Dean is back from Amsterdam and he and Phil have a lot to discuss! Dean has advice on travel, and has stories about Vermeer, Rembrandt and Heineken. Phil has stories about TCM host (and Czar of Noir) Eddie Muller, and stories about stepping down from his roles at the famed Los Angeles Breakfast Club. Dean and Phil discuss the possible forthcoming writer’s strike in Hollywood and in “Celebrity Deaths” remember the inventor of the game Settlers of Catan, the Oscar-winning production designer of the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” films, an Oscar-nominated character actor and a cartoonist beloved by several generations of fans.

Dean and Phil discuss Leap Day, tackle the challenges and joys of teaching (improv and acting respectively) and then open the Chillpak morgue to remember a novelist-turned-adventurer, a talk show host-turned-soap opera producer, a quick draw specialist-turned-western star, a psych-rock innovator-turned-dream pop icon, and a mathematician-turned-space program hero in “Celebrity Deaths”. Dean offers up analysis on the “38%” in “Explanation of the Week”. Then, after some appreciation of a Canadian television series (available on Hulu), John Mulaney, David Byrne (and the “Sack Lunch Bunch”), the gents tackle an email from a loyal listener and frequent contributor about the recent practice of releasing “de-colorized” modern movies. Finally, a couple more great movie monologues performed by women get discussed. Something for everyone? We like to think so!

As you know, each year, your friends in podcasting celebrate what they think were the best films of the previous year. Well, this year, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness welcome special guest, film critic and Los Angeles Film Critics Association member Luke Y. Thompson to help them as they discuss the best films AND the worst films of 2015! 

Best and worst in one show?! 

Why, that sounds like two shows! And it almost is. At almost 1 hour and 50 minutes, this is our longest show ever (if you don’t count the 28 hour live “podcastathon” Dean and Phil did to ring in the end of the Mayan Calendar). So, get those Netflix queues handy, power up with the caffeinated beverage of your choice and let’s begin