This week’s show really puts the “Hollywood” into YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour! The cold open starts with a quick, wicked and insightful recap of the Writers Guild of America winners for Best Original and Best Adapted screenplays. Spring has sprung and your friends in podcasting are high energy, high-stepping their way through remembrances of 3 actors, a journalist, a beloved children’s book author, a Tuskegee Airman, and the inventor of cassette tapes, as well through a diversity-inspired round of their almost weekly celebration of vintage movie ads from the 1980s and 90s! From there, Dean and Phil set sail for the “Season of Self-Congratulation”, focusing on the forthcoming Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Oscars. They discuss such TV shows as “Ted Lasso”, “Dead to Me” and “The Crown” and such movies as Minari, The Father, Da 5 Bloods, Wonder Woman 1984, Zack Snyder’s Justice League and more! All that plus several of the best directors working in film today: Christopher Nolan, Chloe Zhao and Kelly Reichardt.

After two weeks of special “theme” shows, your friends in podcasting return to what they do best this week: Making sense of a world gone wild! From absurdities to atrocities, from freedom of speech to bad behavior, from consciousness to conspiracy theories, Dean and Phil will offer up a hearty and healthy helping of insight, irreverence and inspiration. Then, in “Celebrity Deaths”, they will remember a prolific movie director, a British Invasion star, a World War II hero, the last Civil War widow, a “Charlie’s Angel”, a castaway on “Gilligan’s Island”, a break-dancing superstar, a controversial educator immortalized on film, a pioneer of Space Age style design, and the father of fiber optics. Finally, Dean and Phil celebrate one of the best miniseries of all time before celebrating that at long last, English-speaking viewers outside the USA can enjoy their disturbing, dark comedy feature film The Lady Killers! 

 

Phil shares some of his Los Angeles adventures from the past week. Dean shares his latest adventures in painting. Phil celebrates the daily joy of David Lynch reading the weather report. Dean and Phil update on the latest in the battle between two different actors’ union, and on the battle between the Writers Guild and the most powerful agencies in Hollywood. They discuss season 4 of “Fargo” and the work of “X-Files” veteran Daniel Sackheim on “Lovecraft Country”. Phil questions Dean about the comments from comic book legend Alan Moore on the cultural blight that superheroes, superhero comics and superhero movies have become. Several performers and writers get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. Dean and Phil bring back “What We’re Reading” and celebrate their all-time favorite bookstores!

This week, your friends in podcasting definitely put the “Hollywood” into YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour, not only with the topics they discuss but by recording the show in, you know, Hollywood! That’s right, the “Turlock” drinking game might need to take a couple weeks off, while Dean and Phil discuss jury duty, a forthcoming X-Files/Lone Gunmen virtual convention and a spate of recent “Celebrity Deaths” (including a Supreme Court justice, a founder of Women’s Studies, the founding figure of reggae, a controversial jazz journalist and cultural critic, and more). Phil and Dean sing the praises of the late, great Bea Arthur (discussing both “Maude” and “The Golden Girls”). A comparison of Martin Scorsese to David Lean leads to a conversation about Robert Mitchum. A conversation about last week’s show leads to a discussion of the Vincent Price/Diana Rigg vehicle Theatre of Blood, which leads to a discussion of what it will take for movie theaters – and moviegoing – to survive the pandemic and the digital streaming age. Finally, there is the return of “Lawsuit of the Week” featuring everyone’s (real? phony?) favorite heavy metal act, Spinal Tap! 

 

It’s a new month, it’s Canada Day and it’s the day before Phil’s first eye surgery and your friends in podcasting have a ton to discuss, from the latest crazy examples of climate change to celebrations of a World War II hero, a romance novelist, a New Orleans music great and an Italian filmmaker-knight-politician. Twelve years ago, Dean and Phil were discussing movie marketing and that is STILL foremost on their minds. What they had not thought about in years was “torture porn” and in the first of what we think will be a weekly “flashback” segment, they play a few minutes from July of 2007, where the controversy surrounding Captivity was at its height. How have times changed and how have they stayed the same? Find out on this week’s show! Plus, you can learn about Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers and the art of screen comedy. 

Oh, man, is this week’s show a good one! 72 minutes long and featuring a “cold open” AND an “Easter egg” (post-credits scene?), this epic installment boasts big laughs,. two poems, celebrations of the lives of poet Mary Oliver, Tuskegee Airman John “Jack” Lyle, Broadway legend Carol Channing, CIA Operative Tony Mendez, and a tribute to good friend of the show John Girodo, who was feted as one of L.A.’s Impact Makers to Watch in 2019. There is all that, PLUS Dean and Phil engage in a thoughtful, fascinating discussion about recent movie casting controversies and Dean regales us with reviews of three TV series available now for binging!