Big Daddy Dispatch: January 2022 (Patreon)

Dispatch Sixty One, January 2nd, 2022



Happy New Year, WHM Family!

And that my friends is the end of another long, dark year of the world at large, but a very fun and productive year here in the We Hate Movies-a-verse! We feel lucky that we were able to go leave our homes and perform EIGHT live shows or you folks. We got to meet some great members of this little community, tell some jokes and drink (more than) a few beers all across this failing republic. We also feel lucky that we were able to record a shit ton of content that we are deeply proud of, including the biggest and best We Love Movies month of all time—which introduced Sausage Claus to the world! 

It's not exactly the best New Year's Eve of our lives and there are roadsigns of doom and gloom every which way you look. However, we are happy to report that it's hard to feel that doom and gloom when looking back on 2021, and that's because of you, dear listener. You made our whole year. We'd be foolish if we didn't take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your kindness and support and for continuing to TUNE in, which allows us to be all kinds of stupid on the internet, which as you know is our very favorite thing. We appreciate the shit out of each of our patrons, listeners, and friends. You folks are incredible and we're hoping for a better 2022 for all of us. Who knows, we might even come to your town and do a bad Gary Busey impression! 

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

Image Credit:  Bean Dinner at Ten Year Anniversary Show (one Year Late) at The Bell House by @_stitchface on Twitter, and yes that's BEN WORECESTER in the photo!

VIRTUAL LIVE SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT!

We are starting 2022 off with a BANG as we take the Worst of 2021 on the (virtual) road! That's right, on January 14th we will be doing a Virtual Live show for the entire world on one of the most disappointing movies of last year—Mortal Kombat!  These shows are a blast, so GET OVER HERE and get your ticket below! 

1/14, The Internet - Mortal Kombat (2021)

Mortal Kombat Art by the Incomparable Felipe Sobreiro

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 581 – Casablanca



The boys head to Rick’s to grab a drink, duck the SS, and discuss one of the greatest tough-minded romances of Hollywood’s WWII-age, wherein Bogart and Bergman selflessly decide not to fuck each other’s brains out for the rest of their days to help the cause of peace on Earth. How many Peter Lorre impressions are they going to do? What would a sequel to Casablanca look like? How often are they going to interrupt this discussion of a 1942 drama with talk of a silent child-murderer movie? Here’s looking at you, M.

Episode 582– Spider-Man (2002)

Andrew, Chris, Steve, and Eric hit the big city to catch a quick Macy Gray show and talk about one of the best superhero movies ever made, in which Tobey Maguire’s Spidey faces off against Willem Dafore’s Green Goblin and his own horniness. How did Uncle Ben handle the parking around Bryant Park? What are these webs made out of, my man? Is Bonesaw ready? Will there ever be a better Marvel villain than Dafoe’s Green Goblin? AVENGE HIM!

Episode 583 – Alien (PATRONS ONLY)



For the last Patreon WLM episode of the year, the guys head out to god-damn space to face a new species of fast-moving death with Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, and Yaphet Kotto. How the hell is “Rotten Rid” Scott still making pretty good movies? Has there ever been a more immediately captivating heroine than Ripley? Why didn’t Harry Dean Stanton challenge the alien to a smoking cigarettes competition? Pro Tip: avoid vents whenever possible.

Episode 584 – Home Alone

The fellas head off to Illinois to drop in on borderline murderer Kevin McCallister as he fends off Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern from robbing a modicum of his father’s enormous wealth. Which country’s oil fields has Peter McCallister bought up to afford this sort of living? Which one of these runts belongs to which one of these McCallister war criminals? What the fuck happened between that old man and his son? Which one of them supported Carter? Keep the change, you filthy animals!

Episode 585 – The Matrix



To round out the 2021 WLM month, Andrew, Steve, Eric, and Chris enter their goo pods and get jacked into the sickly green city grid of the Matrix to help Cypher out with that steak and encourage Neo to go blue. Would you take a red pill from a leather-clad daddy in a rundown hotel? Can we visit the other dimension where the Will Smith Matrix was made? Just for kicks? How does Agent Smith come back from being owned so thoroughly? More movies should end with Rage Against the Machine.

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:  So this month, I was really all over the place, between catching films in time for my End of Year list, watching a bunch of rad WLM titles for the show, and of course, trying to make my way through the massive amount of physical media that I’ve obsessively collected during this fucking pandemic. Some quick highlights:

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza - I really vibed with this one. Many are already arguing it’s a minor work from PTA, and while I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong (you don’t need to make Phantom Thread or Boogie Nights every time) I also think it’s just a different kind of animal all together. It’s a hangout film with a love story built around it and it’s something I think Anderson really excelled at executing. Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are incredible and I sincerely hope they ge to be in more films.

Gianfranco Parolini’s If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death - So Arrow has rapidly taken over as my go-to boutique media seller. One of the many things I picked up from them recently is their set, The Complete Sartana. Spaghetti Westerns are an area of film I’ve seen very little from, but what I have, I’ve enjoyed, so I picked this up to further my education. Sartana is a fun character—he’s not scuzzy like a lot of the SW anti-heroes, he’s actually quite dapper, quick with a quip, kind of dresses like Dracula, enjoys slight of hand magic, and has this little square-barrel gun that he hides very well. The first film in the series is indeed If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death, and it’s a total recommend. Insane body count, tons of great shootouts, Klaus Kinski playing a maniac and much more! I’ve watched two more Sartana films since this one and they immediately start getting sillier which is totally okay.

Jeong Chang-Hwa’s Five Fingers of Death (a.k.a. King Boxer) - Speaking of my purchases from Arrow, I finally got their new Shawscope set in the mail. My goodness, it’s a thing of beauty. I can’t wait to take a bigger dive in--maybe over the holiday break--but I’m going in the order the films are laid out in the set, so up first was this total gem. The plot kind of reminded me of The Karate Kid—it’s about a young guy who attends a martial arts academy in hopes of entering a huge fighting tournament where he will square off against, you guessed it, a rival academy! The fight choreography is a ton of fun and I was super impressed with all the kills. I can’t wait watch more from this set.

And finally, in December I caught one of the absolute worst films of the year, Adam McKay’s dreadful Don’t Look Up. What a complete and total Duketastrophe that film is—yikes.

Chris:  The end of the year means I am mostly just trying to catch up on blind spots of the year in movies, while taking breaks for some TV or Leaving Soon section of Criterion. Here are some highlights:

Lingui: The Sacred Bonds – Set in the outskirts of Chadian director Mahamet-Saleh Haroun’s hometown, where a living is made by stripping tires for materials to make cooking implements, Lingui deals with a familiar dramatic scheme in far less familiar circumstances. Single mother Amina is dealing with her withdrawn daughter, Maria, who ends up having been impregnated by an unknown local and thus is shunned by her devoutly Muslim community. Maria wants an abortion, and most of Haroun’s film concerns the deals, risks, improvisations, and illusions required to secure the medical procedure away from the eyes and ears of their imam. Haroun goes a measure further in suggesting that modern exceptions to religious doctrine and genuine changes of heart are also required to undermine the unyielding forces of the state, such as when Amina is asked to help a family member avoid a ghastly fate for her daughter. This is one of those rare instances where the straightforwardness of the film does not diminish the intricacy of the central drama, the political and social realties of its setting, nor the intimate inner workings of the women who must summon all their strength to secure something that should be available for free within walking distance. Seek this out.

Don’t Look Up: A boring satire. Nothing worse. Send it directly to the gaping maw of one of those hell-volcanos at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Nightmare Alley: Probably Del Toro’s worst since Mimic, but still gorgeously made, well-acted, and compelling for the most part. Way, way, way too long and lacking the rush of romance – for another, for a fantasy, for the unknown, for hope – that has underlined much of GDT’s films thus far. It’s interesting to watch him go cynical like this but the bloat of plot and the unmistakable feeling of going through the narrative motions smooths out the most intriguing crags here. The story warns of the dangers of messing with intimate, passionate, and often deranged desires in the name of making a name (and a fortune), of toying with the power of death in the hopes of defying it. Interesting idea to hinge a remake of a Hollywood classic being put out during cinema’s latest wave of death throes, but there’s no fury, no immediacy, no fire in the furnace. Still better than 75% of what you saw this year, as it often is with GDT.

The Matrix Resurrections: The best Wachowski film since the original film, and I really don’t think it’s close, as much as I adore Speed Racer. This at once feels like a severe departure and a wild summation of everything the Wachowskis have made thus far. Plenty of major (and minor) artists make works that could be described that way, but rarely do they seem to be openly in conversation with their own unique origin and the origins of the franchise of which it may be concluding. The metatextual elements in Jupiter Ascending, Sense8, and Cloud Atlas that often came off as droning exposition and explanation finally locks into place here, specifically because almost everyone is familiar with the original text and plenty are aware of the second and third volume of this franchise. It allows Lana Wachowski to go the fuck off and make arguably the most reflexive, romantic, and openly queer blockbuster to ever see release. Big year for late 90s/early 00s auteurs finally coming back round the bend.

Eric: It's December. A banner month for sitting around eating shit and watching fucking trash. Hope you've also indulged. I ended up going through a lot of Joe Don Baker movies for my guest spot on the informative and charming Important Cinema Club Podcast. In this Baker roundup I rewatched Adam at Six A.M. and I definitely liked it a little more than the hosts of that pod, because I find it fascinating watching a baby Michael Douglas do a The Graduate / Five Easy Pieces type riff wherein he, as a wealthy Californian professor of “Semantics”, gives it all up one summer to visit distant relatives in Missouri. He gets a job running power lines with the tour de force Joe Don Baker. Great early role from Joe Don here. Really solid stuff, but he's sadly not in the movie as much as he should be. I also rewatched Golden Needles (still bad) and the full Mitchell without MST3K and surprisingly that movie while still not great, the longer version has a lot more violence, and appears to be way more in on the joke that yes, he's supposed to be a schlubby detective that drops beer and shit everywhere. Now I am saving best for last, Joe Don Baker did a movie in 1975 directed by Phil Karlson called Framed and it is outstanding. This was a first timer for me and I really enjoyed it. Joe Don Baker has like a 15 minute They Live-esque fight sequence against a cop and beats his head into the concrete until there's an ever growing pool of blood. If that hasn't sold you on it yet, guess what: I think someone might've died doing an exploding car stunt on this and they just kept it in. Seek it out!

Other great first watches: The Matrix Resurrections! I can see why this is love it or hate it but those sequels were junk and rather building off that more, I am glad we got this meta mind bender instead. Benedetta! Love it. Love it so much. Not sure how anyone could give it a bad review and it is so much more than “lesbian nun” movie or whatever people are calling it. I also liked C'mon C'mon as it fully illustrates what absolute hell having children must be like (condolences if you do have those.)

Kung Fu corner real quick. Got a region B Joseph Kuo box set alongside the new Shaw Bros release. These movies are definitely not as good, but even bad Kung Fu is interesting. The 36 Deadly Styles is a movie where I had no idea what was happening half the time but Bolo Yeung is in it with the worst wig of all time so I gave it two and a half stars for that. Other than that, I actually did like The World of the Drunken Master quite a bit. They throw a dummy off a cliff in that one and it is just chef's kiss.

In all seriousness though, if you wanna get on the Kung Fu train you cannot do better than the Shawscope Vol 1 set that Arrow just released which is thankfully available in US Region A. It contains some of my favorites like The Crippled Avengers!

Steve:  Well, on December 23rd my wife and I were visited by that jolly, rosy cheeked fellow, the Novel Coronavirus! He slid down our chimney and gave us the greatest gift of all—feeling like shit for eight straight days! I don't mean to make too light of this, as we are incredibly, INCREDIBLY lucky to have been vaxed and boosted and in relatively good health and with the financial means to stay home for that time because it could have been significantly worse. Anyways, this is to say that my December wasn't full of as many trips to the movies as I would've liked, as I often use the last week of the year to catch up on blindspots. This year...not so much! But I did watch some shit from my couch!

Light Sleeper: I've been circling around watching this movie for months and the other night I finally took the plunge and holy crap am I glad I did. This is currently my favorite Paul Schrader film and if I had seen it in the 90's it would've been a movie I'd have watched dozens of times by now. It's got everything I want: beautiful New York City photography, hopeless wretches churning in the underbelly, and WILLEM DAFOE! If you're a DaFoe-head like myself you need to watch this film. In it  he shows off a sensitivity and vulnerability he rarely is allowed to let shine and it's truly something to behold. Come for the DaFoe, stay for a hardened performance from Susan Sarandon, a silly accent from Victor Garber, and a coked up David Spade! It's got it all (including Dana Delaney's boobers)! 

Into the Spider-Verse (LIVE!) Spider-Man: No Way Home: I was just okay with this one. To say it was overstuffed is an understatement for sure. I liked the 2nd half a hell of a lot more than the first and I have a more spoilery review on my Letterboxd so go there if you've seen the film, but there's a cancer in the MCU, and it's been really burning my ass these last few years and it's called glibness. Either you want me to care about these characters or you don't—you can't have it both ways. When the characters roll their eyes at the obstacles and villains the entire time it makes it hard to connect that there are any real stakes present. So when, in the 2nd hour those threats manifest it makes it hard for me as a viewer to take any of it seriously. So, then what are we left with? I re-watched Infinity War and Endgame and felt the same cutesy shoulder shrug at points that are absolutely inappropriate, which really lets the air out of the balloon.

I do like where it left Holland's Spider-Man, so I'm a little hopeful that his next entry might feel like an actual Spider-Man story. That'd be neat. 

Hawkeye: The 'rona made me a little MCU crazy this week, so I blasted through the entirety of the Hawkeye series and folks—it was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed Renner (who remains criminally underrated) as a lead in this. He's likable, over-matched, and emotionally invested in keeping Kate safe and getting back home to his wife and kids. Those small, sincere stakes are a welcome reprieve from the cutesy, winky shit (see above) and I actually cared about Clint and his plight! That was fun to do! Hailee Steinfeld is a standout as well, just having a ton of fun in the role, which could've easily been overly 'plucky' or annoying, but she got it just right. I'll be back for Season 2, provided they pare down the cast a touch—Echo was just too much and I never really gave a shit.

If you liked this series then YOU MUST pick up the Fraction/Aja Hawkeye run from a few years back. It does this story so much better and is easily one of my favorite mainstream comics runs.

PATREON MAILBAG LIGHTNING ROUND

Steve: For me, it's got to be those Fantastic Beasts movies. Who in their right mind could possibly give a shit about Newt Scamander and what Dumbledore did on his 43rd birthday or whatever the FUCK is going on in those movies? Also, in the year of our lord 2021 you want to be giving your hard earned money to J.K. Fucking Rowling? OK, dude! WHATEVER. You can like those Potter movies and they can be a part of your childhood and your imagination and I ain't throwing stones (I love most of them too!), but this ill-begotten prequel series has been a bore and Ms. Rowling has elevated herself to one of the most hate-filled human beings on the entire internet, so yeah. I'm cool with that series shattering to dust. 

How would I do it, you ask? Well I guess old Newt and his fat friend go to Dumbledore because they find out that Grimblegrouse or whatever that asshole's name is (and whomever is playing him this time around) is up to his old tricks again. They go and ask old Dumby for a new spell to get rid of this cad once and for all. It's a very dangerous spell but Newt manages to do it perfectly and he banishes Grimbleshanks off to hell forever. Everybody's happy. All those new characters that everyone is in love with. They're all dancing, but uh oh! What's that in the sky? A big purple helmet?? That's right! The light of Newt's spell has caught the eye of GALACTUS! The Eater of Worlds! He comes and in his insatiable hunger he eats the entire earth, muggles and magic folk alike. In the stinger scene you see big old Galactus (played by Michael Kelly, who I always liked and could use the work) taking an enormous wet shit in a celestial size toilet. A real rough one, one of those shits you get where you need to hold on to the side of the wall. He looks at the camera and gasps "Christ, what a nasty, gray little world! God my asshole stings!" End of franchise.Here's a fun space where folks on Patreon get to ask us Questions directly. This month's entry comes from 

Laurie from Canberra, Australia who asks: 

"You can make one movie in any of the existing IP franchises. Your job is to write a story that would end it/kill it with no possibility of it coming back. Which franchise would you choose to kill and how would you do it? "

Andrew: If I had to put the final nail in the coffin for any IP floating around out there, it’d be the Ghostbusters franchise. As much as I love the first one, that Afterlife was just awful and I shudder to think about what’s to come. Will Podcast get his own spin-off? Only time will tell! So yeah, if I had my druthers, I’d make a final Ghostbusters movie where Ray, Winston and Peter all retire to somewhere warm. As that obnoxious Afterlife tells us (and one of the only good details the film came up with), Winston is now a super millionaire businessman, so he’s got the cash to set up all three guys in some super-nice place in Arizona or New Mexico. Meanwhile, Gozer and all other demons of their ilk realize that Earth is a pointless place to try and conquer, what with humans destroying the planet and all, so they decide to fuck off to another dimension permanently. All the remaining, run-of-the-mill, working class ghosts all learn to exist in harmony with the living, thus totally eliminating the need for anyone, young or old, to ever don a proton pack again. End of franchise. 

Chris:  The answer is Batman, and I would get like Paul Schrader or DePalma to do the Dark Knight Returns story within two hours, 135 minutes tops. I think there’s an Animated Series plot that would make an incredible movie – Ra’s Al Guhl vs. Batman in the jungle, two men who have turned themselves into incredible characters to paper over their tormented, vulnerable inner selves, beating away each other’s mythology to reveal the raw underneath in a primal, uncontrollable setting. Now, that’s just what I would like to see, not what I think would be my take on the character(s). To me, older Batman is inherently a much more interesting subject than young Batman, perhaps only because I have only really seen a young-ish Batman. What I’d like to see is a Batman vs. Catwoman narrative; she’s at like a Martha’s Vineyard type area just absolutely looting the place night after night and Batman comes out to stop her. You think its initially because he loves her and thinks what she’s doing is wrong and self-harming, but there’s also a sense that he resents that she’s out there on her own, independent, making fools out of people who are just like him, aside from the cowl. Hints at the same perversions as Returns but is more about whether or not you can ever stop being the character you thought you needed to be when you came into adulthood. Good, clear, and long fights between them, think Crouching Tiger but less graceful landings. I’d probably avoid other villains but I wouldn’t mind seeing someone like Clayface showing up at a party and being able to discuss his own feelings on aesthetics and looking wealthy being even more important than being wealthy. It should end with a kiss, but no certainty.

Eric: Part of me wants to definitely kill Star Wars. I am older than you so I remember when Star Wars was pretty much dead in the early 90s which is when I got into it. I had friends who had never even heard of it. Think on that for a second. So I first saw Star Wars on VHS that one of my brother's friends had gotten from their parents collection. I kinda was sold on it from the projection of Leia out of R2 alone (really innovative filmmaking right there) then when laser swords happened – forget it. So in the 90's there were novels around, sure, but there was SO MUCH room for personal interpretation and wonderment. The Clone Wars? I wonder what that was like! I wonder if and how Fett could've survived the Sarlacc, etc, etc. I think everything I came up in my own head as a kid is likely better than anything we'll ever be getting out of the franchise. Sometimes less is more.Other than that... I dunno, Fast and the Furious? It is a series I am kinda finally coming around to... but what the fuck else can you do with this? They've literally gone to space already. So I'd have Dom get into a major life altering car accident. He can't move, he's FURIOUS but not so fast no more. Everyone has signed his body cast but he doesn't realize that's the last time he'll see any of them. He has to eat and drink out of a straw and that's after months of IV drip. His muscles? Dead. Gone. His friends? Moved on. He dies lonely, shattered, a shell of a former man. Nothing left in his eyes. His soul is gone well before they pull the plug. And they finally do. And he flat lines. A little spittle mustering out of the corner of his frail lips. Farts and shitting occurs as what happens when one loses those precious 21 grams. Fin for Vin.

JANUARY 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 for this January! 

Episode 586 —  Free Guy

Episode 587 —  Space Jam: A New Legacy

Episode 588 —  Infinite (2021)

Episode 589 — The Eternals


Patreon Episodes:
(
Patreon Exclusive We Love Movies — Dune (2021)

Animation Damnation — Little Ellen: "Best Laid Plains" (s1, e1) & "NOLA Confidential" (s1, e10)

The Nexus: TOS: "Spock's Brain" (s3 e1) TNG: "The Vengeance Factor" (s3, e9)

Gleep Glossary: Dengar

Melr0210: 90210: "Necessity is a Mother" (s2, e10) Melrose Place: "Carpe Diem"  (s1, e30)

And starting this Month on the $10.00 Level... it's:



We'll be reviewing the Book of Boba Fett, weekly!! So you'll get Season 1 Episodes 1 - 5 this month by signing up at the $10.00 level! Pretty sick deal!! 

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




Our Youtube Channel continues to kick-ass folks!  Eric has also put out great clip packages like Sausage Claus, David! Muppet Hitchcock Presents, Egg Lawyer, Lak Sivrak, the Wolfman of Star Wars, Michael Biehn at Comic Con, Loose Loomis, and many more! You can also watch the entirety of our Witchboard episode! 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 like Richie Rich, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and The Karate Kid Part II! 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! 



We just want to let you folks know that the Scanner Cop 1 & 2 collection is back in stock on the Vinegar Syndrome website! Why should you care? Well, A.) Those movies are awesome and B.) Scanner Cop features a synchable, hilarious commentary by your friends at We Hate Movies! Get your copy now before it's off the market! 

This month on Hooked on T.J. Hooker: Eric and Ben talk about Big Bill's space adventure and there's a strangler on the loose! 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've got awesome designs including our brand new 2021 Tour Logo by (you guessed it) Felipe Sobreiro! We also have a ton of great designs like The VHS Trailer Game Logo, 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! Let's go into 2022 with our heads held high and our bellies full of sausage!

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