Big Daddy Dispatch: October 2020 (Patreon)

Dispatch Forty Seven, September 30th, 2020

Hello WHM Family!

Season 11 is in full swing baby! New characters! New bits! Egg Lawyers! And yes, a brand new feature: The WHM VHS Trailer Game! You can expect Steve to annoy Chris, Eric and Andrew at least once a month going forward with whatever garbage he's procured from Ebay or whatever thrift store dump he gets those rotten tapes from. Anyways, we are just about to jump headlong into the SPOOKTWOCULAR! The one-of-a-kind horror month where every single episode has a big, dumb 2 in it! We're really happy you support all this crazy shit because it's keeping us SANE during the worst year on record. Let's all stay sane together! 

Banner Credit: We Hate Movies The Big Daddy Dispatch by Felipe Sobreiro

Image Credit:  The VHS Trailer Game by Felipe Sobreiro

WHM 2020 TOUR UPDATE: SALEM VIRTUAL TIX ON SALE

A gentle reminder that the world is on fucking fire and we've had to kick out all our 2020 Live Shows to 2021, and all that info is available on our website now with ticketing links!

The good news is the Salem Horror Fest is finally here! We were lucky enough to have TWO SHOWS featured, one for each weekend of the Festival. Both were pre-recorded via Zoom, so you get to actually see your favorite fat boys crack wise! That's as good as it gets this year, folks, we promise you!

Weekend 1, October 2 - 4th will feature our Live Animation Damnation on the should've-been-forgotton spooky 90's cartoon, Tales from the Cryptkeeper! You can the episode in question, "Game Over" (S2, E1) for Free on TubiTV

Weekend 2, October 9 - 11th will feature a full LIVE episode on Witchboard, the 1986 horror romp wherein Tawny Kittaen gets posessed via a Milton Bradley Board game! This is also puttering around on TubiTV (unofficial sponsor and muse of WHM along with PlutoTV). 

Each weekend pass gets you a TON of other content, and obviously the All Access Pass gets you everything! Head on over to their website to check out pricing and info!  

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Unlock the Vault – Ready Player One

Hey check it out! We unlocked the Patreon vault to unleash our totally awesome 80's terrific episode on Ready Player One! Listen to the gang CRINGE at Ernest Cline's "poetry" as well as be stunned at the lengths Mark Rylance was willing to go for this ridiculous film. And yeah, it's probably Steven Spielberg's worst movie. 
Episode 503 – Toy Soldiers

Andrew, Steve, Eric, and Chris fight off a battalion of terrorists who take over a private school, alongside Sean Astin, Louis Gossett Jr., and Wil Wheaton, in Toy Soldiers! Do private school dudes really hang out and call sex lines together? Why are classes still being taught in the middle of this movie? Is it maybe not smart to literally send a boy to do a government agency’s job? Now, for a nice glass of Listerine Port! Fuego!
Episode 504 – Double Jeopardy

The guys go to court and then go on the lam with Ashley Judd as she attempts to exact revenge on her murderous ex-husband in Bruce Beresford’s Double Jeopardy. Does this insane woman really believe she can just kill this man in broad daylight? Is Bruce Greenwood a Black Widow killer? Exactly how drunk is Tommy Lee Jones supposed to be on the job here? He better call his very own egg lawyer. KARL!
 

Episode 505 – Ricochet

Andrew, Eric, Chris, and Steve hit the streets with Denzel Washington as he fights off psychotic-for-hire John Lithgow in Ricochet, one of the most entertaining cat-and-mouse movies of the 90s. Was there a hunkier man in America than Denzel at the time? What is Lithgow doing with those books? Did Steve just refer to himself as the Jame Master? Are they ever going to stop doing the Progresso Soup thing? Short answer: NEVER!

Episode 506 – Inside Man (Patrons Only!)

For September’s WLM, the gang return to Manhattan to help Denzel Washington outsmart genius bank robber Clive Owen and locate some Nazi documents in Spike Lee’s exceptional Inside Man. Would any other director think to play up a plot line involving an Albanian socialist? Does Denzel Washington ever stop having phone sex with his girlfriend? Why aren’t more crime films actually funny rather than just clever? Send our love to Big Willie and the Twins.

Episode 507 – Cool World

To round out the month, the boys catch up with one of the most requested WHM titles in recorded history, Ralph Bakshi’s excessively lurid Cool World, in which Gabriel Byrne fucks a Kim Basinger cartoon he created and nearly ends the world. Was Bakshi ever good to begin with? Who is the main character of this movie? Would Brad Pitt have been employed by Bugsy Siegel? And what the fuck did Chris Cabin just call famed thespian Gabriel Byrne? Later, Noids!
 

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: The Toronto International Film Festival is the most important fest in North America for industry professionals from all walks—buyers, critics, curators—but it's especially invaluable for anyone working in the art house exhibition game, i.e. people who have jobs like the one I do for Jacob Burns Film Center. Each year, myself and the rest of my team see a ton of stuff at the fest and we're able to use what we see to start to piece together how the next exhibition year is going to look. Obviously I couldn't travel to TIFF this year, but the festival organizers really went above and beyond to make sure industry professionals—buyers, press, AND exhibitors—had access to their great slate of titles.

Shorts and features combined, I wound up seeing a total of 58 films, all from the comfort of my living room. And while it was convenient to access the films this way, I can assure you this kind of shit will never replace actual festival-going.

So here's a link to my public Letterboxd list with all the films I saw, but since I've already gone off on a rant here, instead of longer capsules on a bunch of films, I'll just say that some of my faves from the fest were: Christos Nikou's Apples, Tayler Montague's In Sudden Darkness, Sophy Romvari's Still Processing, Regina King's One Night in Miami, Tommy Oliver's 40 Years A Prisoner, Chloé Zhao's Nomadland, Lili Horváth's Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart's Wolfwalkers, Ephraim Asili's The Inheritance, Werner Herzog & Clive Oppenheimer's Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, Fred Wiseman's City Hall, and Thomas Vinterberg's Another Round, which may have been the best film I saw at the festival.  

Chris: The first virtual NYFF is underway here in the Northeast and it’s been a mixed bag thus far, but let’s stick with the positive for this round. I mostly agree with everyone who is screaming the praises of Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, though I have my issues with the script, especially in the second half of the film. Nevertheless, Zhao captures a convincingly bleak snapshot of a staggeringly polarized yet inherently communal America with something like grace and good humor, and Frances McDormand, having already won her Oscar, should be vetted for sainthood as soon as is humanly possible. The other highlight(s) have been Lovers Rock and Mangrove, the first two films to be released in Steve McQueen’s upcoming Small Axe series. They are two very different films – one a wildly sensual party movie, the other a courtroom drama of sorts – but they reveal a side of McQueen that I have been missing in his previous work. Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t disliked any of McQueen’s films to date, and Hunger is among the best debuts of the aughts in my opinion. Still, McQueen’s oft-bewitching style has a tendency to render some of his hot-blooded material cold, but this is not true at all of these two films. In Lovers Rock, he nails the mood, the music, and the movements, both with bodies and the camera, so perfectly that you are left nearly swooning by the end, and he feels less like an observer and more like an enthralled participant. In Mangrove, he adapts the trial of the Mangrove Nine into a lyrical song of protest and a guidebook to lawful survival in a deeply unlawful state with ample help from some choice Toots and the Maytals needle drops.

Eric: I'm about halfway through Season 2 of The Boys now. My wife initially watched the first season without me and enjoyed it, I only caught the pilot prior and was a bit turned off by the potential edge-lord-ness of it. However, Steve said good things and being that I trust him more than my wife, I watched it all! Enjoying the ride. He's right, this is some primo Karl Urban stuff. Other than that in the world of TV, I rewatched The Mandalorian. Might even give it another go before October 30th hits. Mando's Night, my new favorite holiday! 

As far as movies are concerned, I've been watching trash which I have been finding comforting. JCVD in the dull-ass Nowhere to Run 1993 co-starring Kieran Culkin? Sure. JCVD in Kickboxer? Oh, baby, now we're talking. I also revisited a 1990 "gem" called Bullseye! starring Michael Caine and Roger Moore playing multiple roles. Yes, there's 2 Caines and 2 Moores. The movie is an outright mess that heavily relies on Caine narration to make it even somewhat understandable but it is a fascinating and somewhat amusing curio. I think it falls into the "so bad it's good" camp but I can see everyone disagreeing with me. I remembered it from the 90s and knew it'd be worth me PURCHASING IT on Amazon. That's not a rental, my friends, it's a keeper. Really just because I expect this to be a stay tuned. 

Steve: Avoid Antebellum like the fucking PLAGUE gang! I knew it was supposed to be bad, but I couldn't help myself and I really wish I had. There's really nothing redeeming there, Janelle Monáe does her absolute best with wretched material, but that's about it. It's a movie that doesn't earn or really justify any of the horrific imagery it traffics in and what's left is a shallow, under-explored, GOTCHA! of a twist, which is definitely not worth the $19.99 price tag. Some of you have said Worst of 2020? And absolutely NO WAY—but, I do suggest you read friend of the show Angelica Jade Bastién's stellar review for Vulture.

Other than that, I'm doing a LOT of TV Watching, specifically I just finished the first season of The Boys (I can't believe I recommended it to Eric and he's farther along than me, go figure). So far (NO SPOILERS PLEASE), I'm really enjoying myself with the series. I'd been reluctant to start the series because I'm wary of all Garth Ennis properties. But like Preacher, this has been thankfully toned down in its Edge Lordness, while remaining manic and cutting. I think the real treat is that this show is so damn funny and that's due to the cast, lead by stellar turns from Karl Urban, Anthony Starr, and ...what's that? BAH GAWD IT'S ELIZABETH SHUE'S MUSIC! I THOUGHT HER CAREER WAS DEAD! Sorry, couldn't help myself there. 

Oh, if you're a reader I suggest you pick up Jenny Offil's Weather, which is a fantastic meditation on the end times we find ourselves in, while being bitingly funny. Check it out.  For the spooky season I just picked up Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, and am really enjoying it so far. 
 PATREON MAILBAG LIGHTNING ROUND
We get so many great questions from Patreon, we had to pick two this month! 

Question One comes from James from Chicago who asks: "Since it was recently revealed that Chris went as The Mask for Halloween one year, I was wondering if you could all recount a funny, favorite or surprising Halloween costume (but hopefully costumes) you've worn in the past."

Andrew: I was going to give you one from my youth and one from adulthood, but it looks like I've got 2 ties from each era, so here's four Halloween costumes I've had over the years: When I was in like sixth or seventh grade, I came across this totally bad-ass Terminator face makeup at the Halloween store. It was basically a cheap Phantom of the Opera-type mask that was all shiny silver with a red eye hole. So you basically slung this thing around the side of your face and then put on some face puddy to make it look like I was the Terminator after falling off a motorcycle and you could see part of my metal skull. Totally rad. 

Then in high school, myself and a couple of friends went as characters from The Big Lebowski. A thin friend was Donnie, a tall friend was Walter, and I went as the Dude, including a bowling ball bag that held a thermos full of weakly-made chocolate milk to pass as a White Russian. I was stopped several times by school administrators. 

As an adult, one time Chelsea and I went as Ellen Page and Michael Cera's characters from Juno. We went to a beer garden in Queens where Chelsea got so many incredibly shocked looks from people who thought they were actually looking at a real pregnant woman pounding beers out of a huge stein. It was the best. A few years after that, a buddy and I went as the Blues Brothers and his dad took us to dinner at the Rainbow Room (RIP) for their annual Halloween party. I won't say we received any real special treatment going dressed as NBC IP, but I do think it proved helpful with our portions at the bar.   

Chris: As it has been pointed out many times, I am not the biggest Halloween fan. I see it primarily as a good reason to watch a bunch of new/undiscovered horror movies and that’s about it. And before that, it was mostly for candy or to not look like a complete sore thumb at Halloween parties. The Mask, the law suit from Philadelphia, and Gus from Charlie Wilson’s War are the most prominent ones in my memory, but there was also an extremely lazy Dr. Gregory House one year. OH! I went as Banksy and literally just put a bandana over the lower part of my face and carried a spray paint can around. Perhaps when we have Halloween again for real, I will go as egg lawyer.

Eric: Once as a kid in the I think 4th grade I went to school dressed as a Clown for Halloween but I improvised a Killer Klowns from Outer Space costume by incorporating vampire fangs. I don't even remember liking that movie, but I did it! This is obviously in line with how I was raised: Terminator 2 and Pulp Fiction in theaters as a child. Cruising on the tube with dear old Mom! 

Steve: Well as a kid, I loved Batman Returns (still do and I'm almost 37!) and I decided to show my love by being Danny DeVito's The Penguin that year and it was a costume that came with the prosthetic nose, and some disgusting make-up to put on your face and teeth and honestly? I accidentally traumatized myself and have a legitimate problem with face paint to this day. Fun stuff! Oh, my favorite adult costume is when Jenn and I went as Gallagher and Gallagher II at a party in our old Astoria apartment.  

Question Two comes from Scott in Overland Park, KS "If you could erase one horror movie from your memory so you could rewatch it like it was your first time, which one do you chose?"

Andrew:  If I could erase one horror film from memory to watch again for the first time, it'd be The Shining, hands down. It's one of my favorite horror films—one of my favorite films period—and the first time I saw it was under less than ideal "edited for television" circumstances. I've still never seen it on the Big Screen and would love for Tom Wilkinson to pull that whole film from my memory so I could experience it the right way for the first time. 

Chris: Interesting question! I honestly don’t think I could have had a better introduction to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, so that would not be it. A big candidate would be the first A Nightmare on Elm Street, because I was way too fucked up to really appreciate Craven’s craftsmanship the first time I saw it in college. Yeah, all the movies that follow are mostly mediocre at best, but the first one remains a uniquely deranged proposition as compared to the premises of Friday the 13th or Halloween. It would be nice to fully savor it the first time out but hey, I made up for it ultimately.

Eric: If I could erase one horror movie from my memory so I can rewatch it like it was my first time? Easy: Zapruder film. But no, seriously, I'd kind of like to see Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness with a memory wipe. Would I still outright love Army of Darkness? I know it's more comedy and fantasy than anything horror, but that's a movie I have been watching my whole life and don't think I can totally recall my first time experience. Would love to see how the jokes land without nostalgia and memory, I think it'd still land well for me? Another serious answer would be The Shining, which by the way, check out our WLM episode from last October on it if you haven't! 

Steve: The best part about being a TOTAL FUCKING MOVIE COWARD (and real one too!) for most of my life is that I get to find these horror classics for the first time in my 30's or so and really appreciate them. I was really happy to go through the Friday the 13th Series for the first time a few years ago and found that process really rewarding. The cool thing about horror is that the unexpected element makes it scary, so really any answer is a great answer and of my two favorites happen to be The Exorcist and The Shining, but to be a tiny-Chris-Cabin-contrarian, I'm going to say The Blair Witch Project. I stan for this movie hardcore to this day and I think what it does with mood, pacing, and tension gets lost as a marketing gimmick of a bygone era. I remember distinctly being scared out of my shit on my mother's couch one evening in 1999 watching that on tape and being pretty fucked up afterwards. I feel like, I'd have a similar experience today if I were able to erase and watch it for the first time, because it is that good. 

OCTOBER SCHEDULE

Say what? The Schedule in advance?! It's the least we could do! By subscribing to this newsletter you get a sneak peak at what we're putting out in For this year's SPOOKTWOCULAR! 

Episode 508 — Final Destination 2

Episode 509 — Species II with Angelica Jade Bastién

Episode 510 — Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies 

Episode 506 — Saw II

Patreon Episodes:

Patreon Exclusive We Love Movies — The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2

Animation Damnation — It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

The Nexus: TOS: "The Trouble With Tribbles" (s2, e15) TNG: "Manhunt" (s2, e19)

Gleep Glossary: The Death Watch Mandalorians (to tie in to the grand return of The Mandalorian Half-Hour coming next month!)

Patreon Commentary: Evil Dead 2

Find all this crap and enjoy it legally, just like we do! now!

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 un-subscribing 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

Just a reminder that we are donating 100% of all profits we receive from our Tee Public store in the year of 2020 to great causes supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, combating Police Brutality, and supporting racial justice. You can donate directly here or you can donate by buying some SICK WHM merch like our newly designed Egg Lawyer T-Shirt, or for the aforementioned VHS Trailer Game

If you're not subscribed to our Youtube Channel you are missing out on a ton of great content! We're going to be live streaming all Mailbags going forward (we'll be doing them on a semi-monthly basis depending on letters and our own schedule), we just did a super-sized one last week, and it was an all-timer! We're also going to be extracting the VHS Trailer game from all episodes going forward so that they can live on their own with Felipe's fantastic artwork. Eric has also put out great clip packages like Peyton Manning V. Alien V. Predator, Breaking Down the 10 Commandments, President Nerd, Michael Biehn at Comic Con, Loose Loomis, and many more! Like we said above these are great for sharing and introducing folks to the show. You can also find full episodes like Duck Tales first Animation Damnation, Death Wish V: The Angel of Death, Angel Has Fallen, Samurai Cop, Back to the Future, The Human Centipede (First Sequence), Die Hard With a Vengeance (with Jon Gabrus), and Return of the Jedi! There's so much content there we can't list it all here. Just go and subscribe already! 

This month on Hooked on T.J. Hooker: Eric and Ben are back and making fun of the blue! This month they run afoul of the Re-Spawned Robert Davi! EEW! Listen here!

That's gonna do it for this month's dispatch, thanks as always for your incredible support! 

Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve
We Hate Movies