Recorded at 6 am (Pacific) on a Monday morning, this 70 minute conversation between your friends in podcasting is a heartfelt, insightful, irreverent exploration of such topics as knife-wielding homeless, the NFL, The Joker, backstage yoga, the important life skills improv training can teach, the key to artful conversation, the danger of reading “news” online (especially on social media), curiosity, empathy, grief, The King of Comedy and more! Oh, and don’t forget to check out Dean’s live, improv, streaming comedy series, Gravity Hole!

You will be hard-pressed to find another episode of this or any other show biz-centric podcast that covers as much ground thematically OR temporally as this installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour! Silent film legends John Gilbert and Harold Lloyd both made transitions to the sound era and Dean and Phil, with the help of a loyal listener like you (yes, YOU) dig into this history. Dean’s live streaming sci-fi adventure series “Gravity Hole” is back and Dean will tell all! Last week, Phil waxed rhapsodic while singing the praises of two female performers of Asian-American descent. This week, he reveals a startling personal connection to one of them, while previewing a potential “Live Event of the Week” and celebrating another actor he believes is due great things. The actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA held a contentious (possibly contested) election and your friends in podcasting will try to make sense of it. In a jam-packed installment of “Celebrity Deaths” a multi-Emmy-winning TV star, a modern-day “robber baron”, the “king of puns”, a pioneering animator, a “Star Trek” actress, a comic book artist, and a counterculture icon of the late 60’s and 1970’s all get remembered. 

Dean regales us with details of his trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, and updates us on his teaching of improv. Phil updates us on his recovery from multiple eye surgeries, and regales us with details of a Hollywood Bowl “Live Event of the Week” before previewing an upcoming presentation at The Los Angeles Breakfast Club about silent film great Harold Lloyd and his love of 3-D Photography. Phil also sings the praises of two terrific Asian-American performers – Maya Erskine and Awkwafina – as he recommends their most recent movies, the romantic comedy Plus One and the indie drama The Farewell. Dean and Phil revisit the great Denis Villeneuve sci-fi pic Arrival, answer an email from a loyal listener like you (yes, YOU) about the Manson family murders and provide updates and analysis on the CBS-Paramount merger and Netflix’s efforts to purchase the landmark Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. That a whole lot of entertainment for one hour (plus)! Of course it is YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. 

A couple weeks back, the world, and especially lovers of documentary movies, mourned the death of the great filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker. This week, your friends in podcasting celebrate the career of this cinematic giant and also explore the history of documentary filmmaking itself and they are joined in this effort by documentary film professor Robert Nichols. The result is one of Dean and Phil’s best interviews ever and one of the most fascinating installments of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

Phil reveals good news and terrifying stories about his recovery from eye surgery, he and Dean lay out a wide array of possible solutions to gun violence, they remember a legendary writer, they update the Writers Guild’s battle with talent agents, they reveal new movie theater subscription news and they re-visit what they were talking about 12 years ago this week! All that, plus your friends in podcasting dig deep in their analysis and appraisal of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his career output and his place in cinematic history. Finally, they celebrate one of the most important voices in cinema today, Sean Baker, the filmmaker behind The Florida Project, Tangerine and many more.

Because this show was recorded early Sunday morning, before America awoke to the horrific news of a 2nd mass shooting in a handful of hours, your friends in podcasting only address their thoughts concerning the El Paso shooting – thoughts that concern conspiracy theories, their film The Truth is Out There and more. 12 years ago, Dean and Phil were discussing the “dog days” of summer, “slow news weeks”, the stars that Entertainment Weekly were in love with, a true-life nightmare plane flight, and great sci-fi movies. All those topics get revisited, and a clip of CHH #14 gets shared, in an hilarious segment. Dean and Phil finally answer two emails from listeners, one about an interesting documentary and the other about the lost (?) art of long-form conversation on TV as well as the “rebirth” of Detroit, and the rebuild of one of that city’s icons. All that, plus a great voice performer and a Broadway legend (perhaps THE Broadway legend) get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. 

It’s Dean’s birthday and we have a special, action-packed show! It gets under way with a famous movie star singing “Happy Birthday” to everyone’s favorite Lone Gunman. In “Live Event of the Week”, the return of Dean’s one-man improv “X-Files” show gets celebrated. Phil updates everyone on his most recent eye surgery before climbing his soapbox in the wake of the mass shooting in Gilroy and the seemingly ongoing war on humanity’s joy. 12 years ago, the summer of 2007 was Dean and Phil’s summer of 007 and they were discussing James Bond. This week, they talk about how the Bond producers have missed out on a seemingly huge opportunity and in “Celebrity Deaths”, your friends in podcasting remember a man who was a friend of Phil’s and the answer to an awesome 007 trivia question. They also celebrate the legacy of Rutger Hauer, and of a man whose life was synonymous with space exploration. This leads into a brief discussion about Moon landing “truthers”. Dean and Phil tackle the various ways movie theaters are looking to cure the box office apocalypse. They discuss Netflix’s deal with the Screen Actors Guild. They continue their ongoing discussion comparing the late Krzysztof Kieślowski and Quentin Tarantino, and, oh yeah, they review Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (spoiler free) and preview the “Star Trek” movie he might direct. Happy Birthday to Dean, and Happy Chillpak Hollywood Hour Day to all of you!

This week’s installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour is a 75 minute, globe-trotting, space-faring, time-traveling adventure. 12 years ago this week, your friends in podcasting were discussing San Diego Comic-Con and “Star Trek”. This week, they are STILL discussing Comic-Con and “Star Trek”!  They are also discussing the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, great space movies, the Emmy nominations, great comedy shows, racism, freedom of speech and binge-watching. If you are going to be in Detroit this week, why not see Dean perform his live improv episode of “The X-Files”

12 years ago this week, your friends in podcasting were recording their first show in stereo (rather than the two channel mono that was absolutely bonkers) and were discussing Gary Oldman’s sex appeal and The Last Mimzy. A clip from that discussion opens week’s show before Phil provides an update on his recovery from AND preparation for eye surgery, and Dean provides an update on some very interesting live comedy shows he is doing. One is his improv episode of “The X-Files” and you can see it this month in Detroit! Then, the gents move this week’s episode into the Chillpak morgue, where a maverick U.S. Presidential candidate, an all-star pitcher who became a controversial author and a successful actor, one of the greatest character actors of all time, a legend of Italian cinema, and a star of the original “Willy Wonka” all get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. A couple more thoughts related to last week’s discussion of what approach will most likely lead to creating great television get shared. Then, Dean and Phil discuss the controversy surrounding the American Cinematheque and the landmark Egyptian Theatre. Finally, they compare notes on Alfred Hitchcock’s fascinating Rope and the recent releases Us from Jordan Poole and Under the Silver Lake from David Robert Mitchell.  

It’s a new month, it’s Canada Day and it’s the day before Phil’s first eye surgery and your friends in podcasting have a ton to discuss, from the latest crazy examples of climate change to celebrations of a World War II hero, a romance novelist, a New Orleans music great and an Italian filmmaker-knight-politician. Twelve years ago, Dean and Phil were discussing movie marketing and that is STILL foremost on their minds. What they had not thought about in years was “torture porn” and in the first of what we think will be a weekly “flashback” segment, they play a few minutes from July of 2007, where the controversy surrounding Captivity was at its height. How have times changed and how have they stayed the same? Find out on this week’s show! Plus, you can learn about Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers and the art of screen comedy.