Even we are impressed at the ground covered in only 74 minutes this week by your friends in podcasting! They start by going deep into the improvisational jazz of Sun Ra and dissecting comments Sonny Rollins made in a podcast about jazz being “ a music of freedom”. The Coen Brothers’ 1991 masterpiece Barton Fink gets revisited at 35 and is found to be better than ever. The film genre of neo-noir gets analyzed, and the all-too-overlooked Hickey & Boggs (directed by Robert Culp and co-starring Culp and Bill Cosby) gets championed as an outstanding exemplar of that genre. The death of certain kinds of horror tropes are foremost on Dean’s mind after seeing Scream 7, whereas Phil is intrigued by the new generation of horror exemplified by the current box office sensations Backrooms and Obsession. Then, Dean and Phil switch genres yet again, and examine cinematic comedy through two documentaries (Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! and Marty, Life is Short), one all-time classic (Some Like it Hot) and two current releases in theaters (I Love Boosters and The Sheep Detectives).

Dean is back from Amsterdam and he and Phil have a lot to discuss! Dean has advice on travel, and has stories about Vermeer, Rembrandt and Heineken. Phil has stories about TCM host (and Czar of Noir) Eddie Muller, and stories about stepping down from his roles at the famed Los Angeles Breakfast Club. Dean and Phil discuss the possible forthcoming writer’s strike in Hollywood and in “Celebrity Deaths” remember the inventor of the game Settlers of Catan, the Oscar-winning production designer of the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” films, an Oscar-nominated character actor and a cartoonist beloved by several generations of fans.

Year 15 of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour gets underway with a free-wheeling installment that has your friends in podcasting, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness, demonstrating much of what they do best, tackling such a wide array of topics as fear, hypocrisy, and irony before sharing stories about non-celebrities being “mistaken” for famous show biz individuals. Some of these stories are hilarious. Some are disturbing. Some are both! With news of the Coen Brothers “breaking up”, Phil and Dean begin a deep dive into appreciating the brothers’ output and legacies. This includes hilarious stories involving Brad Pitt and George Clooney. It also includes a Coen-themed round of the Vintage Movie Ad game. Finally, Phil shares thoughts about two very interesting films released in 2020 that might have slipped under your radar and Dean offers up his review of a brand new film that Amazon hopes might launch an action-franchise starring the great Michael B. Jordan.