Dean flies into Los Angeles. Phil picks him up at LAX. You get into the back seat. Highway adventures and high fidelity hijinks ensue! The first two-thirds of this week’s show are recorded during Dean & Phil’s drive to downtown L.A. as they discuss Dean’s upcoming two-man improv show, his future performing plans, his prolific productivity as a fine artist, how his life would be different if he still lived in Los Angeles, raunchy historic romance novels, the origins of Vaudeville, and more. After a short musical interlude, the conversation continues from “high atop the historic core of downtown Los Angeles” in the “art deco masterpiece that IS the Eastern-Columbia Building”. The final third of the show touches on such topics as the aurora borealis, Dean’s upcoming European steampunk wedding, and the influence of the great British director Michael Powell on the life and work of Martin Scorsese. Finally, in “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean and Phil celebrate the brilliance of Quincy Jones. There are a couple great Frank Sinatra stories to boot!

Dean is back from Japan. He will speak about his trip on this week’s show. Phil is grieving the death of his sister. He has some thoughts about her and about grief and about two wishes he has that he will share. If you would like to read about Phil’s sister, he included a tribute to her influence on him in “Haunted”, the most recent essay he published for his The Voice of Los Feliz Substack. Dean and Phil will discuss a wild grab bag of other topics as well, including the city of Glendale, California, improv comedy shows, the ongoing brilliance of “The Simpsons” and the enduring (and growing?) legacy of the British filmmaking team The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). Finally, a lightning round of quizzes for Dean will comprise this week’s “Celebrity Deaths”.

On Halloween in the USA (November 1 in Japan), Phil and Dean recorded this week’s show via zoom for a far out and far east installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. In it, you will hear accounts of Dean’s adventures in the Land of the Rising Sun. You will also hear the sad tale of Phil’s sister, and Phil’s full report on the big live show he hosted, and the show he was performing in that night. There will be deep dive discussions of several films, including two by director Brian G. Hutton and two somewhat overlooked horror films. The importance of Halloween as a time to discover, or re-discover unfairly maligned or outright ignored genre films gets celebrated as well. Finally, great stars Kris Kristofferson and Teri Garr, and legendary “Star Trek” writer, producer and show-runner Jeri Taylor get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

Dean is in Tokyo, but before departing the U.S., he recorded a grand conversation with Phil for this week’s show! Jeremy Saulnier’s Netflix original Rebel Ridge, the comedy Thelma starring June Squibb, the sports-based love triangle Challengers, and the Netflix documentary Will & Harper are just some of the new and recent films they discuss. Then, they take the time to celebrate the lives and legacies of Broadway actor-singer-dancer Adrian Bailey, groundbreaking vocalist-turned-actress Cleo Sylvestre, French-Italian singer (who recorded in 11 different languages) Caterina Valente, bossa nova and samba icon Sergio Mendes, musical star Mitzi Gaynor, and beloved actors (and Eddie Murphy co-stars) John Ashton and John Amos in “Celebrity Deaths”. Finally, friend of show Marc Hershon drops by for his now monthly check-in to discus the latest and greatest in streaming episodic programming (you know, what us older folks might still refer to as “TV shows”!).

Phil is back from New York City. Dean is preparing to travel to Tokyo. They have a lot to discuss on this week’s installment. Phil talks about a live show he saw in New York, about the work of an all-time great stone-cutter, about Columbus Day, and about Indigenous Peoples Day. Dean talks about the fish market he can’t wait visit, and the “Venice of Japan”, and previews the drawings he will do while far out and far east. “Hogan’s Heroes” gets discussed, because, y’know … Dean! Apple TV + is foremost on the mind of Phil – both its dominance of episodic television and its failure at feature filmmaking. One classic film (1962’s The Manchurian Candidate), one action film from Taiwan (The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon) and two recent releases (Wolfs, The Bikeriders) get deep dive analysis, while Guy Maddin’s latest and the new “Joker” film get previewed. All that plus Phil offers personal recollections of a true genius in the history of film, film criticism and film preservation, Robert Rosen, who died at 84.

Because of some crazy travel plans (London! New York! Tokyo!), the next three episodes of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour promise to be unusual even by our standards! This week’s topics include a forthcoming Broadway revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross”, the crazy, big screen experience Megalopolis, the lineage of Longlegs director Oz Perkins (and a bit about one of the film’s stars), and a “smart house” thriller from Canada, Red Rooms. The North American tour of (“the Modfather”) Paul Weller becomes “The Live Event of the Week”. The deaths of master stone carver Simon Verity, best-selling mystery novelist Nelson DeMille, beloved actor James Earl Jones, and the utterly peerless legend of the stage and screen Maggie Smith all get discussed. Art, architecture, mythology, philosophy, movies, television, music and more on this week’s show – in other words, something for everyone, right?

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 …”!