Big changes are coming, with much more content each week. This week, Dean and Phil hint more at what these changes might bring, while whetting the appetite thru discussions of art, culture, television, movies and acting. The festivities begin with Dean revealing which of the cities he has lived in most inspired his painting. The return of Vince Gilligan to the small screen gets discussed, the hilarious new sitcom “Stumble” gets reviewed, and the cancellation of Rian Johnson’s “Poker Face” AND his plans to revive it get analyzed. In “Celebrity Deaths”, the maverick independent filmmaker Henry Jaglom gets remembered and his ongoing legacy and influence are pondered. Then a whole raft of new Netflix films get mentioned before Dean doffs his cap at Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix version of Frankenstein, and Phil wags his finger at the preposterous The Woman in Cabin 10. Finally, The Fantastic Four: First Steps gets revisited before the state of acting in the 1970s gets hailed as, perhaps, the all-time peak of screen acting.

The first show of 2025 find Dean and Phil in good form and discussing a wide array of topics including the landscape and geography of NY’s Central Park, nature photography, the It Ends With Us controversy and lawsuit, and the near future of motion picture distribution both theatrically and via streaming. The truncated nature of this year’s mad dash Awards Season will get analyzed before the Netflix series “Man on the Inside” gets reviewed. Then, your friends in podcasting roll up their sleeves to re-examine Netflix’s 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles and offer their thoughts on the Ralph Fiennes-Juliet Binoche starrer The Return as well as the brilliant Nickel Boys and the reviled (and misunderstood?) Joker: Folie a Deux. Finally, thoughts regarding the suicide of filmmaker Jeff Baena are offered and Ralph Fiennes closes the show by being very “demure”.

On his way to Detroit, Dean stopped by a certain historic building in Los Angeles to record this week’s episode, He and Phil preview Dean’s trip this week to Motor City as well as talk about Dean’s permanent move there taking place later this year. They also re-visit an idea Dean floated back during their days making The Truth Is Out There, that in this day and age, the conspiracy theory IS the conspiracy … They celebrate the lives of a legendary choreographer, an all-time great documentary filmmaker and a matinee idol in “Celebrity Deaths” before discussing a wide range of recent cinematic releases including “Thor: Ragnarok“, “Ant-Man and the Wasp“, “Blade Runner 2049“, “Three Identical Strangers“, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom“, and a Bollywood comedy about … defecating in the woods?! YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. Wherever good podcasts can be found.