Your friends in podcasting (AND broadcasting!) have quite the week to discuss! As the holidays approach, and Covid-19 dashes Dean’s travel plans, Awards Season in Hollywood gets underway. The National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners of the best in cinema for 2021, and a consensus has begun to form through critics Top Ten lists about the best of the year in television. Dean and Phil discuss it all. They also try to make sense of the latest in the accidental shooting on the set of “Rust”. A whole lot of classic films get discussed, including which films may have best depicted what life in America was really like in the mid-1980’s. A new documentary series about The Beatles from Peter Jackson gets reviewed and four actors and a musician get remembered in our penultimate installment of “Celebrity Deaths” for 2021. If nothing else, you will learn that the movie Beau Geste is NOT the movie Gunga Din and director Wim Wenders is NOT director Werner Herzog.

You might not know the name Don Phillips, but you will definitely know the names of many the performers whose careers he launched as a casting director, and the films with which he was involved. He is one of four cultural titans that Dean and Phil remember in “Celebrity Deaths” on this week’s show, including a poet and founder of the mythopoetic men’s movement, an iconic Broadway composer, and a trombonist who received the highest honor ever bestowed on jazz musicians. Dean will update us on the latest in his bout with Covid-19, his travel plans, his live ghost hunts and his “Hellacious Renovations”. Phil will regale us with his birthday adventures, his deep dive into historic movie locations, and his exploration of the Manzanar “War Relocation Center”. Several movies will get analyzed as well, including a Kurosawa classic ripe for a modern-day remake, a film noir with a claim to the best dialogue of any movie ever, and a current box office hit that begs the question, “Does bustin’ make Dean & Phil feel good?”

After a funny cold open where Dean tells about another of his haunted house adventures, Dean and Phil kick off this week’s show by sharing what they are thankful for during this Thanksgiving week, Dean battling Covid-19, Phil reflecting on his mother’s death two years ago. The career of Dean Martin, his work with Jerry Lewis, and a terrific TCM documentary “Dean Martin: King of Cool” all get discussed. A great jazz film from the 1980s, Round Midnight, and the “sacred” aspect of cinema get celebrated. The box office success of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and No Time to Die get analyzed through a very optimistic lens. In “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean’s love of funk gets exposed, as two great funk stars get remembered, along with a star of HBO’s “Oz”. And speaking of HBO, Dean and Phil tease an upcoming discussion about HBO’s “Succession” and about Will Ferrell’s considerable behind-the-scenes clout in Hollywood.

Dean and Phil follow up on their deep dive analysis of the quality and box office fortunes of a wide variety of cinematic releases with an even DEEPER dive into the box office calamity that has befallen Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel. From a movie that died at the box office to “Celebrity Deaths”, a pioneering stand-up comic, an inspiring and award-winning jazz guitarist, a legendary writer of “Doctor Who” and “Wallace and Gromit”, and a popular actress of the 60s and 70s all get remembered. Then, Dean and Phil turn their attention to Thanksgiving by programming another of their “film festivals”. This time it’s five double-features you might be well-advised to watch in order to celebrate the holiday in style!

Dean and Phil get the ball rolling by discussing the most “fun” (?) cities in California. Then they discuss the role film critics play as we emerge from a pandemic. The quality and box office fortunes of The French Dispatch, The Eternals, Last Night in Soho, Dune, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and No Time to Die get analyzed and discussed. Phil sings the praises of a great Japanese film, a legendary Japanese actor, and a charismatic Japanese pop star. Dean sings the praises of Benedict Cumberbatch and his new film about a famous artist. Phil sings the praises of Mike White’s satirical “The White Lotus” and tackles the controversy surround Dave Chappelle’s “The Closer” from a much different angle. Finally, Dean intrigues Phil with his description of Channing Tatum’s Amazon Prime series “Comrade Detective”.

Your friends in podcasting are celebrating 100 episodes of broadcasting! That’s right, this is their 100th episode since moving their franchise to Odysy Radio! Dean and Phil celebrate this milestone by sharing personal stories of on-set safety in the wake of the emerging details behind the fatal shooting on the set of Rust. They discuss society’s need for “instant eulogies” in the wake of another friend’s death. They discuss the latest news on the big-screen Dune and review the latest from Wes Anderson. All that, plus the return of the “Live Event of the Week”! Finally, Clint Eastwood is celebrating 50 years as a filmmaker, and Dean and Phil get in on the action by “programming” a “Directed by Clint Eastwood” film festival – 5 double features you might want to watch!

This week’s episode is a grab bag of what you’ve come to expect from YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. A broadcasting legend, perhaps the greatest record producer ever (though also a convicted murderer), a chart-topping early rock and roll star, and many others get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. Phil and Dean discuss a review given to their film The Lady Killers (now available to rent or to own everywhere in the world). Phil once again quizzes Dean on movie ads from the 80s and 90s before they analyze the latest Covid-19 fallout to theatrical movie releases and to theaters themselves. Then, Phil regales with details of his “Drive-In Movie Adventure”, Dean reviews Wonder Woman 1984, and your friends in podcasting close with “What We’re Reading”, including an hilarious and disturbingly relevant book from 15 years ago that arrived to Phil by mistake!

To commemorate this week’s Academy Awards, your friends in podcasting offer up this special show all about the history AND future of the Oscars! How might the Academy voting membership change and how should it change? What award categories need to be changed, removed or added? Dean and Phil weigh in on last night’s historic show, offering doffs of the cap and wags of the finger. They also pile into the Chillpak time machine and travel back to the early days of Oscar to analyze how effective the Academy was at selecting “Best Picture” winners that would stand the test of time.

With the Oscars coming up this weekend, the book will finally close on the year in cinema 2019 … The Best Picture nominees are 1917, Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Parasite. The top performing films at the US Box office released in 2019 (ranked from 1 thru 10) were Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: Episode 9 – The Rise of Skywalker, The Lion King, Frozen II, Toy Story 4, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Aladdin, Joker and Jumanji: The Next Level … Would any of these films make Dean and Phil’s lists of the best films of 2019? Find out this week as your friends in podcasting count down their Top Ten Films of 2019!

Year 13 of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour gets underway with Phil providing an update on his battle to regain his vision. He and Dean discuss some press they recently received for their film The Lady Killers  as well as the latest progress on part 2 of their documentary The Truth Is Out There. Doris Day gets a few words of remembrance, though Peggy Lipton, Barbara Perry and Jim Fowler get the full “Celebrity Deaths” treatment. David Lynch gets debated (again), especially in light of how much he and Dean have in common! Some news and views on Avengers: Endgame and one excellent, Oscar-nominated film, and two really disappointing 2018 releases get reviewed. Join the Chillpak Mod Squad for year 13!