Tomorrow is Canada Day and the end of the week is Independence Day in the USA. Your friends in podcasting have thoughts about celebrating. They have thoughts about Team Canada’s big win in the World Cup. They have thoughts about why very few of the listeners to this podcast are in Canada! Phil got back from the Carolinas and has stories about being the “Guest of the Day” in Charlotte, North Carolina (the Queen City), and about beaches and alligator encounters in Kiawah Island, South Carolina (the Lowcountry). Dean asks Phil about Bill Murray’s baseball team in Charleston and Phil regales with tales of Carolina Day and America250. Turning to show business, the gents celebrate the best box office year at the movies since 2019 and glean some important lessons from that success, lessons they fear may be lost on the industry, but which certainly seem to be lost on the press covering the industry. Particular focus gets put on the just-opening, and already disastrous Supergirl and on Sam Raimi’s 2026 “survivor horror thriller film”, Send Help.

Dean and Phil share seasonal decoration news, holiday plans, and Christmas travel tales. Then, Phil tells a hilarious story about an awards screening he attended. Wake Up Dead Man (“A Knives Out Mystery”) gets a deep dive analysis which leads into a new way of discussing the issues surrounding Netflix’s pending purchase of Warner Bros. Media. After that, the Netflix films Jay Kelly and Carry-On get reviewed before a soon-to-be-theatrically-released awards hopeful gets reviewed. Finally, a classic 1949 film noir and an underrated 1961 comedic gem from Billy Wilder get celebrated.

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!

How much longer will your friends in podcasting keep doing YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour? Climb into the backseat as Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness drive from Los Angeles International Airport to a certain “historic building in downtown Los Angeles” to find out the answer to this question as well as to learn about Polar Vortexes, Chief Financial Officers, Phil’s bachelor party plans, the Garry Shandling Learning Studio, the Time’s Up “4 percent challenge” and more!