Phil is in Turlock. Dean is “Motor City adjacent”. Special guest Page Branson is in Baltimore. Between the three of them, they have a wide array of topics covered: Memorial Day, the Tulsa Race Massacre, Amazon’s purchase of MGM, the deaths of beloved actor Gavin MacLeod and singing star B.J. Thomas, the forthcoming declassification of government UFO files, another of Dean’s favorite episodes of “The X-Files”, awesome new video games and anime, race relations, Brood X Cicadas, vintage movie ads, and more! It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s disturbing. It’s YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

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)!

Your friends in podcasting are one day late in delivering this week’s hearty serving of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour, so they reward your patience with an extra 16 minutes of show!Phil and Dean follow up on last week’s conversation about empathy to analyze the ways we consume movies now and what those ways do for us, or TO us!  They preview the forthcoming Joker and Doctor Sleep. They examine the use of de-aging technology in movies. They analyze the evolving differences between the DC vs. Marvel cinematic universes. They review the current theatrical releases Ready or Not and The Peanut Butter Falcon, the recent home video releases Long Shot, Gloria Bell and Men in Black: International. All that, plus they will celebrate the lives and legacies of two music icons, a best-selling novelist, a Broadway trailblazer and a television character actor. 

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!

This week’s epic, 80 minute long show begins with an hilarious update about Phil’s medical adventures before the return of “Live Event of the Week”, where classical music, Dean’s forthcoming live comedy show, and a sordid chapter of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club’s history get discussed. Then, the Chillpak Morgue is opened as character actress Sylvia Miles, heiress Gloria Vanderbilt and Jim Pike, lead singer of famed 60’s vocal group The Lettermen, are remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. And speaking of “Lettermen”, David Letterman has returned to Netflix with season 2 of his series “My Next Guest …” Phil raves about an episode featuring Ellen DeGeneres, on that boasts a cameo by Clint Eastwood, which gets Phil thinking about Clint’s acting career. HIs films Where Eagles Dare and The Bridges of Madison County get discussed. And those are far from the only movies Dean and Phil discuss. They re-examine the classic Hong Kong actioner The Killer on its 30th anniversary. They also analyze the recent box office failures of several previously unassailable cinematic franchises and offer suggestions of what franchise producers and studios can learn from the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as from the John Wick and James Bond series of films. 

Dean took a trip to Washington D.C., he has a new live streaming series, he has an update on his graphic novel, he has a couple of upcoming convention appearances and he has a Doberman puppy growing rapidly. Phil continues to grow frustrated with his limited sight, especially while taking in the (long awaited return of) “Live Event of the Week”. Hear all about these topics, about this year’s Cannes Film Festival, about John Wick 3, about a Chinese film that might be among the best films of the decade, and about the highest-grossing Supehero origin story of all time!

If you caught last week’s installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour, you know that Dean Haglund was attending a convention in Rhode Island this weekend and that Phil Leirness was NOT attending in order that he could get to the bottom of what has become almost total day and light blindness. Your friends in podcasting will regale you with many tales of these adventures on this week’s show. They will also weigh in on all the news surrounding “Avengers: Endgame”, they will discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s rumination on comic books, “Glass”, and they will play a lightning round of “Celebrity Deaths”, including one that hit very close to home for Dean and Phil. A very personal, funny and touching episode. We hope you enjoy!

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!

Do you know what Stan Lee’s real name was and why he changed it? Did you know that during the 1940’s and 50’s conservatives weren’t just on a witch hunt against suspected communists but against superhero comic books as well? Join your friends in podcasting as they remember the comic book giant in “Celebrity Deaths” and discuss his cultural impact, his legacy and the controversies in which he found himself. Then, Phil sits down in the woods with filmmaker Ilana Rein, to discuss her narrative feature debut Perception. Long-time listeners might recall that Ilana served as Dean and Phil’s co-host during their 26 hour Mayan podcastathon, back in 2012. So, it’s great to finally have her back to discuss her work. Then, Dean and Phil get into a fascinating discussion about how much films can change from script to screen, using the upcoming Netflix post-apocalyptic action epic Bird Box movie as a case in point. Finally, the joy of still having so many amazing movies from the past to discover and enjoy gets celebrated, with an awesome little mystery film from the late 1970’s taking center stage. YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. Enjoy!

This week’s episode was delayed by half a day because Dean Haglund is spending his final hours Down Under in a hotel, and because Phil hosted a live show in Los Angeles on Sunday night. On our final intercontinental connection, Dean and Phil discuss the last entries in Dean’s Down Under Bucket List and Phil’s love for the great western star Leo Carrillo. In “Live Events of the Week” the Los Angeles Philharmonic at 100, Herbie Hancock, Katy Perry, Kali Uchis, John Williams and more get discussed. In “Lawsuit of the Week” 102 year-old Olivia De Havilland’s forthcoming appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court gets previewed. And speaking of the Supreme Court … Your friends in podcasting offer up some words they hope might be healing. Then, they turn their attention to the small screen to discuss “Stranger Things” and “The Man in the High Castle” before discussing such big screen releases as American AnimalsVenom and A Star is Born. Finally, a legendary animator, and several key figures in the history of modern music are remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. So, sit back, relax and enjoy that Didgeridoo intro one final time …