Welcome to one of our most cinematic episodes of the year! Dean and Phil talk nothing but movies, doing deep dive analyses of the new Dave Bautista action-comedy vehicle (and tax dodge?) The Killer’s Game, the current Tim Burton-directed smash hit Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Michael Keaton-starring vehicle and directorial effort Knox Goes Away, the recent “thriller in six chapters” Strange Darling, this year’s box office disaster The Fall Guy, a 1968 film undone by director Richard Lester’s cynicism (Petulia), and an all-too overlooked classic from director Joseph Losey and leading man Alain Delon (Mr. Klein). Finally, Phil regales Dean with a real-life unsolved murder that involved the late, great Delon.

 

This weekend, your friends in podcasting got together on the pool deck of a certain “historic building in downtown Los Angeles” and boy did they have a lot to discuss! The status of downtown, Dean’s travels AND his official “wedding engagement” get covered. The Olympics closing ceremony and Tom Cruise’s role in it get revisited. The “Live Event of the Week” is “Duo it Again” a brilliant and psychedelic game of telephone that is the hottest party you can find on a Tuesday night in Los Angeles. There is movie news involving Joaquin Phoenix doing one of our greatest filmmakers and a maverick indie producer “dirty” and Phil and Dean both have more thoughts about Wolfs losing its wide theatrical release. Casablanca on 4K and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F on Netflix both get reviewed. A whole lot of reference to the great documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself gets made throughout the show. Finally, a groundbreaking comedy radio producer-turned television writer and the peerless Gena Rowlands both get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

After a brief cold open where Phil and Dean discuss Dean’s trip to Los Angeles this week, your friends in podcasting get into a spirited and frequently hilarious discussion about the Olympics. Then Phil has notes for the brilliant Jon Batiste about his hot mess of a live show. A legendary agent and a trailblazing actress get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. Dean plays “armchair executive” in analyzing the news surrounding the forthcoming George Clooney-Brad Pitt vehicle Wolfs. Phil re-watched Barry Lyndon and he and Dean take a deep dive into that film and analyze the way the film has been so dramatically reappraised in recent years.

This week’s show begins with Dean and Phil discussing one of Dean’s all-time favorite films and filmmakers: My Winnipeg by Guy Maddin. Phil hails it as perhaps the greatest film NOT to be on the Sight and Sound poll of the 250 greatest films ever made. From great movies to great television, your friends in podcasting and broadcasting shift gears to discuss the end of “Succession”, the end of “Barry”, the end of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, the end of “Ted Lasso”, Season 1 of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”, and Season 2 of “Star Trek: Picard”. And speaking of “Picard” the actress who played the Borg Queen will get remembered in Celebrity Deaths, as will a beloved French-Canadian actor, an incredible Mexican character actor, the stunt man who inspired Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” … And the lead character in that film has also died?!

Happy St. Stephen’s Day, Happy Boxing Day, Happy (final day of) Hanukkah AND Happy 2nd Day of Christmas! Dean and Phil celebrate it all by comparing notes on their holiday celebrations, by sharing stories of Dean’s jury duty and of Phil’s cross-country travels with THE Fuzz Aldrin! Film critics everywhere have been weighing in on the best movies of 2022. Dean and Phil will check in on their consensus picks (thus far). They will also discuss a handful of current and recent releases, including Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pinocchio”, the dark satire “The Menu”, Ti West’s “X” and “Pearl”, and they re-visit the recent comedy actioner “Bullet Train”, using it as an excuse to analyze the work of Ryan Reynolds, and to celebrate the greatness of Michael Shannon.

 If you’re in the USA, we hope you are having/had a wonderful Labor Day. If you are elsewhere in the world, we wish you a wonderful Monday! Either way, we think this installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour will help you get the week off to a good start! Phil is playing hurt, battling COVID, migraines AND the intense L.A. heat wave, yet nevertheless brings his “A” game as he and Dean take their talk of “transitions” to a whole new level, thanks to a beautiful email from a listener like you (yes, YOU!). Dean saw Bullet Train and has a lot of thoughts. Phil weighs in on The Souvenir: Part II and shares a wonderful story about acting based on Robert Blake’s experiences making David Lynch’s Lost Highway.

On last week’s show, Phil introduced what will be a recurring segment for the near future: The overlooked films of 2020. This week, a unique, uniquely painful, esoteric and funny take on both the family drama and the con-artist picture, as well as a superhero movie that really did deserve to be overlooked! Last week, Dean panned a Tom Clancy adaptation written by Taylor Sheridan. This week, another new Taylor Sheridan-scripted actioner gets discussed, this one directed by Sheridan and starring Angelina Jolie. “Celebrity Deaths” is a long-standing segment of the show, but never before have Dean and Phil discussed an actor who worked for 9 decades and died at 106! Phil, is, as listeners will know, a state certified Violence Prevention Specialist. In the wake of the horrific hatred and violence being directed at members of the AAPI community, he decided to augment his training by taking bystander intervention training. He will report on this training, and offer up tips that everyone can use to both #stopthehate and #spreadthelove. And speaking of spreading the love, over the past couple months, your friends in podcasting have begun to check in “on air” with friends of the show who have appeared on past episodes, to see how the year plus of pandemic life has treated them. This week, the great storyboard artist Rob Consing drops by. He discusses the big movies he has been working on, including Morbius and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and he competes against Dean in a round of our new, and apparently popular, vintage movie ad game (where Dean tries to guess the movie from the ad copy Phil reads)!

Year 15 of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour gets underway with a free-wheeling installment that has your friends in podcasting, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness, demonstrating much of what they do best, tackling such a wide array of topics as fear, hypocrisy, and irony before sharing stories about non-celebrities being “mistaken” for famous show biz individuals. Some of these stories are hilarious. Some are disturbing. Some are both! With news of the Coen Brothers “breaking up”, Phil and Dean begin a deep dive into appreciating the brothers’ output and legacies. This includes hilarious stories involving Brad Pitt and George Clooney. It also includes a Coen-themed round of the Vintage Movie Ad game. Finally, Phil shares thoughts about two very interesting films released in 2020 that might have slipped under your radar and Dean offers up his review of a brand new film that Amazon hopes might launch an action-franchise starring the great Michael B. Jordan.

The return of The Oscars, celebrating a most unusual year in cinema, deserves to be celebrated, too! And so, this week, your friends in podcasting bring back their old Oscars smackdown style show for the first time in years! There will be wagering – for stakes both ridiculous and sublime. There will be critiquing of the Oscar show itself. There will be analysis of the winners and the snubs.

To commemorate this week’s Academy Awards, your friends in podcasting offer up this special show all about the history AND future of the Oscars! How might the Academy voting membership change and how should it change? What award categories need to be changed, removed or added? Dean and Phil weigh in on last night’s historic show, offering doffs of the cap and wags of the finger. They also pile into the Chillpak time machine and travel back to the early days of Oscar to analyze how effective the Academy was at selecting “Best Picture” winners that would stand the test of time.