Your friends in podcasting and broadcasting start the show with a “cold open” about some greats of Italian cinema and the genius of Jennifer Coolidge and the cinematographer of “The White Lotus”. Then, after Phil regales with tales of a one-day, 650 mile road trip to Turlock and back, Dean and Phil spend the bulk of the show doing a deep dive into analyzing the year in movies 2022. They take the 10 nominees for the Best Picture Oscar and compare/contrast that list with both the critics’ choices for the top dozen or so films of the year and the top ten box office releases of the year. What emerges is an analysis of the present, and perhaps the near future of moviemaking and movie-going.

This week’s show opens with a brief interview with one of the stars of a “Live Event of the Week”. Dean is in Washington, D.C. and he gives a full report on one of the most beautiful road trip sights he has seen and an exhibit at the National Gallery focusing on Joseph Singer Sargent. Phil has just returned from his (penultimate?) trip to Turlock to finalize “family business” and he is in an exhausted, tormented, philosophical mood, opining on family, marriage, and alternate universes. The comedy of the Marx Brothers, Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe and See How They Run gets dissected, and in “What We’re Reading” the art of Edward Hopper, the comedy of Martin Short and the poetry of Betsy Holleman Burke get discussed. Finally, in “Celebrity Deaths”, the lives and legacies of a Canadian voice actor, a Japanese star of an American miniseries, a blues singer, a sitcom producer and a law student-turned-best selling novelist all get explored.