Because people have asked, on this week’s show, Dean and Phil will explain (yet again) why this is “Season 2” of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour! They will also follow up on last week’s “Twelfth Night” episode all about Shakespearean film adaptations with stories about Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books, the Shakespearean qualities of Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune and HBO’s “Succession”, Ralph Fiennes being inspired by The Hurt Locker when he made Coriolanus, and James Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli making an unfortunate comment about Shakespeare while appearing at the UCLA film school in the 1980s. The bulk of this week’s show will be about celebrating the lives and legacies of genuine cultural giants: Joan Didion, Desmond Tutu, Marilyn Bergman, Betty White and Peter Bogdanovich. Several movies, several television shows, much music, great writing, inspiring humanitarian efforts, and one amazing school all get discussed.

We hope this finds you having enjoyed a happy and healthy New Year. Twelfth Night is a festival that takes place on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” (or “What You Will”), is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night’s entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. On this week’s brand new Season 2 Episode 109 of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour, Dean and Phil celebrate both the holiday season AND the immortal Bard of Stratford on Avon by counting down each of their 12 all-time favorite cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare! Brevity might be the soul of wit, but your friends in podcasting (and broadcasting) have an hour to fill!

On Christmas Eve in the nation’s capital, your friends in podcasting (and broadcasting!) got together in-person for this very special (and pre-recorded) holiday treat! Dean discusses his Los Angeles adventures, including the Cerritos mall, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and nudists! Phil discusses his east coast adventures, including a visit to the Hillwood Estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post and the night his beloved cat, Fuzz Aldrin, decided to go walkabout! They touch briefly on the death of beloved novelist Joan Didion, and they discuss a handful of holiday season cinematic releases, including (more on) Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, Being the Ricardos, King Richard, Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Matrix Resurrections. There is even time for a brief follow-up on the zen brilliance of Bill Murray, and there is a photo shoot during the show! Join Dean and Phil as they ring out the final week of 2021 in style …

Somehow, through almost 15 years of bringing you YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour free every week, Dean and Phil have never dedicated an entire show to the career, artistry and genius of Bill Murray. This week, that oversight gets remedied, as your friends in podcasting march right into the holidays by programming a film festival they are entitling “A Very Murray Christmas”. Featuring seven double features, discussion of numerous other titles, analysis of Murray’s zen approach to life, art, career and business, and an appreciation of some of his key collaborators through the year, we think this will be a particularly fun and festive hour!

It’s the midst of the holiday season. Travel plans are ramping up and the awards season is starting to heat up! The American Film Institute has revealed its honorees as the top (ten) films of 2021 and a consensus has begun to form through critics Top Ten lists about the best movies of the year as well. Dean and Phil discuss it all. They analyze (and “contextualize”) three new award-hopeful releases from major directors: Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. They also celebrate foreign films, the Oscars, country rock, The Monkees, the Bronski Beat, New Orleans, The Beasts of the Southern Wild, Interview with the Vampire, telenovelas and more in “Celebrity Deaths”.

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”.