This weekend, Dean and Phil recorded one VERY LONG conversation that will be edited into the next two installments of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. The next time they record, they will be together in Dean’s Motor City-adjacent stomping grounds! This week, you will hear your friends in broadcasting and podcasting discussing the new cinematic releases Medusa Deluxe, Afire and Barbie as well as a new Taiwanese film on Netflix (Marry My Dead Body). You will hear the latest developments in the negotiations between the writers and the media companies (and yes, there HAVE BEEN negotiations!). You will hear another in Dean’s suggestions of vintage television shows you might wish to binge while your favorite new shows will be gone for a while. There is an email with a correction from a loyal listener that itself gets corrected! And because everyone loves a sequel, Dean and Phil follow upon last week’s all-music edition of “Celebrity Deaths” with another all-music edition, as they discuss the lives and legacies of many music notables that died over the past weeks. 

Pile into the back of the car, buckle up, and join Dean and Phil, reunited on the mean streets of downtown Los Angeles, as they make their way into Hollywood for a live improv comedy show! On the way there, Dean reveals his Thanksgiving celebrations, Phil reveals his birthday celebrations, and they discuss the life and legacy of Irene Cara, and analyze a very important and interesting weekend at the box office. Such movies as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Spirited and The Fabelmans get reviewed. On the way back downtown, they take a deep dive into different kinds of improv comedy AND improv comics. Dean gets weepy about a robot documentary before he sings the praises of the Netflix series “Wednesday”. Phil does likewise with season 2 of “The Mysterious Benedict Society” before he and Dean close with thoughts about season 2 of “Avenue 5”.

Your friends in podcasting (AND broadcasting!) have quite the week to discuss! As the holidays approach, and Covid-19 dashes Dean’s travel plans, Awards Season in Hollywood gets underway. The National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners of the best in cinema for 2021, and a consensus has begun to form through critics Top Ten lists about the best of the year in television. Dean and Phil discuss it all. They also try to make sense of the latest in the accidental shooting on the set of “Rust”. A whole lot of classic films get discussed, including which films may have best depicted what life in America was really like in the mid-1980’s. A new documentary series about The Beatles from Peter Jackson gets reviewed and four actors and a musician get remembered in our penultimate installment of “Celebrity Deaths” for 2021. If nothing else, you will learn that the movie Beau Geste is NOT the movie Gunga Din and director Wim Wenders is NOT director Werner Herzog.

After a funny cold open where Dean tells about another of his haunted house adventures, Dean and Phil kick off this week’s show by sharing what they are thankful for during this Thanksgiving week, Dean battling Covid-19, Phil reflecting on his mother’s death two years ago. The career of Dean Martin, his work with Jerry Lewis, and a terrific TCM documentary “Dean Martin: King of Cool” all get discussed. A great jazz film from the 1980s, Round Midnight, and the “sacred” aspect of cinema get celebrated. The box office success of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and No Time to Die get analyzed through a very optimistic lens. In “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean’s love of funk gets exposed, as two great funk stars get remembered, along with a star of HBO’s “Oz”. And speaking of HBO, Dean and Phil tease an upcoming discussion about HBO’s “Succession” and about Will Ferrell’s considerable behind-the-scenes clout in Hollywood.

After a whirlwind, emergency trip to Turlock, Phil is back in Los Angeles. Dean Haglund is in Northern Virginia. They hook up via Zoom for a first half that covers the great new, Oscar-nominated film Another Round, and its director, Dogme 95 co-founder Thomas Vinterberg. They discuss the controversy that brought destruction to the annual Ovation Awards, honoring the best in Los Angeles theater. They play two rounds in their weekly vintage movie ad game and they celebrate the lives of a great character actor and a great funk musician, both of whom died this past week. All that, plus we find out if Dean ever went by the moniker “Dean E” or “Deanie”. In part 2, Dean interviews film and television critic, friend of the show, and fellow Michigander Mattie Giles. They discuss dogs, great bookstores, binge-watching “E.R.”, the D.C. Universe movies, why Dean can’t actually watch anything in one sitting and more!

Your friends in podcasting reconvene to celebrate the lives of three performers (one a beloved star of Broadway, another a musical star of television, and the third a movie star who was part of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated marriages), a roboticist, a news magazine host, an iconic designer, and several truly heroic Civil Rights activists. Dean and Phil then roll up their sleeves to analyze why it is that Netflix episodic series are so often delightful and charming, while so many Netflix original movies are listless and perfunctory. And, oh, yeah, they also discuss why good manners might just be the cure for a lot of the troubles that seem to plague the modern world.

With the Oscars coming up this weekend, the book will finally close on the year in cinema 2019 … The Best Picture nominees are 1917, Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Parasite. The top performing films at the US Box office released in 2019 (ranked from 1 thru 10) were Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: Episode 9 – The Rise of Skywalker, The Lion King, Frozen II, Toy Story 4, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Aladdin, Joker and Jumanji: The Next Level … Would any of these films make Dean and Phil’s lists of the best films of 2019? Find out this week as your friends in podcasting count down their Top Ten Films of 2019!

Dean Haglund is down under, enjoying his new home in Sydney, Australia. And if this show is to be believed, Phil Leirness is on his way to visit Dean via “swim” (is that a new mobile app?). So, talented, funny, and razor sharp ladies Karen Forman and Lily Holleman step in to help your friends in podcasting change the way they “change the way you listen to the internet”!

There is the familiar – Live Events of the Week, movie reviews, the Bechdel test, appeals for racial and age diversity in mainstream media, and an appeal for more opportunity for women both in front of and behind the camera. Bottom line: “Shame on you, Hollywood!”

Karen and Lily also celebrate the Tony Awards, Lifetime Movies, and “Game of Thrones”.

All in all, it’s an “outward display of inner self-love” and it just might save Christmas!

One day late, but well worth the wait.

Am I right, ladies?

 

We’re only two episodes away from the end of year 8 and only five episodes away from Dean Haglund’s move to Australia, yet your friends in podcasting have more to discuss than ever before! From a full report on the preview screening of their new dark comedy, to the latest news regarding Sci-Fest, from the latest rumblings about the return of The X-Files to Phil’s heartfelt thank you and farewell to a film critic who played a major role in his development as an artist, this week’s installment is quite personal to Dean and Phil.

There is a ton of talk about current television (like Mad MenDaredevil, and the countdown to David Letterman’s final show) and future television (an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off, the Twin Peaks reboot, and perhaps the most exciting new show to be announced in AGES!). There is also much attention paid to forthcoming movies, including ill-advised remakes and reboots, and maybe a film or two worthy of optimism!

Dean and Phil follow up on their (enormously popular) discussion of female-driven films (episode #413), with a discussion of two emerging female musical artists. All that, plus the latest dirt Phil has learned about Scientology AND not one, not two, not three, but FOUR emails from listeners like you! Want to learn about IMDb? Want to learn about Dean and Phil’s favorite cookies? Then, stop reading and start enjoying this thrilling installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

 

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!”