Tag: box office

Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 20

Posted on by PHIL19

Hindsight, like this episode, is 20/20 (Year 20 Episode 20, get it?) and so Dean and Phil begin this week’s show with a clip from the long-running ABC news magazine show “20/20” from the mid-1980s and remark upon just how contemporary those clips sound! From there, the upcoming “Blade Runner 2099” television series gets previewed and the latest in the lawsuit surrounding Paramount’s on-hold merger with Warner Bros. gets analyzed (and laughed about). Phil wants to know why Dean isn’t watching the terrific “Lanterns” on HBO. The brilliance of director Zach Cregger and the success of his new Resident Evil get appraised. Then, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner (just in time for its return to cinemas, this time in black and white) and DC’s Supergirl both get reviewed. Finally, the great Ang Lee and his landmark Sense and Sensibility get reappraised (just in time for a new adaptation to get released).

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 18

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Dean Haglund is in Stockholm, so for the bulk of the show, this week’s guest co-host, music, arts and culture journalist Yoshi Kato joins Phil Leirness to discuss the death of an all-time jazz great, the implosion of more than one jazz festival and live celebrations of the musical (and movie) legacy of composer John Williams. This leads to a great deal of discussion over the Star Wars franchise, original and recent, including Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and several Star Wars-related vinyl records. The summer movie season has come to an end with this Labor Day weekend and it was far and away one for the record books. Will Hollywood learn the right lessons from the big success? Don’t count on it. Yoshi and Phil compare notes on what those lessons might be. They also discuss two current theatrical releases (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Coyote vs. Acme) and the classic, dreamlike French film Last Year at Marienbad, as well as the lasting influence of that film’s star, Delphine Seyrig. Finally, Dean drops in at the end so that he and Phil can pan two films set during World War I, one quite recent (The Choral, starring Ralph Fiennes) and one quite acclaimed (1917).

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 14

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In some ways, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness pick up where last week’s show (the one thousandth episode of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour) left off, by reminiscing about a couple of their early years spent “changing the way people listen to the internet” and by examining more in the shifting release strategies for television and the viewing habits of television viewers. They also go deeper still into the issues surround the soon-to-be-litigated proposed Paramount merger with Warners. They continue their ongoing analysis of the potential benefits, and current costs, of our evolving relation to Artificial Intelligence. They also discuss one video game movie, one sci-fi comedy from the 1980s, and one current samurai era “whodunit”. They share their love of a raft of different contemporary television series and reveal which streamers they enjoy the most and which shows keep them excited between seasons. Also, they preview this week’s release of an R-rate “director’s cut” of the second “The X-Files” feature film!

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 13

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Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness commemorate this, the one thousandth episode of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour (originally called “From the Heart of Hollywood”), by reminiscing about their first few years of “changing the way people listen to the internet” by examining how the media landscape has changed since they started podcasting, and how that landscape might evolve moving forward. The in-depth topics that get discussed include the podcasting field itself, the ways episodic television programming has changed, the dire need to change facing Netflix, and why binge watching quickly brought an end to the 21st century “golden age” of television. After a shameless (and hilarious) music plug for another podcast in the ever-expanding “Chillpak Hollywood Presents …” universe of shows, the topic turns to AI, the coming revolution revolving around artificial general intelligence, whether humanity can adapt, and whether an economy altering AI “bubble” may be on the horizon. Finally, the latest news in the now-frozen Paramount merger with Warner Bros. gets analyzed. Trust us, even if you only want to listen to one of our one thousand episodes, you can’t do wrong with this one!

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 12

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One episode shy of their 1,000 installment of this show, Dean and Phil jokingly compare notes on the tolls reaching such a milestone have taken. Phil hints at some of his weekend 40th high school reunion adventures, Dean updates the prognosis of his beloved Doberman, Leloo, and previews his own birthday celebrations. Of course, Dean and Phil now produce several different podcasts each week through the “Chillpak Hollywood Presents …” Substack. And last week’s episode of “Celebrity Deaths” resulted in the need to begin with some corrections and/or clarifications! After those, it’s nothing but good news from the world of show biz, including the continued astonishing success of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the halt (til at least next year) of the Parmount-Warners merger, and the announcement that an iconic Hollywood locale will be reopening in 2028. Finally, Phil sings the praises of the one of the all-time best debut features for any director ever, the heartbreaking and hilarious, sexually explicit, gay biker BDSM film, Pillion, and Dean reveals his early reaction to the new spin-off of “The Big Bang Theory”.

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 11

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In a truly confusing, but nevertheless hilarious, cold open, Phil offers a correction about “Malta Air”. Thanks to emails from loyal listener and frequent contributor Maurice Terenzio, Dean and Phil have a ball talking about three great actors of Hollywood’s golden age: Joe E. Brown, George Raft and Edward G. Robinson. The big show biz news of the week get discussed: the possible halt to the Paramount-Warners merger and the historic box office success for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Two new movies get reviewed: The brilliant comedy Stop! That! Train! and the hit Netflix offering Enola Holmes 3. Of course, Dean and Phil continue their ongoing film noir and neo-noir discussion, focusing on the nihilism of the 1970s as depicted in such modern classics as Arthur Penn’s Night Moves and the Paul New man vehicle The Drowning Pool. Finally, colleague Marc Hershon (star of the “Chillpak Hollywood Presents …” podcast Television with Marc Hershon) drops in to help your friends in podcasting come up with ideas for how they can commemorate their upcoming 1,000 episode, and to discuss ideas for Phil’s next movie, a documentary all about improv!

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 10

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It was a rough weekend for Dean Haglund, whose beloved Doberman, Leeloo, is undergoing emergency spinal surgery as we publish this show. It has also been a rough week for the media business where fear over job loss is concerned. In the UK, ITV has been taken over by Sky and several more television mergers, and downsizings, seem to be in the offing. In the U.S. Netflix is mulling a major expansion, and distribution company NEON has sold a major stake to production company Department M in hopes of massively “scaling up” operations. Dean and Phil have all this “business of show” news covered. Then, they go into detail analyzing Disclosure Day as a definitively “American” movie, and Guy Maddin’s Careful as a definitively “Canadian” one. Then, their ongoing discussion of film noir and neo-noir continues, with some key questions being asked and at least one truly awful neo-noir getting discussed in depth.

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 9

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It was a big weekend, and your friends in podcasting have a lot of big topics to discuss, from the World Cup to the art of Caravaggio, from a masterpiece of German literature to the creation of synthetic life that demonstrates most of the hallmarks of actual life, from the ten films that best define America to a couple of the all-time greatest film noirs. Finally, Dean and Phil go long singing the praises of, and asking questions about, the independent film dominating the global box office, Obsession.

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 8

Posted on by PHIL19

Tomorrow is Canada Day and the end of the week is Independence Day in the USA. Your friends in podcasting have thoughts about celebrating. They have thoughts about Team Canada’s big win in the World Cup. They have thoughts about why very few of the listeners to this podcast are in Canada! Phil got back from the Carolinas and has stories about being the “Guest of the Day” in Charlotte, North Carolina (the Queen City), and about beaches and alligator encounters in Kiawah Island, South Carolina (the Lowcountry). Dean asks Phil about Bill Murray’s baseball team in Charleston and Phil regales with tales of Carolina Day and America250. Turning to show business, the gents celebrate the best box office year at the movies since 2019 and glean some important lessons from that success, lessons they fear may be lost on the industry, but which certainly seem to be lost on the press covering the industry. Particular focus gets put on the just-opening, and already disastrous Supergirl and on Sam Raimi’s 2026 “survivor horror thriller film”, Send Help.

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Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 5

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Phil was actually worried he and Dean wouldn’t have enough to discuss to fill this week’s show and wow was his worry unfounded! The gentlemen get the conversational ball rolling with the return of “What We’re Reading” wherein four quite fascinating and quite disparate works get covered, leading to in-depth discussion about such topics as painting watercolors, epistolary novels, the comedic genius of Norm Macdonald, and life in Austria-Hungary of the early 1900s. All the major prizewinners at Cannes 2026 get discussed, and the early summer U.S. box office gets celebrated. Then, however, the tone turns darker, as the need for a full-on boycott of Paramount and its properties gets expressed, and the ramifications of waiting for the Warner Bros. merger to launch said boycott get explored. Dean saw The Sheep Detectives and shares his thoughts. Phil watched the classic 1945 film noir Detour and spills the dirt on its director’s fall from grace, hails the film as a must-watch for aspiring filmmakers, and regales Dean with a delightful fact about the career of the film’s lead actress, Ann Savage.

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