Chillpak Hollywood Hour

Original Release Date: Monday 9 November 2026    Description: It was a big week in the good, old USA and Dean and Phil discuss some of the most fascinating historic milestones achieved through the week’s midterm elections. That dovetails into Phil sharing tales from his second “Around the World in 80 Minutes”, what he hopes might become monthly year-round as both a stage show, and perhaps as a radio show? Good friend and frequent contributor (and occasional guest co-host) Yoshi Kato writes in with a question about the difference between Visual Effects and Special Effects. Dean and Phil have a ball answering the question before rolling up their sleeves and appraising four quite different films: the indie pandemic-era comedy Save Themselves, the critically-acclaimed, box-office disappointment Minions & Monsters, the Olivia Wilde-directed sleeper hit sex comedy The Invite, and the Jimmy Kimmel-produced Netflix documentary SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of.

Original Release Date: Monday 2 November 2026    Description: Your friends in podcasting get November off to a swinging start by sharing a whole bunch of stories before delving into many fascinating films, both legendary and notorious, both short subjects and features. The stories involve Halloween, the WNBA champion Golden State Valkyries, the late, great Sir Patrick Stewart, and the making of a behind-the-scenes documentary Phil once directed about the making of a fascinating film. The short subjects discussed are the 1983 DIY experimental video horror musical Possibly in Michigan from artist Cecilia Condit and the seminal work of surrealist cinema Un Chien Andalou, the first film from all-time master Luis Buñuel which he co-wrote with none other than Salvador Dali. Three controversial horror feature films that continue to delight and disturb more than forty years after each of them were initially released get thoroughly celebrated: The current 4K restoration of Ken Russell’s The Devils, the 1981 Possession and David Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead.

Original Release Date: Monday 26 October 2026    Description: Halloween week gets off to a spooky good start with this scary fun episode! Dean and Phil reveal “What We’re Reading” and both books involve France! In the return of “Live Event of the Week”, Dean talks farmers markets, and Phil talks an historic theater and a world premiere about inkblots and perception. Dan Lin is out as the film boss at Netflix and what this means for the future of the streamer and its possible future in theatrical exhibition gets discussed. Loyal listener Maurice Terenzio spills the tea on two actors discussed at length on last week’s show: Hans Conried and Errol Flynn. Loyal listener Amber has some final (?) thoughts about the Hans Conried vehicle The Twonky, reveals her favorite Hitchcock film and mentions the two films that provided her truly visceral experiences. Loyal listener G.V. wants Dean and Phil to see the current theatrical release of the restored director’s cut of Ken Russell’s The Devils, and many listeners want them to see the current box office smash documentary (docudrama? meta-doc?) You Can See Everything. Then, because spooky season is in full swing, Phil quizzes Dean about the 20 biggest horror hits of all time at the worldwide box office. After that, Phil rolls up his sleeves to discuss another horror film double-feature of titles included on the 2022 Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time. Finally, Dean and Phil re-appraise Sofia Coppola and her Marie Antoinette in the wake of that film’s 20th anniversary.  

Original Release Date: Monday 19 October 2026      Description:   This week’s show was recording during the midst of Phil’s emceeing duties for the third annual Porchfest L.A. He offers a full report on this community event while also regaling with tale of the logistic showdown between Porchfest and No Kings! One of the things Dean and Phil mean when they say it is “your” Chillpak Hollywood Hour is that if you write them, and they find what you wrote interesting, they will read what you wrote on the show and respond to it! Three listeners did just that and so your friends in podcasting roll up their sleeves to discuss more about The Twonky and Suspiria, while offering appreciation for the star of The Twonky (Hans Conried) and the author behind the source material for Don’t Look Now. Dean watched the 1945 Errol Flynn war picture Objective, Burma! (from director Raoul Walsh) and not only has thoughts about it, but about the life and death of the great and troubled star. Phil caught up with a movie he has been dying to see since it debuted at Cannes in 2025, and found himself … unmoved. The show concludes with a Hitchcock double feature (The 39 Steps and North by Northwest), followed by a horror double feature (Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

Original Release Date: Monday 12 October 2026      Description:   Is this brand new show “an action-packed crowd-pleaser”? Give it a listen and find out! It sure is long, we’ll guarantee you that! The cold open deals with the year 1939. Then the show officially starts with all the news you can use coming out of Canada – the good, the bad and the so-called ugly! Your friends in podcasting then go deep into fine art and discuss the works of many great artists, before returning the business of show and analyzing the current Disney lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission and the record-setting 2026 box office performance by a beloved leading lady. Dean saw the 1953 sci-fi comedy The Twonky (if you have been listening regularly, you understand), and Phil follows up the brilliant horror double-bill he described last week with another logical pairing: Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 Don’t Look Now and Dario Argento’s 1977 Suspiria (with a little bit of Hitchock’s North by Northwest thrown in for good measure).

Chillpak Hollywood Hour – Year 20 Episode 22  Original Release Date: Monday 5 October 2026Despite being recorded later than we like, and despite one of your friends in podcasting definitely “playing hurt”, this installment certainly proves to be a delight. Much hilarity starts the show, in no small part thanks to an email from a loyal listener like you (yes, YOU!), before Dean and Phil get into a fascinating conversation about the court-approved settlement terms for the merger of Paramount/Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery. The “Live Event of the Week” returns, thanks to the launch of Phil’s own monthly stage show! He and Dean discuss, and Phil reveals he busted up his ankle falling down a flight of stairs many weeks back. Dean has begun his homework for the next “Deep Dive” into (neo) noir, and has thoughts about François Truffaut’s 1960 New Wave crime drama Shoot the Piano Player. Finally, since “spooky season” has begun, Phil does an in-depth comparison of John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing and Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien.

Original Release Date: Monday 28 September 2026      Description:   If we know anything after almost 20 years of podcasting, it’s that people love hearing “production meetings on the air”! If that’s true, then what a show we have for you, with not one, but THREE production meetings – two of genuinely hilarious varieties and the third pertaining to movies like Backrooms, Exit 8, Universal Language and the television series “Severance”. In between those meetings, Dean and Phil share the thoughts of a loyal listener and roll up their sleeves to roast almost everybody involved in the “will they or won’t they” Paramount/Skydance merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The glory of the once great Paramount Pictures gets re-visited using the all-time Hollywood classic Sunset Blvd. and the just-released season finale of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 4 as the gateway for this exploration. Come for the analysis, stay for the story about Phil stealing something! As if that all weren’t enough, Dean and Phil go deep on a perplexing television movie from 1974, its’ famous writer, it’s all-star cast, and it’s legendary cinematographer. Finally, Stop! That! Train! gets fully appraised.

Original Release Date: Monday 21 September 2026      Description:   Hindsight, like this episode, is 20/20 (Year 20 Episode 20, get it?) and so Dean and Phil begin this week’s show with a clip from the long-running ABC news magazine show “20/20” from the mid-1980s remarking at just how contemporary those clips sound! From there, the upcoming “Blade Runner 2099” television series gets previewed and the latest in the lawsuit surrounding Paramount’s on-hold merger with Warner Bros. gets analyzed (and laughed about). Phil wants to know why Dean isn’t watching the terrific “Lanterns” on HBO. The brilliance of director Zach Cregger and the success of his new Resident Evil get appraised. Then, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner (just in time for its return to cinemas, this time in black and white) and DC’s Supergirl both get reviewed. Finally, the great Ang Lee and his landmark Sense and Sensibility get reappraised (just in time for a new adaptation to get released).

Original Release Date: Monday 14 September 2026      Description:   Dean Haglund is back from Stockholm and he has brought tales of family mysteries with him! Because Dean is also jet-lagged, Phil Leirness figured this show was the perfect time to ask him about the science of combatting jet lag, about Melbourne, and about wildlife in Australia. Wildlife in Los Angeles, from bears to coyotes to one famous mountain lion, gets celebrated as well. Phil’s suspicions surrounding the lawsuit currently blocking Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. get discussed. The recent “Deep Dive” Dean and Phil did into 1950s film noir gets re-visited and in the process, the work of writer A.I. Bezzerides, and the early works of Stanley Kubrick get dug into, while an email from Maurice Terenzio about an early work by great noir director Joseph H. Lewis gets shared. Dean watched a whole bunch of current or recent releases on his long flight back from Europe (3BHK, F1, Michael and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die) and Phil shares his thoughts about the current documentary about the late, great poet Mary Oliver. Even more movies than this get discussed, corrections get made and mea culpas are offered!

Original Release Date: Monday 7 September 2026      Description:   Dean Haglund is in Stockholm, so for the bulk of the show, this week’s guest co-host, music, arts and culture journalist Yoshi Kato joins Phil Leirness to discuss the death of an all-time jazz great, the implosion of more than one jazz festival and live celebrations of the musical (and movie) legacy of composer John Williams. This leads to a great deal of discussion over the Star Wars franchise, original and recent, including Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and several Star Wars-related vinyl records. The summer movie season has come to an end with this Labor Day weekend and it was far and away one for the record books. Will Hollywood learn the right lessons from the big success? Don’t count on it.  Yoshi and Phil compare notes on what those lessons might be. They also discuss two current theatrical releases (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Coyote vs. Acme) and the classic, dreamlike French film Last Year at Marienbad, as well as the lasting influence of that film’s star, Delphine Seyrig. Finally, Dean drops in at the end so that he and Phil can pan two films set during World War I, one quite recent (The Choral, starring Ralph Fiennes) and one quite acclaimed (1917).