It’s the symbolic final weekend of summer 2025 and your friends in podcasting commemorate in style with almost 70 minutes of rich podcasty goodness! They discuss how one of Dean’s all-time least favorite films might become a television series. They discuss how a Todd Haynes period detective film they would have loved to see might just be back from the dead. They discuss how and why Weapons has captured the cultural conversation in a way few movies do any more. They discuss how and why Netflix had the #1 film at the box office, why Netflix didn’t want you to know that, and what it might portend for the future. They discuss the merits of the new Netflix mystery The Thursday Murder Club. They discuss the 1987 classic River’s Edge and the 1949 all-time masterpiece The Third Man. In the return of the “Live Event of the Week”, Pink Martini performs under the stars at the Greek Theatre. In “Celebrity Deaths”, an Oscar-winning composer, a Tejano legend, a chart-topping flugelhorn player, a co-founder of “Derek and the Dominos”, and the jazz singer dubbed “the lady with the million-dollar ears” all get remembered. Finally, Dean and Phil pay tribute to the great Terence Stamp. Happy Labor Day, USA! Happy Monday, everyone else.

Dean is back in Los Angeles and Phil picks him up at the Eastern Columbia and they take to the mean streets of Los Angeles at the outset of this week’s show! Topics discussed include Dean’s experiences with the late character actor Tom Sizemore, the live-streamed Chris Rock special on Netflix, and the disappearance of the great actor Julian Sands. Then, Phil is joined (via zoom) by Yoshi Kato to discuss the career and legacy of jazz great Wayne Shorter, and later, Phil is joined (via zoom) by Marc Hershon, who shares a great story about the late comedian-turned-actor Richard Belzer. After that, and after several cocktails in Hollywood (!), it’s back into the car for a return trip to the Eastern Columbia where Phil stumps Dean with a very interesting trivia question pertaining to the relevancy of the Oscars. This leads to Dean and Phil deciding (for the first time) to not do any Oscar-related show this year, though they do establish one way in which the Academy Awards probably do matter culturally.