You might not know the name Don Phillips, but you will definitely know the names of many the performers whose careers he launched as a casting director, and the films with which he was involved. He is one of four cultural titans that Dean and Phil remember in “Celebrity Deaths” on this week’s show, including a poet and founder of the mythopoetic men’s movement, an iconic Broadway composer, and a trombonist who received the highest honor ever bestowed on jazz musicians. Dean will update us on the latest in his bout with Covid-19, his travel plans, his live ghost hunts and his “Hellacious Renovations”. Phil will regale us with his birthday adventures, his deep dive into historic movie locations, and his exploration of the Manzanar “War Relocation Center”. Several movies will get analyzed as well, including a Kurosawa classic ripe for a modern-day remake, a film noir with a claim to the best dialogue of any movie ever, and a current box office hit that begs the question, “Does bustin’ make Dean & Phil feel good?”

Pre-recorded this past week in Los Angeles and Birmingham, Michigan, and edited at the Montecito Club weekend, this week’s show features irreverent, insightful and occasionally inspired and inspiring discussion on a wide range of topics, including: The California Gubernatorial Recall Election, a paranormal convention Dean was attending, some long-awaited good news at the North American box office, the recent CinemaCon (a convention for theater owners) and what we learned about Ghostbusters: Afterlife and The Matrix Resurrections, and the 2018 Japanese TV series “Miss Sherlock” and its terrific star Yuko Takeuchi, who committed suicide one year ago. All that, PLUS Phil explains his passing, yet specific, reference to moving back east, which he uttered during episode 88’s drunken, red-wine fueled bacchanal. Safe to say, he is definitely Los Angeles-based for the foreseeable future.

Your friends in podcasting ring out the old on the last day of 2018 by tackling the recently announced partnership between iTunes and theatrical film distributor A24, and by looking at the calendar year that was and analyzing week by week how the biggest movie hits and best films of the year were released. They only make it through the end of September, but at least 29 films get discussed, so keep those Netflix queues handy! Thanks for spending some of your year with us and we’ll see you again in 2019!

Due to Phil’s teaching schedule, this week’s show was delayed by a half day. Once they made their trans-pacific, intercontinental connection, your friends in podcasting remembered a playwright, an actor from “The X-Files”, a beloved sitcom actor and a hip-hop star in “celebrity deaths”. They delved further into the topic of casting actors subsequent to a listener email they shared on last week’s show, which leads into a really deep analysis of diversity and cultural pendulum swings. Finally, they discussed such disparate movies as Clint Eastwood’s Sully, the recent drama about motherhood, Tully, the current inventive thriller Searching, as well as two legendary films, one about the concept of “celebrity” the other a romantic comedy about witches. YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. Enjoy!