Awards season is finally behind us and Phil is finally back in Los Angeles, and normalcy is restored on this week’s episode, or at least as much as “normal” is ever on our audio menu! Dean and Phil will reveal any thoughts they have about last week’s Oscars as well as if or how they celebrated St. Patrick’s Day this weekend. In a “Live Event of the Week”, Phil will regale with stories about seeing the great indie rocker Hamilton Leithauser at the legendary Cafe Carlyle. Five movies get discussed: the current smash hit Dune 2, a possible future cult favorite Argylle, the recent Marvel flop The Marvels, the interesting Nicolas Cage vehicle Dream Scenario, and the brand new, utterly brilliant performance documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus. All that, plus a groundbreaking stunt performer and a British actor of stage and screen get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

As we approach Halloween, the spooky and the scary are foremost on the minds of Dean and Phil, and we aren’t just talking about the actors’ negotiations with the giant media companies! Of course, your friends in broadcasting and podcasting DO talk about those negotiations, but they also discuss such spooky films as the 1980s vampires-with-great-hair spectacle The Lost Boys, the influential Ingmar Bergman classic The Magician, the beloved modern Japanese masterpiece Ring, Disney’s misbegotten Haunted Mansion, Alex Garland’s fascinating Men, and the “Citizen Kane of horror movies”, 1973’s The Wicker Man. All that, plus two non-scary recent releases, the Guy Ritchie-directed spy comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and the Ashley Park-starring Joy Ride get reviewed, and the beloved Oscar-nominated character actor Burt Young gets remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

 

After a cold open about the founder of Hollywood’s Magic Castle and about the greatest professional football player of all time, this week’s show gets started with Dean discussing upcoming “X-Files” convention appearances. And, thanks to an email from a loyal listener like you (yes, YOU!), Dean will share one of the most hilarious behind-the-scenes stories about the making of “The X-Files”. Another email from friend of the show Maurice Terenzio might just be the funniest Dean and Phil have ever received! It will get shared in all its glory. Movies are foremost on Phil’s mind this week and such titles as Armageddon Time, Renfield and the documentary Lynch/Oz will get discussed, as will a wonderful comedy-horror film called Evil Sublet. The current SAG-AFTRA negotiations with the producers will get touched upon as those negotiations relate to the “Salkind clause”, AI, and soap operas.

Welcome to an excellent installment of your Chillpak Hollywood Hour that begins with tales of springtime before a couple of great soapbox moments courtesy of the “sensitivity editing” of Agatha Christie and newspaper headline treatments of black men in the media. An actress who starred in many beloved projects, a screenwriter behind crowd-pleasing movies, a singer in a legendary doo-wop band and the designer responsible for the way Phil smelled throughout his teens and twenties (!) all get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. Dean champions Cocaine Bear, Elizabeth Banks, and the return of Nicolas Cage (not that he went anywhere). Phil regales with amazing original casting choices for a couple of popular recent films before launching into an appreciation of the fable-making on display in John Wick: Chapter 4.

This week’s show begins with Phil trying to surprise Dean with details of a very famous person who lived in what is now Dean’s hometown of Birmingham, Michigan, and then, Phil tries to stump Dean with a vintage movie ad (from 55 years ago!). Then, because they have been falling behind in discussing “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean and Phil will open the Chillpak morgue to discuss the huge amount of notables who shuffled off their mortal coils in the past week! In part 2, Dean and Phil discuss Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, the latest awards season news (including the SAG, DGA and Producers Guild nominations), and then they conclude with reviews of several films including The Kitchen Brigade, After Yang, Crimes of the Future and Bones and All.

Phil is back from Hawaii and bringing with him observations about how the islands AND America have changed since he last visited the spots he traveled to (24 and 36 years ago respectively). He and Dean bring back “What We’re Reading” after a lengthy absence, and the discussion of books will lead to discussions of comedy, the Golden Age of Radio, watercolor painting and YouTube instructional videos! In “Celebrity Deaths”, an Oscar-nominated star of M*A*S*H, one of the greatest comedy movie directors of all time, and the “Queen of Funk” all get remembered. The show concludes with an analysis of Sunday night’s Screen Actors Guild awards. What do the Film winners portend for the forthcoming Oscars, and whom did Phil and Dean vote for in these award categories? All that, plus what non-nominated film might be one of the very best of 2021?

Your friends in podcasting ring out the old on the last day of 2018 by tackling the recently announced partnership between iTunes and theatrical film distributor A24, and by looking at the calendar year that was and analyzing week by week how the biggest movie hits and best films of the year were released. They only make it through the end of September, but at least 29 films get discussed, so keep those Netflix queues handy! Thanks for spending some of your year with us and we’ll see you again in 2019!