Welcome to part one of a two-part installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour wherein Dean and Phil will discuss the best in cinema of the year 2023. This is no ordinary “Top Ten” show. Ultimately, dozens of films and just as many topics will get explored. This week’s show actually begins with discussion of atmospheric rivers, of spreading a loved one’s ashes, of comparisons between the original Cape Fear and the Martin Scorsese remake, and the beloved athlete-turned-actor Carl Weathers gets remembered. Then, before setting their sights on the cinematic year that was, your friends in podcasting (and broadcasting) examine something last week’s guest (Luke Y. Thompson) said about what an all-time great year for movies 1999 was. It turns out he could not have been more right, and so Dean and Phil wonder, when looking back at 2023 many years hence, will it be as impressive as 1999 is now in the rearview mirror? That serves at the springboard into discussions of Wim Wenders, editing, Imax, and such films as Anselm, Perfect Days, Napoleon, Cocaine Bear, A Haunting in Venice, Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. And, of course, the best thing about this week’s show is that it is “to be continued …”! 

12 years ago this week, your friends in podcasting were recording their first show in stereo (rather than the two channel mono that was absolutely bonkers) and were discussing Gary Oldman’s sex appeal and The Last Mimzy. A clip from that discussion opens week’s show before Phil provides an update on his recovery from AND preparation for eye surgery, and Dean provides an update on some very interesting live comedy shows he is doing. One is his improv episode of “The X-Files” and you can see it this month in Detroit! Then, the gents move this week’s episode into the Chillpak morgue, where a maverick U.S. Presidential candidate, an all-star pitcher who became a controversial author and a successful actor, one of the greatest character actors of all time, a legend of Italian cinema, and a star of the original “Willy Wonka” all get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. A couple more thoughts related to last week’s discussion of what approach will most likely lead to creating great television get shared. Then, Dean and Phil discuss the controversy surrounding the American Cinematheque and the landmark Egyptian Theatre. Finally, they compare notes on Alfred Hitchcock’s fascinating Rope and the recent releases Us from Jordan Poole and Under the Silver Lake from David Robert Mitchell.