This week’s show covers a lot of ground thematically AND geographically! The death of João Donato takes us to Brasil and the era of bossa nova. The death of Dianne Feinstein takes us back to San Francisco of 1978. The death of Jane Birkin inspires discussion of her daughters, fashion, Hercule Poirot, Dirk Bogarde, and Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania! And the death of Sir Michael Gambon inspires Phil to get up on his soapbox railing against those who think of the great actor as “Dumbledore”! The charms of Savannah, Dean’s ongoing battle with Covid after-effects, the end of the Writer’s Strike, and murder mystery dinners are all on the menu as well!

Dean is on a crazy road trip from Detroit, one that has led him to Des Moines and Denver. What city beginning with “De” will be his next stop? You will find out! The show opens with a tale of bad behavior by one of the biggest stars currently living in the Hollywood Hills. The latest on the Rust on-set shooting tragedy, and ensuing legal chaos, gets covered. A holocaust survivor-turned-sitcom star, the composer of one of the most iconic themes in cinema history, and an Oscar-nominated filmmaker all get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. A whole mess of 2022 movies get reviewed, including leading “Best Picture” hopeful Women Talking, as well as The Woman King, Where the Crawdads Sing, and The Outfit. An overlooked noir-ish classic from Carol Reed gets reappraised, as does a Nazi gold caper film from the 1970s, and a truly bizarre satire about presidential assassination from the author of “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Prizzi’s Honor”.

A cold open about a … melon festival (?!) … inspires a story about racial hostility in Turlock in the early 20th century. From there, Phil is inspired to pick up on a brilliant observation Dean made last week about Mike Nichols’ Working Girl and apply that observation as a potential thru-line for this celebrated director’s career. Alec Baldwin gets into hot water for tweeting support for Anne Heche and Salman Rushdie gets stabbed on-stage right before hailing the USA as the last bastion of freedom of speech. Dean and Phil try to make sense of both of these events. The return of “What We’re Reading” sees Dean learning how to sketch people’s hands and Phil learning what the next World War will be like! In “Celebrity Deaths”, a good friend and frequent collaborator of Stanley Kubrick, a popular and inspiring painter, a legendary French movie star, and the composer of one of the most indelible theme songs of all time all get remembered. Finally, Dean and Phil discuss the finely-tuned instincts Marlon Brando possessed as a great entertainer, and Phil hails the allegorical storytelling on display in Jordan Peele’s Nope.