The first show of 2025 find Dean and Phil in good form and discussing a wide array of topics including the landscape and geography of NY’s Central Park, nature photography, the It Ends With Us controversy and lawsuit, and the near future of motion picture distribution both theatrically and via streaming. The truncated nature of this year’s mad dash Awards Season will get analyzed before the Netflix series “Man on the Inside” gets reviewed. Then, your friends in podcasting roll up their sleeves to re-examine Netflix’s 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles and offer their thoughts on the Ralph Fiennes-Juliet Binoche starrer The Return as well as the brilliant Nickel Boys and the reviled (and misunderstood?) Joker: Folie a Deux. Finally, thoughts regarding the suicide of filmmaker Jeff Baena are offered and Ralph Fiennes closes the show by being very “demure”.

Your friends in podcasting, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness, participate in a “side project” called The Art Life with good pal (and creator of many Chillpak Hollywood Hour theme songs) Jon Lawlor. Each week they hold each other’s feet to the fire as they try to free up their creativity, make it manifest in the world AND encourage each other to live more artful, authentic lives. In the first Chillpak episode of 2024 (Season 3, Episode 100), they discussed their intentions for 2024 and how they intended to set their compasses to their true North(s). In this week’s final episode of the year, Dean, Phil and Jon look back at what was said, share how they feel about their artistic year and discuss how their focus is evolving as we journey into 2025. Happy New Year, one and all!

Because of Dean’s peculiar living conditions at present, because of Phil’s adventures this week in the nation’s capital, and because of a message from a loyal listener (about plein air painting, about microphones, about Bing Crosby, about the body horror comedy/thriller The Substance), this week’s show will be full of fascinating, inspiring and hilarious conversation. The show will also include one of the saddest “Celebrity Deaths” Dean and Phil have ever discussed AND one of the most mind-blowing biographies of any celebrity they have ever remembered.

Your friends in podcasting have returned from travel adventures and have tales about art galleries in the nation’s capital and jazz clubs in the Big Easy. You will learn more about they year 1874, and more about the Marigny District of New Orleans, than you have ever heard before on this show! Much of this week’s episode involves movie box office news, movie award news, and movie reviews. In fact, two current releases and one recent release get deep-dive analyses: Conclave, Anora, and Longlegs.

Last week, Dean and Phil discussed the ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, the ten films released in 2022 that earned the most revenue at the domestic U.S. box office, and the ten (or twelve) or so films the critics have come to consensus on as the best of the year. This week, it’s Dean and Phil’s turn! They will revel their Top Tens, as they count down what might be the films they consider the best, the most groundbreaking, the most important, or just their favorites of the year.