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”.

This week’s show begins with an email from a listener in Ireland about dialect coaches and “Hollywood accounting”. After that, Dean and Phil analyze the box office struggles of the brand new In the Heights and this inspires them to look back at two song and dance films that opened on the same day many years ago, both based on the same dance craze. It also inspires them to look ahead to big blockbuster hopefuls coming out this month as well as smaller “smart house” movies all looking for some post-pandemic domestic box office love. The Angelina Jolie vehicle Those Who Wish me Dead gets reviewed. Casting news for “John Wick 4”, the Marvel MCU and “Indiana Jones 5” gets discussed. Phil follows up on his discussion of “The Undoing” by singling out two actors (and their characters) who make the show ultimately worthwhile(ish). Dean offers up an English-language Netflix series shot in Sweden as a viewing recommendation, he regales with tales of the art work he has been creating, and he reveals another of his all-time favorite episodes of “The X-Files”. Finally, Dean and Phil compare notes on their travel plans for the summer before playing an entire four-round “Steven Seagal” edition of their Vintage Movie Ad game!

On last week’s show, Phil introduced what will be a recurring segment for the near future: The overlooked films of 2020. This week, a unique, uniquely painful, esoteric and funny take on both the family drama and the con-artist picture, as well as a superhero movie that really did deserve to be overlooked! Last week, Dean panned a Tom Clancy adaptation written by Taylor Sheridan. This week, another new Taylor Sheridan-scripted actioner gets discussed, this one directed by Sheridan and starring Angelina Jolie. “Celebrity Deaths” is a long-standing segment of the show, but never before have Dean and Phil discussed an actor who worked for 9 decades and died at 106! Phil, is, as listeners will know, a state certified Violence Prevention Specialist. In the wake of the horrific hatred and violence being directed at members of the AAPI community, he decided to augment his training by taking bystander intervention training. He will report on this training, and offer up tips that everyone can use to both #stopthehate and #spreadthelove. And speaking of spreading the love, over the past couple months, your friends in podcasting have begun to check in “on air” with friends of the show who have appeared on past episodes, to see how the year plus of pandemic life has treated them. This week, the great storyboard artist Rob Consing drops by. He discusses the big movies he has been working on, including Morbius and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and he competes against Dean in a round of our new, and apparently popular, vintage movie ad game (where Dean tries to guess the movie from the ad copy Phil reads)!

Before taking off on their holiday travels, your friends in podcasting, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness are doing what they do best: Making sense of a (show business) world gone wild …

They weigh in on the cyber terrorist attack against Sony. They celebrate a milestone achieved by one of their favorite shows. They discuss live events starring the likes of Angela Lansbury and Jeff Goldblum. They dish on an animation price-fixing lawsuit, the decades-long Roman Polanski judicial drama and the idea of actors owning a copyright interest in their performances. They discuss casting news that has them hopeful and casting news that gives them pause. They champion three outstanding films from earlier this year that you probably missed that are available now on home video and they warn you against an award-hopeful Christmas Day opener that is without a doubt one of the worst films of the year. All that PLUS much more as they wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

All together now (singing): “We need a little Chillpak, right this very minute!”