Last week, Dean and Phil ran out of time while discussing a vampire show from Norway that Dean has discovered and is enjoying. They kept recording, however, so this week’s show starts (as a cold open!) with that brief and hilarious discussion. Once the show proper starts, your friends in podcasting send love and best wishes to a dear friend who is having surgery this week. Then, they leap into discussions of the latest show business news, including the IATSE strike authorization vote that might lead to the halt of most television and film production, the resolution of Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against Disney, James Bond saving the global box office, Venom: Let There Be Carnage setting the domestic box office ablaze, and the #1 worldwide box office hit of 2021 that neither Dean nor Phil have seen or even heard of! Phil and Dean then discuss Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and the importance of taking the time to do “nothing”, and what “Loki” season 1 might be telling us about the existence of multiverses. Finally, Dean and Phil celebrate the lives of a pioneer of Japanese anime, one of the best funk and soul bandleaders of all time, a character actor beloved on both the small and big screen, a groundbreaking singer-turned-activist, and two very popular comedians.

After their most drunken episode ever, this week’s show finds Dean back in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham and Phil in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Thanks to an email from a loyal listener and frequent collaborator, they will be revisiting a discussion of Wu Tang Clan from two weeks ago. And thanks to developing news, they will follow up on last week’s discussion of the movement to remove tributes to D.W. Griffith’s legacy in Hollywood. There will be further analysis on the state of the box office in the U.S. and there will be reviews of two new movies: The comedic DC comic book actioner “The Suicide Squad” and a feature documentary about AND photographed by Val Kilmer. Yet another “Night Court” star will get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”, along with the actress daughter of an iconic filmmaker, an award-winning folk music star, and a beloved cast member of TV’s “Sherlock”. Plus, we still have many celebrity death memories (of a Clint Eastwood collaborator, a legendary voice actor, and a best-selling sci-fi author) recorded during last week’s red wine bacchanal that we include at the end of this week’s show!

Phil is back from exploring the east coast of the USA. Dean has been in Los Angeles, celebrating his birthday. You can join them poolside atop a certain “historic building in downtown Los Angeles” for big laughs, a lot of wine, and attempted conversations about Dean’s birthday, the joys of Maine, an awesome bookstore, the influence Jack Benny had a on a great law professor, the movement to tear down a possibly racist monument in Hollywood, Dean’s new show about haunted house renovations, Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against Disney and “sexy Joe Namath”.

Happy August, everybody! This month might well tell the tale of whether the USA puts the pandemic behind it or whether Covid-19 stays with us in some form or another for quite a while longer … Before we let go of July, however, Dean and Phil want to celebrate the recent Cannes Film Festival, putting several very promising and fascinating films on your radar. They also want to celebrate the recent, groundbreaking Emmy Award nominations, celebrating the best TV has to offer, while also offering up three picks of current series you might well enjoy! All that plus The Clown Prince of Hip Hop and a beloved sitcom star of the 80’s get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

Dean and Phil follow up on last week’s awesome show by discussing more about “Hollywood accounting” and how in show biz the “bottom line” is often NOT the bottom line! Last week, while discussing the box office struggles of the brand new In the Heights, Dean and Phil were inspired to look back at two dance films based on the same craze that opened on the same day many years ago, one of which boasted a music score from Phil’s frequent collaborator, Greg De Belles. Greg composed the score for Phil’s Karl Rove, I Love You and for Dean and Phil’s The Truth Is Out There and The Lady Killers. Greg died on Friday, and Dean and Phil speak of their immensely talented friend. Of course, the box office struggles continue, so Dean and Phil discuss how a Pixar movie might have been able to change everything. That leads into a deep dive into Disney +, the movie Soul, the miniseries “WandaVision” and the episodic series “The Mandalorian”. There is also a lot of talk about painting, from the advice given by the great Leigh McCloskey to the thematic approach of the Barbizon school of artists and the brilliance of Julian Schnabel’s Van Gogh film At Eternity’s Gate. Finally, Dean and Phil celebrate the careers of an Oscar-nominated character actor and a beloved sitcom actor and director.

The heartfelt and the hilarious are both in abundant supply this week. For Phil Leirness and Dean Haglund, one of the best things about co-hosting YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour these past (almost) 14 years has been the friendships they have enjoyed because of the show. And these friendships are very much on their minds. Sure, there is the latest show biz-related Covid-19 news, a great joke about people’s reaction this past week to Dr. Seuss books, reviews of movies both recent and classic, fun with movie ads from the year 1986, “Celebrity Deaths” featuring two great reggae artists, and the return of “What We’re Reading”, but there will also be special birthday wishes, the celebration of a good friend’s new music, tales from a friend’s memoir, lessons learned from a friend’s work as a podcaster, and more. Dean will also discuss the show he did this past week with his good friend Gary Jones, and Phil will preview the two new podcast series he will be producing!

After a week of travel and creative work, Phil is back in Turlock and ready to discuss both with Dean! Phil then asks Dean about one of Dean’s all-time favorite movie directors. This leads into a discussion of two great movies, and the desperate plight of movie theaters in the wake of both the pandemic and the overturning of the Paramount Consent Decrees. From there, Dean and Phil shift gears to discuss the recent Emmy nominations for Best Drama Series, and at least one really fun new television series on HBO. Of course, there are also “Celebrity Deaths” wherein two great character actors, one chart-topping pianist, a legendary ballerina, and a jazz great all get remembered. 

Phil Leirness is joined by music journalist (and friend of the show) Yoshi Kato, who briefly fills in for a tardy Dean Haglund, to discuss the lives and legacies of six notables from the world of music in “Celebrity Deaths”, as well as to set the table concerning a later discussion of Asian Pacific American Heritage month and the 1961 film Flower Drum Song. Dean then arrives just in time to remember a prolific character actor, the decorated police officer who played Eddie Haskell on TV’s “Leave it to Beaver”, and the great Fred Willard. Dean and Phil then answer an email from a loyal listener about an upcoming Michael Bay film set in the world of Covid-19. This leads to a fascinating discussion and argument before attention is turned to the ramping up of film and TV production and the announcement that the Venice Film Festival will go ahead as planned this September. Dean then sings the praises of two different television series, Phil sings the praises of two classic movies about gambling. Then the conversation turns to the careers of Sessue Hayakawa, one of the first heartthrobs of the silver screen, the hilarious and brilliant Jack Soo, and the tragically overlooked Reiko Sato.

From the inner space of quiet, self-quarantine lockdowns, to the outer space of “Star Trek: Picard”, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness take you on quite the journey this week! It starts with their latest observations about themselves and others in the wake of another week of isolation. Sadness, quiet and dehumanization are on the thematic menu! They then compare notes on their respective Easter celebrations, which leads to a discussion of a couple of classic musicals: 1934’s Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle The Gay Divorcee and 1948’s seasonal staple Easter Parade, starring Astaire and Judy Garland. The recent, modern classic, Uncut Gems gets championed by Phil, who tries to get Dean to overcome his trepidation surrounding Adam Sandler performances (and yet, Dean once championed You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, so go figure!). The second half of the show consists of Dean and Phil comparing the years in cinema 1973 and 1974, discussing all the notable films from those two halcyon years, in hopes of determining which year might challenge 1962 as the greatest year in cinema. Finally, your friends in podcasting beam up to the La Sirena to discuss and debate what went right and what went wrong in season one of “Star Trek: Picard”, a show so successful that a big-screen movie version is already in the planning stages.

The sad, the irritating, the hilarious, the ridiculous and the sublime – It’s all fair game on YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour in the age of Covid-19! On this week’s show, Dean discusses the steam room he is building, and Phil explains why the pandemic is making him sad and how people’s under-reaction and over-reaction to the pandemic along with bad puns in jokey emails by elected officials are pissing him off! Phil went down a rabbit hole, researching what in 1952 were considered the greatest movies ever made and in so doing, he discovered an amazing, and long-since forgotten, horror: Louisiana Story. Then, Phil poses the question in honor of what would have been the late Toshiro Mifune’s 100th birthday: Was Mifune the greatest movie actor of all time? The discuss that ensues is terrific. Dean and Phil then weigh in on how movie theaters and movie release schedules will be altered once there ARE movie theaters and movie releases again. Finally, Dean and Phil preview next week’s discussion of “Star Trek: Picard” and the year in cinema 1973 before paying tribute to several notable figures in “Celebrity Deaths”, including a jazz giant, a country music great, a soul legend, a popular sitcom actor from the 90s, a soap opera star, and a much beloved children’s book author.