Happy Birthday to our friend in podcasting, Phil Leirness, who is celebrating many returns of the day in New Orleans today! Before departing Los Angeles, and before Dean Haglund departed the environs of Detroit to head to the nation’s capital for Thanksgiving, they convened via zoom to record this week’s show. In it, they discuss their travel plans, before Dean regales with tales of his recent improv performance (with Gary Jones) in San Jose. Then, a discussion of Dean’s forthcoming European wedding leads to Phil revealing his new plans for Arctic Circle adventures and a follow up to last week’s discussion of the Aurora Borealis. Several new or recent movies get reviewed, including My Old Ass, Deadpool & Wolverine, and His Three Daughters, as well as the 2020 Oscar winner for Best Documentary (My Octopus Teacher) and a horror film from 1988 that was one of the first starring roles for both Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi (The Lair of the White Worm). Finally, in an almost-all-jazz edition of “Celebrity Deaths”, four jazz greats and two Bee Gees drummers get remembered!

Welcome to one of our most cinematic episodes of the year! Dean and Phil talk nothing but movies, doing deep dive analyses of the new Dave Bautista action-comedy vehicle (and tax dodge?) The Killer’s Game, the current Tim Burton-directed smash hit Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Michael Keaton-starring vehicle and directorial effort Knox Goes Away, the recent “thriller in six chapters” Strange Darling, this year’s box office disaster The Fall Guy, a 1968 film undone by director Richard Lester’s cynicism (Petulia), and an all-too overlooked classic from director Joseph Losey and leading man Alain Delon (Mr. Klein). Finally, Phil regales Dean with a real-life unsolved murder that involved the late, great Delon.

 

After traveling across the country (on Spirit Airlines), Phil has been laid up all week, sick as a dog. Dean has been avoiding the dazzling nighttime Aurora displays put on by the current solar storm. They both have a great deal of show biz news, views and reviews on their minds, however. First off, Dean previews the forthcoming Ryan Coogler-led “X-Files” reboot, hipping us to its premise. Then, he and Phil make sense of the Ryan Gosling-starring The Fall Guy, both appraising its merits and explaining its box office failure. The future of action as a genre on both the big and small screens gets analyzed. Jerry Seinfeld’s utterly silly, possibly sly Unfrosted and the seething reaction to it get dissected. Everybody’ seems to love Netflix’s new series “Baby Reindeer”, except for the possibly defamed subject of it! Dean and Phil come at this one from all angles. Finally, Phil explains what went wrong with Taika Waititi’s recent true-life sports comedy Next Goal Wins and expresses confusion over why Hulu’s “The Bear” is considered a comedy.

This week’s show begins with “What We’re Reading” and continues by asking such big questions as: Is the John Wick franchise the best action franchise ever? Is “Andor” the best iteration of Star Wars ever? Is “Severance” one of the best television series ever? Was there anything memorable from last week’s Oscar telecast? Are the prosecutors in the Alec Baldwin Rust shooting case arriving to work each day in a clown car? Was comic strip “Dilbert” a victim of cancel culture? Are the edited versions of the James Bond novels coming out an effort to get ahead of cancel culture or a shameless money grab? Both? Is Peacock’s “Poker Face” Rian Johnson’s remake of “Columbo” or “The Fugitive”? Or both? All that gets discussed and three popular actors get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.