Chillpak Hollywood Hour » Shows

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #120

Phil Leirness — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:22:33 +0000

Part three of our three-part special all about acting focuses on Dean and Phil’s favorite living male actors. Next week, Dean and Phil will be podcasting from DragonCon (perhaps in front of a live audience!) and you won’t want to miss that. Still, if you like acting, actors, movies, or just plain enjoy listening to good conversation, you won’t want to miss this installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #119

Phil Leirness — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:50:40 +0000

This week’s show is all about the ladies! In part two of our three-part special all about acting, Dean and Phil discuss their favorite female perfomers of all time, both living and dead. A wide range of beautiful, brilliant, strong, fearless women from around the globe get discussed. If you like acting, actors, movies, women, or just plain enjoy listening to good conversation, you won’t want to miss this installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #118

Phil Leirness — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:42:32 +0000

What do Charles Chaplin, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman and Orson Welles all have in common? Well, they’re all dead, of course, AND they all live on as part of Dean and Phil’s countdown of their all-time favorite actors who are no long with us. It’s part one of a three part special edition of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour that focuses on acting and actors. Keep that Netflix queue handy!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #117

Phil Leirness — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:48:38 +0000

A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips might have just been named as the new co-hosts of At the Movies, the long-running movie review program started by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, but they have already given this week’s installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour, “Two big thumbs up! Way up!” We have no idea what this means, however, we do know that this show is for the movie lovers in our audience. And if those movies are porn versions of The X-Files, gory vampire films, documentaries about food, irreverent satires, existential dramas, surreal comedies, science-fiction allegories, period pieces, or kick-ass World War II action epics, or all of the aforementioned, or even if you just want inspired and inspiring conversation, this week’s show will have your two thumbs beside themselves with joy!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #116

Phil Leirness — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:30:57 +0000

Dean and Phil just got back from Oakland, where Dean was performing his live improv comed show and Phil was conducting test shoots for their recently announced documentary The Truth is Out There …

On this week’s show, they’ll talk about this trip as well as the trips they have planned to such destinations as Chicago, Atlanta, Berlin, Oslo, Cocoa Beach (Florida) and various parts of Canada. Chillpak Hollywood Hour may very well be coming to your city or town!

On a future show, Dean and Phil plan on interviewing Vince Gilligan, creator of the hit series “Breaking Bad.” On this week’s show, they discuss the Emmy nominations received by Vince’s program and by all your favorites. They also discuss the omission of “True Blood” from the nominations. TV fans won’t want to miss it.

Sci-fi and horror fans won’t want to miss this week’s show, either, as Dean weighs in on the state of the union in the horror genre and Phil does the same for sci-fi films.

And because he’s a town crier, Phil gets on his soapbox about dolphins and suggests a Website created by one of our loyal listeners that you may just want to visit.

It’s all this week on YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour …

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #115

Phil Leirness — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:51:27 +0000

We begin this week with the results of “homework” assigned to loyal listener (and music journalist) Yoshi Kato, who weighs in on this year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film. That leads into a discussion of a great film that Phil recently studied – Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 landmark masterpiece The Celebration. Along with Lars Von Trier, Vinterberg was one of the founders and inspirational “leaders” of the Dogme movement. Dean and Phil re-visit the Dogme 95 manifesto and its rules that were designed to even the playing field between big-budget and low-budget, and American and European filmmakers. Phil then reveals how the tenets of Dogme 95 and the motivation behind them is inspiring and informing his approach to the next fictional feature film he will be directing in October of this year. The film will be called Night Falls Fast and Phil and Dean offer a preview.

Then conversation turns to another recent viewing by Phil, the Rashomon-esque conspiracy thriller Vantage Point, which failed to do much of anything at the box office. As Dean and Phil have discussed before, no matter how good the film might be (like the recent State of Play) it is impossible for a suspense thriller about a fictional conspiracy to draw much audience interest when the population at large is inundated by, intrigued by and/or obsessed with talk of supposedly real-world conspiracies! That is why Dean and Phil, along with their producing partner Lyle Skosey, have begun work on a feature length-documentary. The Truth is Out There will look at conspiracy from many different perspectives, and will cover many different conspiracies while doing so! Dean and Phil end this week’s show with a special sneak preview of their documentary and play a brand new game: Dean Haglund’s Conspiracy Lightning Round.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #114

Phil Leirness — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:48:44 +0000

Dean and Phil spent two weeks looking at what they consider to be the best films of the twentieth century. Because they don’t like to deal strictly in the positive, they will spend this week cleansing their palates of all that praise by revealing their lists of the all-time worst films! Dean opts for a traditional “count-down” of ten truly horrendous films. Phil lacks Dean’s ability to describe a film you’ve never heard of and make that description both interesting and hilarious, so he instead breaks his discussion down into different categories … For example: What is the worst sequel to a great film? What is the worst remake? What is the worst Oscar-winner for Best Picture? The answers to these questions and so many more on this week’s installment of YOUR Chilpak Hollywood Hour!

P.S. We’re aware that Dean has an annoying habit this week of speaking away from the microphone, but stick with it, the show is a fun one!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #113

Phil Leirness — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:06:20 +0000

When the summer movie season started in early May, Dean and Phil warned that this could be the worst summer movie season on record. And that was before we were hit with celebrity death after celebrity death! After all, this is the year where those films rushed into production prior to the Writers Guild of America strike of fall ‘07 were coming home to roost … This week, Dean and Phil continue to discuss the show business personages who seem to be dropping like flies. Then, they get into discussing the box office hopefuls that seem to be dropping at an even more alarming rate!

The first two and a half months of summer are dissected (or as it is known in the industry: the two and a half months before the Boy Wizard returns), successes are analyzed, disappointments are picked apart, and box office bombs are ruthlessly ridiculed. It’s all in an hour’s work for Dean and Phil …

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #112

Phil Leirness — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:49:31 +0000

After their special two-part theme show, Dean and Phil are back, trying to make sense of a world gone wild.

Phil was in South Carolina during the mysterious disappearance (and tumultuous reappearance) of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. On this week’s show, Dean and Phil analyze what seems to be a growing trend of men with self-destructive principles reaching the summit of power before absolutely annihilating their own standing.

Dean and Phil offer farewells and some perspective on the recently deceased Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Joseph Jackson and even … Fred Travalena?! Truly, the 1970’s are over …

During our two-week break from covering the business of show, two show business controversies have erupted. Dean and Phil will tackle them both. The first involves some wild rule and format changes for the Academy Awards. The second involves the fear surrounding Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno. This last topic is particularly in Dean’s wheelhouse, as it focuses on issues of both freedom of expression AND the responsibility of the performer.

Get ready to put this one in a time capsule, or at least send it to NPR and Satellite Radio as an audition, this one’s gonna be good!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #111

Phil Leirness — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:14:41 +0000

Throughout its history Hollywood has always loved a good sequel and we at Chillpak Hollywood Hour are no exception. That’s why this week’s show is Part 2 of our look at the All Time Best Films of the past century! This time, we look at the years from 1960 through 1999 …

Such iconic performers as Peter O’Toole, Jack Nicholson, Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood will get mentioned, and such giants of cinema as Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, Robert Altman and Woody Allen will get discussed. Listen to find out if YOUR favorites made our list. And keep pencil and paper handy to write down OUR favorites to add to your Netflix queue!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #110

Phil Leirness — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:47:34 +0000

At the end of last week’s show, Dean and Phil promised a theme show this week focusing on the greatest heroes and villains ever to grace the silver and small screens. Unfortunately, technical difficulties are preventing that show from coming your way. The good news is that we have a very cool theme show for you anyway, as Dean and Phil reveal their Top Films of All Time! This particular hour focuses on the years 1920 through 1959.

The even better news? We’re making it available for your listening enjoyment three days early!

Why? Because we love you.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #109

Phil Leirness — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:23:07 +0000

For the rest of us, “no” means “no”, but for Kobe Bryant, there isn’t any “no” in “M-V-P” and he certainly played like one in leading the Los Angeles Lakers to another NBA Championship. And how do you celebrate when your team has won it all? You set fire to downtown! No puny riots can prevent Dean and Phil from bringing you a hilarious, action-packed hour of conversation and entertainment, however. Join them as they discuss attending fundraisers for Tippi Hedren’s Shambala Preserve and Los Angeles’ own Luminario Ballet. Also, Phil witness eight of the most dangerous minds in Los Angeles performing spoken word pieces on the theme of “shelter” at Rogue Machine’s “Rant and Rave.” One of those pieces is by former Chillpak Hollywood Hour guest Tucker Smallwood and it’s a great read. Another performer at the show was the absolutely brilliant, two-time poetry slam national champ Steven Connell.

Now that the Screen Actors Guild has finally and overwhelmingly ratified a new labor agreement with the producers, Dean and Phil do a final post-mortem on the labor strife that was and where the hell we go from here. From labor battles to late night comedy wars, Dean and Phil survey the radically altered landscape of late night television to see who will remain standing. Then it’s off to the multiplexes, where Dean discusses a truly horrible premiere he attended, and Phil discusses a wide array of films, from Pixar’s Up to Angels and Demons, from Edward Zwick’s Defiance to Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #108

Phil Leirness — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:05:11 +0000

Next month, Dean and Phil will begin work on their new feature film, a documentary all about conspiracy … On this week’s show, Dean and Phil offer a preview, of sorts, as they take a look at various recent news stories and analyze the way conspiracy plays a part in each: The death of actor David Carradine, the fate of Air France Flight 447, and the current Screen Actors Guild contract vote. Then, they discuss a November 2007 video that analyzes the “truth behind” the 7/7 2005 London terrorist attack. This video, in part, looks at how the media is used by the government to “deceive, inveigle and obfuscate”. Finally, Dean and Phil will discuss a wide variety of movies they’ve seen over the past couple weeks. The analysis of these films will have nothing to do with conspiracy at all … Or is that just what they want you to believe?!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #107

Phil Leirness — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:41:12 +0000

Dean and Phil hint at some new photos that will be posted on thieir Facebook and MySpace pages before leaping into action, hitting such a wide variety of topics as the Air France flight that disappeared over the Atlantic, the Screen Actors Guild contract vote, the genius of Huell Howser, the passing of the torch at “The Tonight Show”, the changing landscape of broadcast television advertising revenues, and what went wrong with the Terminator franchise. It’s a lot to tackle, but Dean and Phil are up to the task. Heck, they even remember to reveal what they’ve been reading.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #106

Phil Leirness — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:14:37 +0000

Dean and Phil pick up where they left off last week, previewing all the big summer blockbusters that hope for your box office dollars, as well as previewing smaller films that may have a hard time being discovered between the explosions at the multiplexes, but nevertheless might be worthy of your time. Phil offers a detailed analysis of the summer’s one true success story thus far – Star Trek – and analyzes, from a business perspective, what is next for the venerable franchise. Dean hints at details of his upcoming live comedy gigs in Vegas, Phil shares with Dean a really interesting book recommendation from one of our loyal listeners. Finally, Phil closes the show with the incredibly inspirational words that were delivered to the performing arts students at Washington D.C.’s National Cathedral School by a frequent contributor to Chillpak Hollywood Hour.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #105

Phil Leirness — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:28:31 +0000

It’s all movies on this week’s episode! Dean and Phil start by running down the top ten grossing films thus far in 2009 and the list is a real head-scratcher. Phil hadn’t even heard of one of the films! They then discuss the films they’ve seen during the past week, including a very good documentary, a fantastic foreign film, and they even add a few more comments to the Star Trek discussion, before turning their attention to X-Men Origins:Wolverine, posing the question, “just how far – and how fast – can a franchise fall?” That brings up the latest Terminator, of course, and from there, Dean and Phil preview all the films coming out over the next four weeks, from the hopeful blockbusters to the quality independents, foreign language films and edgy dramas that hope to catch on as counter-programming at the multiplexes. From what we’ve seen Summer of 2009 is where audiences learn the disastrous effects of the writer’s guild strike of ‘07, when many films were rushed into production without workable scripts!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #104

Phil Leirness — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:18:01 +0000

Take whatever warp speed you can muster, mister, to Starbase CHH, for the latest boldly goings of Dean Haglund as he discusses his appearances at several recent sci-fi and fan conventions. Phil Leirness explains why he has managed to beam up a hangover with him onto this week’s show. Then, it’s hailing frequencies open as Dean and Phil spend the rest of the hour talking about films they’ve seen. Phil locks his phasers of analysis onto the J.J. Abrams-directed “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise and Dean performs a complete sensor sweep on the films of Guy Maddin. Dean and Phil have their tractor beams locked onto much more, including Last Chance Harvey, the films of John Cassavetes, the resurrection of Jean-Claude Van Damme, the absolute perfection of Audrey Tatou, and two hilariously awful films from Turkey. Finally, Dean and Phil will follow up their discussion of conspracies and conspiracy-based movies from a couple weeks back and will actually deactivate the cloaking device on their new feature-length project that starts shooting in the fall.

Steady as she goes …

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #103

Phil Leirness — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:22:00 +0000

Chris Mancini is a comedian, a filmmaker and a raconteur whose book Pacify Me: A Handbook for the Freaked-Out New Dad has just been published and he’s our guest on this week’s show. Following Dean’s hilarious, insightful, inspiring conversation with Chris, Phil joins the party with a look at the start of the summer movie season (off with a bang following the huge opening by the aggressively mediocre X-Men Origins: Wolverine), calling attention to several small, independent and/or foreign films that may serve as satisfying “counter-programming” to all the mindless mayhem being dished up by the studios.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #102

Phil Leirness — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:17:39 +0000

Is everyone out to get us? If not, why are they keeping so much from us? From astronauts who reveal the truth behind what happened in Roswell, New Mexico, to former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s death squads, talk of conspiracy is everywhere and this week’s Chillpak Hollywood Hour is no exception. Dean and Phil begin by analyzing why conspiracy thrillers seem to be box office poison and then tackle the stories surrounding such real-life conspiracy topics as the recent X-Conference, the Denver International Airport, the swine flu outbreak, and even Jay Leno. Trust no one. Except Dean and Phil and the good people at Chillpak.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #101

Phil Leirness — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:31:40 +0000

One of the most popular new shows to debut on network television in 2009 is the witty and sexy Castle starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. Dean and Phil welcome one of the writers and co-producers of the series to this week’s show. If you’re interested in writing, producing, directing or acting in television, or even if you’re simply a fan of the show, you won’t want to miss it!

Then, as an added bonus, once the interview is done, Phil gets out his soapbox and lets Seth Rogen (and the makers of Observe and Report) have it … First for a “funny” rape scene in their “comedy” and second for the ludicrous, misguided, uneducated attempt to defend said scene that Mr. Rogen was guilty of in interviews.

The inside skinny behind the scenes of a hot new show and rallying the troops in hopes of building a world free from sexual assaults and sexual violence – That juxtaposition pretty well demonstrates what we’re all about here at Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #100

Phil Leirness — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:26:58 +0000

Why is Willard Scott kissing our asses this week? Because we just turned 100, baby! Dean and Phil celebrate this milestone with a special show where they take you on a tour of their DVD collections! Many intimate details are revealed: Such as what titles are “rainy day” favorites, what selections are excellent to have on in the background while doing work, which ones instruct and inspire them, which ones cost the most (!), and which DVD’s are kept unopened and unwatched (Dean and Phil discuss the joy of having such “untouched” titles in their collections). Dean’s collection reveals a diversity bordering on the disturbing. Phil’s collection reveals him to have a very strong nerd component to his makeup! Who knew?!

Join us in singing “Happy Birthday” to ourselves on this week’s Chillpak Hollywood Hour!

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #99

Phil Leirness — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:05:03 +0000

Dean spent the weekend in Vancouver performing live comedy at a Stargate convention. He tells Phil all about that experience. Then Phil shares the following theory with Dean: We are currently living through the true Golden Age of comedy on television! Dean and Phil proceed to analyze, debate and discuss this theory from various perspectives. If you’re a fan of comedy, of television, or just lively conversation and historic context, you won’t want to miss it.

Also, next week is our 100th show (please, no gifts!)! Dean and Phil reveal the special show they have planned to commemorate this landmark.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #98

Phil Leirness — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:05:25 +0000

Dean is back from doing a comedy benefit in San Jose, California. Phil spent all wekeend doing paperwork (hush, hush film development work), though he got out to see a comedy benefit here in Hollywood. They discuss both these shows before launching into analysis of a wide range of films. From German cinema “you will never forget,” to the career challenges of once-hot Guy Ritchie, to the over-exposure of Seth Rogen, Dean and Phil offer their insights before finally giving their long-awaited appraisal of what went right and what went wrong with Watchmen.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #96

Phil Leirness — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:47:05 +0000

Phil just got back from two weeks in Northern California, so Dean and he have almost too much show for one hour! From utilizing Phil’s training as a Violence Prevention Specialist in discussing issues of relationship violence as they pertain to Chris Brown and Rihanna … To answering a question from loyal listener The Sicillian about casting directors and the auditioning prcoess … From discussing the late Ron Silver’s claims that his career was unjustly derailed due to his own conservative politics … To the continued in-fighting between factions vying for control of the economic sinking ship that is (or used to be) the Screen Actors Guild … This Chillpak Hollywood Hour is so filled with hard-hitting news analysis, you’ll swear you’re listening to NPR.

Chillpak Hollywood Hour #95

Phil Leirness — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:43:13 +0000

It’s time for a special “theme” show and that can only mean one thing: Phil is on a bender somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area and can’t make it into the studio! Not to worry, though, because Dean and Phil put this gem of a show in the vault for just such an eventuality.

The first decade of the 21st Century is coming to a close, so Dean and Phil spend an hour looking back at the performers who made it a memorable decade for film. These are actors and actresses who either burst upon the scene within the past ten years, or who fully came into their own during that time. What’s most fun is that dozens of different films get discussed, many of which you might have missed or that might have flown under your particular radar. So, keep your Netflix queue handy. You’ll want to be adding to the list!