Dean may be in the Motor City, and Phil may be conveniently located “between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge”, but they definitely still put the “Hollywood” into YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. Of course, first they will share their latest thoughts on the social unrest and social evolution taking place, including what Phil terms his “7 percent solution” and Dean describes as “Quantum Life”. From there, and in the wake of some truly disturbing deaths and disappearances in California’s San Bernardino county, Dean and Phil will offer a “Black Lives Matter” edition of “Celebrity Deaths”, remembering the lives of a trailblazing screenwriter, a chart-topping singer, an award-winning dancer and choreographer, and an Olympic bobsledder who once helped inspire a Hollywood box office hit. Then the show becomes all about movies … And car culture! Drive-in theaters are having a moment. Will that moment continue? What will happen to theater chains, especially AMC which is close to going out of business? This year’s The Invisible Man, about which Dean has a compelling theory, will get discussed, as will the 1920 Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Thoughtful, elevated discourse on the evolution of society, insightful analysis on two movies 100 years apart and irreverent banter from your friends in podcasting – Who could ask for more?

Phil Leirness is joined by music journalist (and friend of the show) Yoshi Kato, who briefly fills in for a tardy Dean Haglund, to discuss the lives and legacies of six notables from the world of music in “Celebrity Deaths”, as well as to set the table concerning a later discussion of Asian Pacific American Heritage month and the 1961 film Flower Drum Song. Dean then arrives just in time to remember a prolific character actor, the decorated police officer who played Eddie Haskell on TV’s “Leave it to Beaver”, and the great Fred Willard. Dean and Phil then answer an email from a loyal listener about an upcoming Michael Bay film set in the world of Covid-19. This leads to a fascinating discussion and argument before attention is turned to the ramping up of film and TV production and the announcement that the Venice Film Festival will go ahead as planned this September. Dean then sings the praises of two different television series, Phil sings the praises of two classic movies about gambling. Then the conversation turns to the careers of Sessue Hayakawa, one of the first heartthrobs of the silver screen, the hilarious and brilliant Jack Soo, and the tragically overlooked Reiko Sato.

After a cold open in which Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness celebrate the fact that YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour becomes a teen-ager this week, they launch into what they do best, trying to make sense of a (Covid-19) world gone wild with humor, insight, irreverence and inspiration. In the return of “Wingnut of the Week”, Dean and Phil offer a wag of the finger at Covid-19 conspiracy theorists and a doff of the cap to UFO “truthers”. In “Celebrity Deaths”, they pay tribute to a true titan of comedy publishing and filmmaking, an international star who broke big in both Bollywood and Hollywood, a character actor-turned-casting director, an influential folk singer, and the musician who turned Hugh Grant into a pop star! Then, your friends in podcasting tackle how Covid-19 will affect the up-coming television season, and how it will affect the Oscars, before turning their attention to what years in cinema might rival 1962 as the best year ever for movies! 

The sad, the irritating, the hilarious, the ridiculous and the sublime – It’s all fair game on YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour in the age of Covid-19! On this week’s show, Dean discusses the steam room he is building, and Phil explains why the pandemic is making him sad and how people’s under-reaction and over-reaction to the pandemic along with bad puns in jokey emails by elected officials are pissing him off! Phil went down a rabbit hole, researching what in 1952 were considered the greatest movies ever made and in so doing, he discovered an amazing, and long-since forgotten, horror: Louisiana Story. Then, Phil poses the question in honor of what would have been the late Toshiro Mifune’s 100th birthday: Was Mifune the greatest movie actor of all time? The discuss that ensues is terrific. Dean and Phil then weigh in on how movie theaters and movie release schedules will be altered once there ARE movie theaters and movie releases again. Finally, Dean and Phil preview next week’s discussion of “Star Trek: Picard” and the year in cinema 1973 before paying tribute to several notable figures in “Celebrity Deaths”, including a jazz giant, a country music great, a soul legend, a popular sitcom actor from the 90s, a soap opera star, and a much beloved children’s book author.

In the first half of this week’s show, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness celebrate the lives of several show biz luminaries who shuffled off the mortal coil these past few weeks. They also analyze the list of the 10 best films of the decade according to the legendary Cahiers du Cinema, especially their top choice. Finally, Dean and Phil reveal a newfound opponent to the Department of Justice’s plan to end the Paramount Consent Decree. Then, after a commercial break, your friends in podcasting welcome to the program, lifelong broadcaster and educator Alex Lewczuk of the University of Lincoln in the UK, Siren FM, and Southside Broadcasting. He discusses the past and present of sci-fi, as well as the importance of futurism.

Tucker Smallwood is immediately recognizable to fans of science fiction for playing Commodore Ross on “Space: Above and Beyond”, for playing Sheriff Andy Taylor in “Home”, the most notorious of all episodes of “The X-Files”, for playing the flight commander in Contact, for playing the Xindi Humanoid in “Star Trek: Enterprise”, for playing Admiral Bullock in “Star Trek: Voyager” and those are just his highest profile sci-fi roles. An actor, an author, a musician and a decorated military veteran, Tucker Smallwood joins your friends in podcasting to discuss two classic Francis Coppola movies in which he was involved.

After 12 and a half years of “changing the way people listen to the internet”, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness bring YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour to ODYSY Radio for “season 2” of their long-running show! On this week’s maiden ODYSY voyage, your friends in podcasting re-set all topics, making this a perfect time to join Chillpak Nation! They run through their show biz bona fides, they regale with stories of recent travel adventures, they celebrate the lives of two seminal figures in “Celebrity Deaths”, they discuss some of the greatest movies to be directed by women, they tackle a “Lawsuit of the Week” involving Madonna, they hail the music of the Mississippi Delta in “Live Event of the Week”, they analyze the Department of Justice plan to repeal the Paramount Consent Decrees in “Explanation of the Week”, and they preview a future show (and special guest) in “What We’re Reading”. Is there something for everyone? We like to think so! Warning: Dean and Phil’s high-spirited, artful, irreverent, insightful and inspiring conversation can be habit-forming!

Phil reveals good news and terrifying stories about his recovery from eye surgery, he and Dean lay out a wide array of possible solutions to gun violence, they remember a legendary writer, they update the Writers Guild’s battle with talent agents, they reveal new movie theater subscription news and they re-visit what they were talking about 12 years ago this week! All that, plus your friends in podcasting dig deep in their analysis and appraisal of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his career output and his place in cinematic history. Finally, they celebrate one of the most important voices in cinema today, Sean Baker, the filmmaker behind The Florida Project, Tangerine and many more.

It’s Dean’s birthday and we have a special, action-packed show! It gets under way with a famous movie star singing “Happy Birthday” to everyone’s favorite Lone Gunman. In “Live Event of the Week”, the return of Dean’s one-man improv “X-Files” show gets celebrated. Phil updates everyone on his most recent eye surgery before climbing his soapbox in the wake of the mass shooting in Gilroy and the seemingly ongoing war on humanity’s joy. 12 years ago, the summer of 2007 was Dean and Phil’s summer of 007 and they were discussing James Bond. This week, they talk about how the Bond producers have missed out on a seemingly huge opportunity and in “Celebrity Deaths”, your friends in podcasting remember a man who was a friend of Phil’s and the answer to an awesome 007 trivia question. They also celebrate the legacy of Rutger Hauer, and of a man whose life was synonymous with space exploration. This leads into a brief discussion about Moon landing “truthers”. Dean and Phil tackle the various ways movie theaters are looking to cure the box office apocalypse. They discuss Netflix’s deal with the Screen Actors Guild. They continue their ongoing discussion comparing the late Krzysztof Kieślowski and Quentin Tarantino, and, oh yeah, they review Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (spoiler free) and preview the “Star Trek” movie he might direct. Happy Birthday to Dean, and Happy Chillpak Hollywood Hour Day to all of you!

Dean previews this weekend’s X-Fest convention all about “The X-Files”, and discusses the latest on his streaming comedy series “Gravity Hole”. In “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean and Phil celebrate the great singer Leon Redbone, the last of the Mohawk code talkers from World War II, and the socialite whose conviction and subsequent acquittal of murder formed the basis of the Oscar-winning Reversal of Fortune. Phil hips Dean to the breaking news about the Canadian genocide of indigenous women, and they commiserate over the latest mass shooting in the USA. They share an email about the (non-existent) Bowling Green Massacre. They assess the current state of movies in theaters, on HBO, via Netflix, and more, especially through the prism of reviewing two new comedies, a western revival, and one of the longest-developing projects in recent Hollywood history. Because next week’s show might be a mostly a pre-recorded interview, this week’s show is an extra 12 minutes long, offers something for almost everyone, and is jam-packed full of podcasty goodness!