Big Daddy Dispatch: September 2024 (Patreon)

Dispatch Eighty Nine August 30, 2024

Greetings WHM Family!

Oh, my god the FIFTEENTH Season of WHM is almost upon us! You’ll have to wait just eleven days for the proper start (see below for the schedule), but we’ve been recording these episodes for a few weeks now and we feel like we are IN IT. We’ve got a lot of amazing episodes coming your way on both the free and Patreon feeds, and so many plans for the months ahead, so we can confidently say this is going to be the best season of We Hate Movies of all time. No pressure!

And of course, being a WHM superfan, you know you need to subscribe to that YouTube channel as well, right? Andrew, Chris and Eric will be breaking down selections from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, with two special On-Screen Live broadcasts happening right from the fest. These will be live-streamed on our YouTube channel, make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out!”

Banner Credit: We Hate Movies Logo by Felipe Sobreiro

 Image Credit: We Hate Movies Live in Atlanta by Leah Randall

HOLY SHIT, IT’S A WHM FALL TOUR!

That’s right, while we were sipping Mai Tai’s at our beach house, we were also busy booking a kick-ass tour for Fall, returning to two of our favorite cities and debuting in one that is far overdue!

Friday, November 15th we will be in Seattle, Washington for the very first time at Washington Hall!

Sunday, November 17th we will be in Portland, Oregon for the first time in a looong time at Mississippi Studios!

Wednesday, December 4th, we will be in Boston, Massachusetts returning to Laugh Boston to end out a great year of shows!

We don’t have titles yet, but these tickets are LIVE and they will be moving fast so, if you’re interested, get your tickets NOW for these legendary shows before they sell out. As you noticed this summer, not all of our recordings work (it’s beyond our control!) so who’s to say if these will be lost forever or not?! Get your tix now at our website!

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 753 – The Crow (1994) (Patrons Only)

For this month’s We Love Movies episode, Andrew, Steve, Chris, and Eric find themselves in dystopian Detroit, where a ghostly vigilante is waging war on a demonic crime boss and his roving bands of arsonists and rapists. Why are hot dogs so central to a fallen world? What are the particulars of the real estate swindle that Michael Wincott is running here? Would the worst people on Earth ride around listening to Stone Temple Pilots? Nine Inch Nails makes a little more sense, but still.

Episode 754 – Gamer (Live in Atlanta)

Recorded live at City Winery in Atlanta, GA last April, this show finds Andrew, Chris, Steve, and Eric tangling with the hellish, ugly future-scape of the notorious Neveldine-Taylor bomb, in which celebrity gamers control death-row inmates relegated to a short life as real-life video-game avatars. It’s like The Running Man with gamers and much less fun. Who allowed these aesthetics to become a modern peak of B-movie expressionism? In what lab was Michael C. Hall’s performance designed and are we sure we’ve burned it to the ground? Can we get a bit more about what’s going on in reality or would that ruin the very smart consideration of what reality even is? God damn it! Sorry, it’s been awhile and I had smartly forgotten this movie exists.

Patreon Unlock: Jurassic World

Ripped from Patreon, this WHM Prime episode sends the fellas to the new and improved Jurassic Park, complete with shitty John Hammond statue, rampant corruption, weird breeding experiments, and two very annoying nephews, all looked over by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. What is the value in making the dinos more pet-like? Why does that young lady get the most brutal death in the whole movie? Can I get a few more servings of BD Wong for the table instead of just a sampler portion? If you had just given me militarized dinos in the Middle East, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.

 Episode 755 – From Dusk Till Dawn (Live in Austin)

Recorded live at Cap City Comedy in Austin, TX last May, the gang heads out on the road with the Gecko brothers and friends and park for the night at the fabled Titty Twister, formerly Vampires ‘R’ Us. Is this the best Robert Rodriguez movie to this day? Would all movies be made better with an introductory scene by Michael Parks? What was the impulse that led to the toe-sucking scene with QT and Salma Hayek? Also, the conclusion of this season’s VHS Trailer Game!

Patreon Unlock: Once in a Lifetime #1: Stalked by My Doctor

Ripped from the Once in a Lifetime series on Patreon, the boys head out into the suburbs and meet the infamous Dr. Beck, criminal mastermind and multiple-time kidnapper who has sustained the Stalked by My Doctor franchise. Is Eric Roberts’ character in this the new voice of incels worldwide? Shouldn’t he be? Why would you talk to people in a food court? What’s going on with the teddy bear? Also, a studied discussion of what would be the best way to be buried and the best coffins on the market.

WHAT ARE WE WATCHING?

 This is a space for us to talk about some NON-We Hate Movies related content that we've shoved into our eyeballs in the last month: TV, Movies, Cartoons, and Sports (maybe?). Just about anything that isn't pornography.

Andrew:   I made a real effort during our out-of-production month to burn through some of the pile of blu-rays I’ve amassed. I didn’t make HUGE strides, but some. I also watched a bunch of other stuff in and out of theaters. Let’s see:

 Cuckoo: I really had a ball with this. I think Hunter Schafer is really great here, and I loved all her scenes with Dan Stevens, who is playing a fabulous creep, mad doctor-type fella. The movie has really legit euro-horror/wilderness weirdness vibes, as well as a monster-of-the-week, X-Files feeling to it, which both play well together. The end gets a little too over-explain-y, and the more they explain, the less sense it makes, but all-in-all, this played for me. Even though I feel like I’ve softened on it since seeing it all those weeks ago, I did have a better time watching this at the theater than Longlegs. 

 In the Mouth of Madness: I put this on a few weeks ago to “re-watch” it, but after five minutes, I realized that all these years I’d never actually seen it and had been conflating it with The Serpent and the Rainbow, which I definitely have seen, but years ago and was super-drunk at a friend’s parents’ house out on Long Island. I think the issue was the poster for TSATR has a character, Bill Pullman, with a big cross on his forehead, and there have been stills going around the internet for years with Sam Neill from the end of this film, where he’s got crosses all over his forehead as well. Anyway, In the Mouth of Madness totally rocked and I had a ball watching it. 

 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Put my 4K of this on and had a ball. Apologies to all the haters and losers, and Chris Cabin, but I still think this movie is fun AF. The huge gun on the train that starts shooting out all the cars as the train goes into a curve is such a fantastic moment, honestly a top tier Indy action piece. I really love Indy getting that beautiful moment of realizing he’s experiencing the world he’s dedicated his life to studying: the past. I think it’s a great ending for this character. And Mads makes the perfect Indy villain, just like he made a perfect Bond villain. It’s better than Crystal Skull. 

 The Exorcism: An absolutely dreadful, bottom-of-the-barrel, we-ran-out-of-money-while-making-it, donkey shit, horror movie, featuring Russell Crowe doing his best as a troubled actor cast in a remake of The Exorcist who, shock, becomes possessed himself! We’re not saying “The Exorcist” at any point here, which makes it all kinds of more awkward. Come for the demon inside the possessed Crowe making lewd advances toward Crowe’s teen daughter, stay for a super-tired David Hyde Pierce playing a priest who meets a spectacular end. Just awful. 

 Mallrats: I finally popped on the Arrow 4K and in a single day I watched both the theatrical cut and the extended cut, which is about a half hour longer and is closer to Smith’s original script. The beginning is completely different, so much so that the inciting incident of the film is totally changed, you don’t even get to the mall until about a half hour in, and you know what? I think it’s kinda better! I know we bust Smith’s chops a lot, and I can’t say as I’ve been crazy for a lot, or any, of his work over the last, I dunno, decade, but watching Mallrats really took me back to a very special time in my life and hot damn if this doesn’t still play well. A severely outdated three-peat use of the R-word, as was the style at the time, and yes, that shit hits like a thud nowadays, but there’s still so much here that’s so goddamn funny. I think it’s also the Smith film with the best soundtrack. 

 Strange Darling:  See this movie however you can. That’s it. That’s the capsule statement.

Chris:  The Killer (2024): Though the story is essentially a violent xenophobic fantasy, I still contend that Silent Night from 2023 is a far better directed action film than many others, specifically because of the expert framing, sense of motion, and pacing of the director, John Woo. The flimsy story that holds up the stylistic sweep of his latest film, a loose remake of his Hong Kong classic of the same name made for the streaming platform Peacock, is both far less objectionable and frees the master up to continue to exert and expand his graceful control of action set-pieces and hone his thrillingly alert compositions to match inelegant if painless exposition dumps. Nobody makes movies that move like Woo’s do, no matter the narrative register he’s working in. Still not entirely sold on Nathalie Emmanuel as a movie star but she’s better here than she has been in nearly anything else I’ve seen her in, and Woo extracts copious flavor from a supporting cast that includes Omar Sy, Tcheky Karyo, Diana Silvers, and Angeles Woo, the director’s daughter. Much better than it has any business being.

 Nobody: I had avoided watching this for a long time for no good reason. I like action movies, I like Bob Odenkirk, I...tolerate...blatant John Wick knock-offs...sometimes. Should have worked and man, did it not. John Wick has a dumb-as-shit premise, but it takes it seriously for better and worse and traces the (base-level) emotions earnestly. The fighting is great, but there’s a current of something somber and nerve-wracking at the core of it. There’s nothing – at all – at the core of this trash, aside from a pretty cowardly and narrow exploration of a crisis of traditional masculinity. Dull sludge soaked in digital blood, and all the more depressing when considering the fact that these are the sorts of projects that Odenkirk and Lloyd are excited by.

 The Crow (2024): It takes for fucking ever for this shit to actually get going and I had lost my patience well before the young Skarsgård finally put on the full black make-up and started to pile up the bodies. There’s not much world building, but they do tease a bunch of lore that is half-explained by the time credits hit. We hear a lot about how strange the world is, but we don’t get to see much of any of that, let alone feel it. The love story is expanded immensely from the first one, and though I like FKA twigs as a performer, this is the film’s fatal flaw. The love story takes up much of the film’s first half, peppered with visits from soul-or-something-eater Danny “You’ll Never Be Michael Wincott” Huston and his gang of assassins, and it stalls out a movie that requires a kind of relentlessness, one that director Rupert Sanders saves for the last quarter or so of the film for some inexplicable reason. The violence is very wet but not particularly resonant. Another powerful lesson in the benefits and endless downsides of not letting things that are clearly cursed die.

Eric:   Rough Cut (1980): Continuing my mission to see every Burt Reynolds film ever made, it's Rough Cut! Opens snazzy enough and I like Lesley-Anne Down here but this thing really stalls out. Is it because they put Burt in a London setting which kinda doesn't work? Or is it because the director (Don Siegel!) kept getting fired and rehired or whatever was going on with this production? Who can say. Burt does eventually charm a Swastika flag waving Nazi to assist him in a jewel heist. Burt also dresses up as a Saudi to get by airport security. These are the two kinda exciting and weird things that happen around a total snooze of a movie. 

 Cyclone (1987): Caught this one again. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's about Heather Thomas getting revenge and setting things right after she inherits her boyfriend's top-secret motorcycle/weapon he has been building for the Government. The boyfriend is played by the excellent Jeffrey Combs. The cast doesn't end there, folks. Two bumbling cops are played by none other than Michael Reagan (Ronald Regan's adopted son) and Tim Conway Jr. Fred Olen Ray is given a real budget and even snags Martin Landau, of all people, to play the main bad guy. Big recommend. 

 Keaton's Cop (1990): Here's another fun one for your bad movie night. Lee Majors is a detective who keeps throwing people out of windows, including while off-duty. He's up against hitmen and mullets in this little-talked-about Cannon picture. Grampy squad is rounded out with Don Rickles and a whole lotta Abe Vigoda! A curio. Currently on Tubi.

 Hackers (1995): I wasn't on that original WHM episode and if I ever won a VHS Trailer Game around here, this might be my selection for the next re-do. I never hated this one, always just thought it was "cheesy," but I really vibed with it on this recent rewatch. Part of that is definitely nostalgia for the hokey funny Internet stuff. I kinda really miss when normies didn't know what the Internet really was so all movies just made it look like TRON or something. Good on-location NYC photography too! Bought the 4K - it looks great! 

 Good Time (2017): Speaking of NYC photography, I had to watch this again after covering The Batman. Needed more Pattinson in my life. I lived in Queens for 9 years and this is exactly how it felt every single day. Realistic movie and true to the Borough. Props. 

Steve: Mother’s Instinct: A completely inert waste of time. This should be a fun entry into one of my favorite sub-genres, “What if someone competent made a Lifetime movie?” But the self-seriousness, stiff pacing, and lack of compelling cinematography makes this one dead on arrival. It’s a shame because you can tell Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway (two of this generation’s greatest actresses) are really game to play against each other. If only the material were worthy of their efforts. Thankfully only 95 mins, though.

Cuckoo: Gotta find a good movie to praise in this space because this one really let me down. Maybe the trailer sold me a version of this movie that was never going to happen: something fast paced, weird, exciting, and scary. This just wasn’t that. Hunter Schaeffer is having a good year at the movies (I liked her here and in Kinds of Kindness), but she seems to be waiting for a better movie. Just like me! Dan Stevens is having a ball again here, and I’m really pleased with the run he’s on. I think it’s fair if Andrew liked it that much, and I didn’t you should probably take a look and decide for yourself.

 Alien: Romulus: Almost my 5th favorite Alien movie! Thanks for nothing graverobbing A.I. Horseshit. You’ve likely seen who or what that is, but just in case you haven’t I don’t want to expand anymore here. It sucks. It does it’s best to ruin the movie…and it lingers way too long. ANYWAYS, I liked the rest! I really like Cailee Spaeny as a lead, and when the movie kicks into full gear she really starts to shine. Her relationship with David Jonsson’s Andy character is the sweetest thing in the entire franchise? It must be protected! The last half has appropriately gross plot twists and enough Xenomorph carnage. If only someone would tell them to stay out of the digital graveyard! Alas! This never had a chance to touch any of Royal Rids entries, though.

Straight Time: Finally, some good fucking food. This was the best first watch of the whole damn month and that’s because it’s a minor masterpiece. It’s 1978 and Dustin Hoffman is adapting an Eddie Bunker novel about an ex-con grasping to find a fair shot on the outside. Add in amazing supporting turns by M. Emmett Walsh, Gary Busey (you heard me right), and Harry Dean Stanton and it’s like they made this movie exactly for me even though I wouldn’t be born for another five years, and wouldn’t get around to watching it for forty years after that. It’s a tremendous performance by Hoffman, sneering, impatient, and born to lose. Light points off for the nonsensical/forced romance (Theresa Russel, girrrrrl what are you doing???), but it’s just a minor ding in a great movie and it sets up one of my favorite last lines in any film. So yeah. A must watch.

PATREON MAILBAG LIGHTNING ROUND

Here's a fun space where folks on Patreon get to ask us Questions directly. This month's entry comes from 

Cory from Seattle who asks: “With Labor Day on the horizon, what's your favorite movie series to marathon during a long quiet weekend?”

Andrew: Great Q, Cory. One set of films that’s usually a go-to in my house for a holiday weekend would be the Ocean’s movies. I actually wound up going through all the 4K discs of those a couple weeks ago and had a blast. Twelve is still the weakest, but it played better for me this time around. And I think Pacino is really great, hamming it up in Thirteen. And Eleven is just a straight-up classic. I’m going to Vegas for the first time in October, so I’ve been taking in a lot of Vegas-related films recently. Another series that’s always a good go-to for a holiday weekend is, of course, the Back to the Future trilogy. We just had to watch part three for the show a few months back, so I don’t know if that’ll be my Labor Day series this year. Hmm, maybe some Bond flicks? That’s always another reliable go-to!

 Chris: I’m just finishing up a re-watch of the Alien franchise, so that would likely be my pick but that is not exactly the right pick for Labor Day. For that particular holiday, I would pick Evil Dead, complete with Evil Dead Rise, a movie I do not like but is fun, and Ash vs. Evil Dead, which I very much like but is very long. Something about hell opening up when you’re just trying to get some alone time with a girl in a quiet country cabin just speaks to the dance of work and leisure better than Alien in my opinion.

 Eric: With Labor Day on the HORIZON? I see you, friend. This August was supposed to be me rewatching Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 and then running out to see Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 but they robbed me of it. So, I am going to say, do it up Dadfernoon style with westerns. The Man with No Name Trilogy and a 24 rack of Modelo are right there, dude. If you haven't yet, check out the Ranown Westerns too. Criterion put out a 4K set of these Budd Boetticher directed B-movies starring Randolph Scott. The transfers look incredible. Randolph Scott looks old as shit to be playing a cowboy but it just works. There's great tension in these movies. Great stories. And since they're the B pictures from the days of 1950s moviegoing, they're pretty short! My favorites are The Tall T and Comanche Station. Really wish we got more of the movies in 4K because I rented 7 Men from Now and it looked terrible. 7 Men from Now was also directed by Budd Boetticher and stars Randolph Scott, but here you get something extra and really special: Lee Marvin! So, in conclusion, Go West. 

 Steve: Quiet franchise for a Labor Day weekend? Well, you’ve gotta celebrate one of the best jobs you could ever get in film history, working on the Starship Enterprise! Yeah, that’s right. I’m going for the original Star Trek saga, 1 – 6 with the Original Series cast. Six is good for a three-day weekend (just two a day!), they’re all a bit quiet enough to enjoy without having to be 1,000% invested, and there’s only one truly weak entry (V), but even that has enough weirdo shit to be entertaining!

SEPTEMBER SCHEDULE

Say what? The schedule in advance?! It's the least we could do! By subscribing to this newsletter, you get a sneak peek at what we're putting out in September!

Patreon Unlock Episode: Star Wars

Episode 756 – Twister: Redux

Episode 757 – Weird Science

Episode 758 – Poseidon (2006)

Patreon Episodes:

We Love Movies – The Batman (2022)

Animation Damnation: Batman: The Animated Series: “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” (s1, e41)

The Nexus: TOSTAS: “One of Our Planets Is Missing (s1, 3), TNG: “The Wounded” (s4, e12)

Gleep Glossary: Darth Bane

MELR0210: 90210 “The Kindness of Strangers” (s3, e15), Melrose Place: “Devil with the G-String On” (s2, e30)

PATREON RSS BUG

If you’re having trouble with the RSS feed updating or episodes not appearing in your app, Patreon has acknowledged this bug and they have a fix: "Try unsubscribing and re-subscribing via your app by re-entering the unique RSS feed you were given and is on our Overview section of the Creator page. Or try using a different podcast app or RSS feed reader." 

Please consult this page and contact Patreon Support if the problem persists. We apologize for any inconvenience you’ve experienced on Patreon and truly appreciate your continued support!

UPCOMING NEWS AND PROMOTION

On Screen Live will return in September both from Toronto (see above) and from stateside with our normal, lovable format Be sure you’re subscribed and check out our “Season Finale” with our very popular and not divisive review of Deadpool & Wolverine!  Subscribe to our channel so you never miss a drop! Check it out on our YouTube Channel!.

We also have all officially sanctioned VHS Trailer Game episodes up to this point. Eric has also put out great clip packages like WTF Exorcism with Marc Merrin, Dr. Loomis is the Worst Doctor, Dilf Den, George Bailey as Michael Meyers, John Wick-Mentary,  Toby Jones in Bee Movie, Sausage Claus, David!Muppet Hitchcock Presents, and many more! You can also watch the entirety of our Witchboardepisode! Complete with visual gags (most of which are almost funny.). You'll find all sorts of cool shit like Mailbags, VHS Trailer Games, Full Episodes likeRampage (2018),Any Which Way You Can, Bram Stoker’s Draculaand Saw III. Like we said above these are great for sharing and introducing folks to the show. There's so much content there we can't list it all here. Just go and subscribe already! 

TJ Hooker…Is back! And this time Eric and Ben follow T.J. to Chinatown wherein he battles a snake!  Listen here!

If you're a fan of the show and a fan of looking sharp, you should check out our merch on our TeePublic store! We have some hot off the presses designs by Felipe Sobreiro such as the Speed Live Show, Too Old For This Shit and Sheenpril Logos as well as A Certain Fat Director enjoying his favorite film filter of all time! We also have "The DILF Den", and a "Crispy Critters" design from friend of the show, Nathan Hamill!  There’s a ton of other great designs like The VHS Trailer Game Logo, Demon-o's Pizza, Egg Lawyer, The Order of the Boop, The Kornkast design and many more, with more to come! 

That's going to do it for this month's Dispatch! See you next month for our favorite theme month of the year, The Spooooktacular!  

Take it easy,
Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve
We Hate Movies