There are two Carolinas in the USA. North and South. Phil is exploring both of them. So, this week’s show was pre-recorded quite a few days earlier than usual. In it, Dean and Phil discuss The Actor’s Gang, a well-respected theater company and training ground for talented performers (like their pal, Steve Benaquist). Dean and Phil continue to talk about the late, great artist David Hockney, his love of smoking, and the ways in which he taught the world to think of Los Angeles, namely as it pertains to light. Light and its interplay with shadows is absolutely top of mind for your friends in podcasting and they go deep into film noir, talking about such great actors as George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Edmond O’Brien, and Edward G. Robinson, and such great directors of noir as Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak. The movies They Drive by Night, The Killers and Scarlet Street all get appraised. Finally, Phil holds court about the 1980 neo-noir The First Deadly Sin, which was the final motion picture produced by Frank Sinatra, and the final lead performance for Sinatra as an actor. It was supposed to have been directed by Roman Polanski, which has Phil asking, “What if it had been?” He also suggests another young director (at the time) who would have been a better choice than the film’s eventual director, Brian G. Hutton. Nevertheless, Hutton did director a couple of Dean’s favorite movies, so Phil shares the quite interesting details of Hutton’s career.

In a rather shocking cold open, Phil reveals not only that he has World Cup Fever, but also that he is genuinely thrilled about the early tournament achievement accomplished by Team Canada! Brief remembrances of artist David Hockney and journalist Gene Shalit (both of whom died during the past few days) are offered. Then, things turn dark, as Dean and Phil explore some of the shabbiest corners of show business, with the latest on the impending Paramount merger with Warner Bros. and the return of the It Ends With Us lawsuit between director Justin Baldoni and star Blake Lively. Last week Dean and Phil talked about actress Ann Savage, who starred in Dean’s all-time favorite My Winnipeg. This week, Phil reveals to Dean that the Academy Museum will be hosting a “Weekend with Guy Maddin” featuring four of this master filmmaker’s greatest works. Dean convinces Phil to attend the entire weekend. A couple weeks back, Dean and Phil discussed the all-time classic Some Like it Hot and in so doing, Dean made some comments about that film’s indelible supporting player Joe E. Brown that inspired friend of the show Maurice Terenzio to hunt and peck his way through a lengthy, fascinating and rewarding missive about this great comic actor (and humanitarian). Film noir has been foremost on Phil’s mind of late, and he offers detailed appreciations for two of his all-time favorite actors: Sterling Hayden (in the process analyzing the revered Nicholas Ray-directed and Joan Crawford-starring western Johnny Guitar and the classic John Huston crime procedural The Asphalt Jungle) and Veronica Lake (with particular attention paid to the Raymond Chandler original The Blue Dahlia). Finally, it’s no secret that Dean loves action, and he offers a full report on the just-released action film The Furious.

Phil was actually worried he and Dean wouldn’t have enough to discuss to fill this week’s show and wow was his worry unfounded! The gentlemen get the conversational ball rolling with the return of “What We’re Reading” wherein four quite fascinating and quite disparate works get covered, leading to in-depth discussion about such topics as painting watercolors, epistolary novels, the comedic genius of Norm Macdonald, and life in Austria-Hungary of the early 1900s. All the major prizewinners at Cannes 2026 get discussed, and the early summer U.S. box office gets celebrated. Then, however, the tone turns darker, as the need for a full-on boycott of Paramount and its properties gets expressed, and the ramifications of waiting for the Warner Bros. merger to launch said boycott get explored. Dean saw The Sheep Detectives and shares his thoughts. Phil watched the classic 1945 film noir Detour and spills the dirt on its director’s fall from grace, hails the film as a must-watch for aspiring filmmakers, and regales Dean with a delightful fact about the career of the film’s lead actress, Ann Savage.

Great theaters and great comedy are on the minds of your friends in podcasting. First, Dean and Phil pat themselves on the backs for taking the time at the beginning of the year to preview the film that ended up winning the Palme d’Or at the just-completed Cannes Film Festival. Then, they finally, after a break of months, return to the Time Out list of the “100 Greatest Movie Theaters in the World”, and share their connections to some of the very top selections. From great movie theaters to one of the most historic live television stages in the world, the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City, Stephen Colbert’s farewell to the “Late Show” gets analyzed and his return to late night television the very next night in Monroe, Michigan (on Public Access television) gets celebrated. Finally, two of the most legendary comedy filmmakers of all time get compared: Mel Brooks and Ernst Lubitsch. The “Lubitsch Touch” gets explained and the all-time great comedy film To Be or Not to Be gets discussed in fascinating detail.

After a cold open wherein Phil gives everyone the lay of the land, outtakes from last week’s show are picked up off the cutting room floor, dusted off and used, revealing an obviously drunken Dean and (a perhaps tipsy) Phil continuing their discussion of commuter trains before delving into Project Hail Mary and a couple of vintage James Bond films. Then, after a midpoint musical interlude that allows Dean and Phil to become sober as judges, good pal Jon Lawlor joins the conversation for analysis of the Live Nation and Ticketmaster court case and the pending Warner Bros.-Paramount merger. During the show, Phil learns the difference between a Japanese bathhouse and the Alamo Drafthouse, and the difference between the words “vacillate” and “oscillate”.

After comparing notes on their forthcoming respective travel plans, Dean and Phil roll up their sleeves and discuss the 25th anniversary of “The Lone Gunmen” series. Then, in what will be a multi-week exploration, they begin to delve into Time Out’s list of the 100 Greatest Movie Theaters in the World that are still in operation. The movie business is foremost on their minds these days, and they pose some of the big, perplexing questions regarding the possibly sinister and definitely nonsensical merger of Paramount with Warner Bros. Then, because it’s STILL awards season, they tackle the really odd, almost desperate nature of the recent SAG-AFTRA “Actor Awards” on Netflix. As a bonus, you will learn what the following phrases uttered by Dean Haglund in this episode actually mean: “We made the Ramones cry!” and “funky, artisanal whatever”.

Dean and Phil discuss the fallout from Paramount supposedly closing the deal to acquire Warner Bros. and its assets. They celebrate the feat that Richard Linklater became the first-ever American filmmaker to achieve this week. They review three new genre films: a horror sequel (28 Days Later: The Bone Temple), an homage/deconstruction of 1960s Eurospy movies (Reflection in a Dead Diamond), and a sci-fi comedy that gives genuine 1980s “feels” (Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die). They revisit the much-loved “classic” Field of Dreams. In honor of Dean’s first wedding anniversary that takes place this month, Phil offers previews of two forthcoming cinematic marriage stories. Finally, the big casting news for the reboot of “The X-Files” gets analyzed.

On this week’s show, Dean Haglund is finally using a microphone once again. It makes his audio better, to be certain, but somehow it also manages to create several cameo opportunities for his dogs! Don’t let those moments dissuade you, however, as this week’s show is an utterly fascinating conversation between Dean and his longtime co-host Phil Leirness. They go deep, discussing the potential sale of Warner Bros. to Netflix, the life and legacy of perhaps the greatest American architect of all time, Frank Gehry, and the truly spine-chilling lessons we can learn from the Nazis’ film policy.

This week, Dean and Phil will begin to slowly roll out the new era of Chillpak Hollywood, releasing much more content each week. Phil provides details at the outset. Then, he and Dean engage in much show biz “water cooler” discussion. The most famous modernist home in the world is up for sale for the very first time. Dean and Phil talk about the house, its history, and some of the movies that were filmed there. Warner Bros. is also up for sale, apparently (again!), and Dean and Phil both discuss it and sort of lament it! A loyal listener is very upset about the film Bugonia, so Dean and Phil revisit their debate about the film’s director, Yorgos Lanthimos. The lack of box office this year for accomplished and acclaimed films aimed at adults gets discussed broadly, with two of these films (the Channing Tatum vehicle Roofman, and the recent spy thriller Black Bag) going under the microscope. Finally, two classic films get re-appraised and celebrated anew: Rian Johnson’s Brick on its 20th anniversary, and the rollicking 1966 western The Professionals. Finally, one of Phil’s all-time favorite actors, indeed one of the greatest figures in Japanese cinema history, gets remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

In what might be our longest episode ever, but is certainly an epic installment in any event, your friends in podcasting delve into the potential new relevancy of late night television, the frightening potential merger of Paramount/CBS/Skydance with Warner Bros/Discovery, and the power of TikTok (and other social media platforms) in turning this year’s Superman into a box office hit. Four of the all-time great films (Carl Thodore Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc, Luis Bunuel’s 1961 Viridiana, Jean Vigo’s 1934 L’Atalante, and Charles Laughton’s 1955 The Night of the Hunter) receive deep-dive analyses. With pal of the show Jon Lawlor adding support, the influence of Robert Redford’s training as a painter on his work as an actor and filmmaker gets discussed as does Burt Bacharach’s (terrible) music score for (the great) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.