Dean flies into Los Angeles. Phil picks him up at LAX. You get into the back seat. Highway adventures and high fidelity hijinks ensue! The first two-thirds of this week’s show are recorded during Dean & Phil’s drive to downtown L.A. as they discuss Dean’s upcoming two-man improv show, his future performing plans, his prolific productivity as a fine artist, how his life would be different if he still lived in Los Angeles, raunchy historic romance novels, the origins of Vaudeville, and more. After a short musical interlude, the conversation continues from “high atop the historic core of downtown Los Angeles” in the “art deco masterpiece that IS the Eastern-Columbia Building”. The final third of the show touches on such topics as the aurora borealis, Dean’s upcoming European steampunk wedding, and the influence of the great British director Michael Powell on the life and work of Martin Scorsese. Finally, in “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean and Phil celebrate the brilliance of Quincy Jones. There are a couple great Frank Sinatra stories to boot!

This weekend, your friends in podcasting got together on the pool deck of a certain “historic building in downtown Los Angeles” and boy did they have a lot to discuss! The status of downtown, Dean’s travels AND his official “wedding engagement” get covered. The Olympics closing ceremony and Tom Cruise’s role in it get revisited. The “Live Event of the Week” is “Duo it Again” a brilliant and psychedelic game of telephone that is the hottest party you can find on a Tuesday night in Los Angeles. There is movie news involving Joaquin Phoenix doing one of our greatest filmmakers and a maverick indie producer “dirty” and Phil and Dean both have more thoughts about Wolfs losing its wide theatrical release. Casablanca on 4K and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F on Netflix both get reviewed. A whole lot of reference to the great documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself gets made throughout the show. Finally, a groundbreaking comedy radio producer-turned television writer and the peerless Gena Rowlands both get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

Dean is back in Los Angeles and Phil picks him up at the Eastern Columbia and they take to the mean streets of Los Angeles at the outset of this week’s show! Topics discussed include Dean’s experiences with the late character actor Tom Sizemore, the live-streamed Chris Rock special on Netflix, and the disappearance of the great actor Julian Sands. Then, Phil is joined (via zoom) by Yoshi Kato to discuss the career and legacy of jazz great Wayne Shorter, and later, Phil is joined (via zoom) by Marc Hershon, who shares a great story about the late comedian-turned-actor Richard Belzer. After that, and after several cocktails in Hollywood (!), it’s back into the car for a return trip to the Eastern Columbia where Phil stumps Dean with a very interesting trivia question pertaining to the relevancy of the Oscars. This leads to Dean and Phil deciding (for the first time) to not do any Oscar-related show this year, though they do establish one way in which the Academy Awards probably do matter culturally. 

 

Hop into the car, and head up the California coast with Dean and Phil on this week’s rollicking, free-flowing show! Your journey begins on the mean streets of downtown Los Angeles (just outside a certain “historic building”) and concludes by a babbling creek in the tree-lined splendor of Montecito. At those destinations, and at locales in between, your friends in podcasting and broadcasting opine on a wide variety of topics, including Trevor Noah’s final “Daily Show”, Paramount Ranch, P-22, the DVD Dean once made of a road trip with his father, the life and death of Jordan Maxwell, the career and death of Kirstie Alley, and the turmoil behind-the-scenes in the DC cinematic universe.

Recorded late last week from a certain “historic building in downtown Los Angeles”, this episode begins with Phil doffing his cap about what Dean got right in discussing Sarah Polley’s Women Talking a few weeks back AND wagging his finger at what Dean got wrong while discussing Netflix’s “Wednesday” this past week. Phil then hails Joel de la Fuente (of “Man in the High Castle” and most recently “The Mysterious Benedict Society”) as his favorite actor. At that point, Dean and Phil switch gears for a show ten years in the making, analyzing the just-released, decennial Sight and Sound poll of all-time greatest films! What Dean and Phil were expecting and what surprised them leads to what promises to be an ongoing conversation about re-contextualization and the importance of learning how works of art resonate with different groups and different cultures.

A show ten years in the making …

The tenth “Top Ten” show of year ten …

It’s our 10th Anniversary Show!

Join Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness as they count down their Top Ten Most Memorable episodes of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. Featuring special appearances by Erynn Petrulis, Jamie Kaler, Gary Anthony Williams, Suli MCullough, Alexandra Barreto, Ilana Rein, Tom Braidwood, Bruce Harwood, Vince Gilligan, Jon Lawlor, Tucker Smallwood, Philip Newby, and Lily Holleman, there is truly something for EVERYONE in this action-packed trip down memory lane. In fact, SHARE THIS SHOW with your family, friends and colleagues, so that they can hear for themselves why and how your friends in podcasting continue to change the way people listen to the internet!

Has there ever been a more wild and free-wheeling grab bag of topics on a single installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour as there is on this week’s show? Consider the topics discussed:

The mysterious death of Thomas Kinkade, the occult meaning of words and symbols, Dean Haglund running a 5K race, the legacy of Mike Wallace, the films of Guy Maddin, the latest in the MPAA’s battle with The Weinstein Company over the rating of Bully. All that, plus your friends in podcasting weigh in on a documentary about Comic-con, a Woody Allen drama, a John Cassavetes classic, two great, award-winning independent films from last year (one from the UK, one from South Korea). And on top of all of that, we even have a brand new theme song by The B-Film Extras!