Welcome to a truly great episode and it all starts with an alternately touching and hilarious cold open! In “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean and Phil remember a jazz music pioneer, an actor who was an important influence on Dean, and a versatile, prolific, Oscar-winning filmmaker. Last week’s Oscar nominations get analyzed, as does the ensuing anger surrounding supposed “snubs”. After the break, the great film critic Luke Y. Thompson joins the fun, discussing how critics, like performers, can get “pigeon-holed”. He offers up thoughts on the Oscar-nominated The Zone of Interest and the underrated Beau is Afraid, and hips you to a black and white sci-fi comedy that is well worth your 68 minutes! He even talks about toy reviews and toy photography! And trust us, this episode offers a lot of laughs! Find links to all of Luke’s articles and reviews at https://linktr.ee/lytrules. And learn about his work as a toy collector, photographer and reviewer at https://www.eql.com/media/adult-toy-collecting

 

Your friends in podcasting (AND broadcasting!) have quite the week to discuss! As the holidays approach, and Covid-19 dashes Dean’s travel plans, Awards Season in Hollywood gets underway. The National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners of the best in cinema for 2021, and a consensus has begun to form through critics Top Ten lists about the best of the year in television. Dean and Phil discuss it all. They also try to make sense of the latest in the accidental shooting on the set of “Rust”. A whole lot of classic films get discussed, including which films may have best depicted what life in America was really like in the mid-1980’s. A new documentary series about The Beatles from Peter Jackson gets reviewed and four actors and a musician get remembered in our penultimate installment of “Celebrity Deaths” for 2021. If nothing else, you will learn that the movie Beau Geste is NOT the movie Gunga Din and director Wim Wenders is NOT director Werner Herzog.

It’s Halloween season, so this week, Dean and Phil will get into the spooky spirit of things by celebrating “All of the Them Witches” – programming a dream film festival of witch-themed double-features! Of course, there is a ton of spooky, unsettling and downright terrifying show biz news for them to cover as well, including the potential resolution of the IATSE conflict with the AMPTP prior to almost all film and television productions getting shut down, the messy publicity slaughterhouse that continues to ensue following Dave Chappelle’s “The Closer” and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos’ response to it, and a little bit of “inside” info regarding Marvel’s Black Widow. All that, plus really good box office news and a pioneering animator, a chart-topping bassist, and a best-selling YA novelist get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

From the inner space of quiet, self-quarantine lockdowns, to the outer space of “Star Trek: Picard”, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness take you on quite the journey this week! It starts with their latest observations about themselves and others in the wake of another week of isolation. Sadness, quiet and dehumanization are on the thematic menu! They then compare notes on their respective Easter celebrations, which leads to a discussion of a couple of classic musicals: 1934’s Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle The Gay Divorcee and 1948’s seasonal staple Easter Parade, starring Astaire and Judy Garland. The recent, modern classic, Uncut Gems gets championed by Phil, who tries to get Dean to overcome his trepidation surrounding Adam Sandler performances (and yet, Dean once championed You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, so go figure!). The second half of the show consists of Dean and Phil comparing the years in cinema 1973 and 1974, discussing all the notable films from those two halcyon years, in hopes of determining which year might challenge 1962 as the greatest year in cinema. Finally, your friends in podcasting beam up to the La Sirena to discuss and debate what went right and what went wrong in season one of “Star Trek: Picard”, a show so successful that a big-screen movie version is already in the planning stages.

As the holidays approach, it’s the season of self-congratulation in Hollywood, where awards are being handed out and award shows are being planned. Dean and Phil weigh in on the controversy surrounding the Academy’s choice of Oscar hosts, and where they go from here. A filmmaker who never won major awards, but who left an enduring legacy, is remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. Steve Coogan is a comedic actor (writer and producer) who is a source of contention between Dean and Phil. Your friends in podcasting roll up their sleeves and analyze his gifts and review his two 2018 big-screen releases: Ideal Home and Stan & Ollie. This leads into a terrific discussion of pathos and of the enduring film catalog of Laurel and Hardy.

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 …