised. Then, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner (just in time for its return to cinemas, this time in black and white) and DC’s Supergirl both get reviewed. Finally, the great Ang Lee and his landmark Sense and Sensibility get reappraised (just in time for a new adaptation to get released).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 19

Posted on by PHIL19

Dean Haglund is back from Stockholm and he has brought tales of family mysteries with him! Because Dean is also jet-lagged, Phil Leirness figured this show was the perfect time to ask him about the science of combatting jet lag, about Melbourne, and about wildlife in Australia. Wildlife in Los Angeles, from bears to coyotes to one famous mountain lion, gets celebrated as well. Phil’s suspicions surrounding the lawsuit currently blocking Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. get discussed. The recent “Deep Dive” Dean and Phil did into 1950s film noir gets re-visited and in the process, the work of writer A.I. Bezzerides, and the early works of Stanley Kubrick get dug into, while an email from Maurice Terenzio about an early work by great noir director Joseph H. Lewis gets shared. Dean watched a whole bunch of current or recent releases on his long flight back from Europe (3BHK, F1, Michael and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die) and Phil shares his thoughts about the current documentary about the late, great poet Mary Oliver. Even more movies than this get discussed, corrections get made and mea culpas are offered!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 18

Posted on by PHIL19

Dean Haglund is in Stockholm, so for the bulk of the show, this week’s guest co-host, music, arts and culture journalist Yoshi Kato joins Phil Leirness to discuss the death of an all-time jazz great, the implosion of more than one jazz festival and live celebrations of the musical (and movie) legacy of composer John Williams. This leads to a great deal of discussion over the Star Wars franchise, original and recent, including Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and several Star Wars-related vinyl records. The summer movie season has come to an end with this Labor Day weekend and it was far and away one for the record books. Will Hollywood learn the right lessons from the big success? Don’t count on it. Yoshi and Phil compare notes on what those lessons might be. They also discuss two current theatrical releases (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Coyote vs. Acme) and the classic, dreamlike French film Last Year at Marienbad, as well as the lasting influence of that film’s star, Delphine Seyrig. Finally, Dean drops in at the end so that he and Phil can pan two films set during World War I, one quite recent (The Choral, starring Ralph Fiennes) and one quite acclaimed (1917).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS