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 …”! 

Sure, Covid-19 may be no laughing matter, but Phil Leirness gets things started with a quarantine lockdown joke nonetheless before he and Dean Haglund dig down into the protests surrounding stay-at-home orders, the hopes they have for how society might change in the long-term, and about the dangers of placing your faith in “distrust”. Ageism in Hollywood gets discussed, and then “Star Trek: Picard” and season 2 of “Star Trek: Discovery” get compared and get praised before the commercial break. In the back half of the show, Phil regales Dean with “Star Trek”-related tales involving the likes of JJ Abrams and … Toshiro Mifune?! In “Celebrity Deaths”, two of the all-time great character actors, three legendary jazz musicians, a ground-breaking sculptor, a pop-culture influencing illustrator, an award-winning cinematographer, and a glass-ceiling breaking animator get remembered. Keep calm, stay safe, and enjoy YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

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.

On this week’s show, Dean reveals details of his Halloween night, one-man, improv “X-Files” episode and Phil shares tales of a Halloween week visit to the legendary Magic Castle in “Live Events of the Week”. Accomplished stand-up comic and actor John Witherspoon and Hollywood icon Robert Evans are remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”. Once again, Dean and Phil discuss the terrific Dolemite is My Name and champion another great title available on Netflix, 2016 Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake. All that, plus HBO’s “Watchmen” and the throw-away gags of “Silicon Valley” get discussed.

Today is the day the annual movie awards season comes to a merciful conclusion and your friends in podcasting stick the final nail in its coffin with their annual review of the Oscars telecast wherein they reveal who they predicted would win in all 24 categories. As always, there’s a wager involved and for the 2nd year running, you’ll be treated to some classic clips from Academy Awards presentations past. And now, the envelope, please …

From directing live television in the sixties, to jumping out of airplanes and water-skiing in the MeKong Delta (while serving his country during the Vietnam War), from studying acting under the tutelage of the legendary Sanford Meisner (at the Neighborhood Playhouse), to becoming recognized the world over for his work on stage and screen, Tucker Smallwood has lived an extraordinary life and continues to live life extraordinarily.

Fans of Chillpak Hollywood Hour might recognize Tucker as “Kid Griffin” from The Cotton Club, “The Mission Director” in Contact, “Commander Ross” in Space: Above and Beyond, “the Xindi Primate” in Star Trek: Enterprise, “God” in The Sarah Silverman Program, and “Sheriff Andy Taylor” in “Home”, the most controversial episode of The X-Files.

Born to a father who served the U.S. as a diplomat and an educator, Tucker details some of his own service to country in the book Return to Eden. Commanding a Mobile Advisory Team, becoming severely wounded in action, recovering from his injuries, moving to New York and studying acting, establishing a career as a performer on Broadway, in film and on television, and continuing to explore the mysteries of existence (UFOs! Ghosts! Golf!) are some of the many topics Tucker explores in the book.

Dean and Phil welcome Tucker to the show this week. We can guarantee that you won’t want to miss it!