Big Daddy Dispatch: February 2022 (Patreon)

Dispatch Sixty Two, January 31st, 2022



Greetings WHM Family!

Well, we did it! We did four full weeks on (some of) The Worst of 2021 and friends let us tell you it was exhausting! All those hours watching glib, focus grouped, gray and soulless IP grabs has us feeling a bit like poor Toby Jones bee (see above), full of honey and a little humiliated (though in our case at least, not sexually). But the good news is we are getting back to basics in February! We've got some bangers coming at you and (what's that?) TWO FULL LENGTH We Love Movies episodes dropping on the $5.00 feed. Where on earth do we find the time? Well, it might stem from declining opportunities to do fun social things we vaguely remember loving to do just a few years ago... but nah, it's gotta be the love of the POD! 

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

Image Credit:  Toby Jones in Bee Movie by Felipe Sobreiro made exclusively for our new Clip cut out for our episode on Infinite

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 586 – Free Guy



To kick off Worst of 2021 month, the boys head into video-game land with Ryan Reynolds as the heroic….Blue Shirt Guy…who saves the world from needless franchising by openly borrowing and referencing the most lucrative franchises of all time. Why is this Taika Waititi performance so grating? Are there any rules to crossing between worlds at all or is coherence for losers now? Isn’t this all just begging for a flood of lawsuits? Bowser, you may spew hellfire and end our lives now!

Episode 587– Space Jam: A New Legacy

Eric, Andrew, and Steve return to slam and are welcomed to the jam, as one does, to take on the long-gestating sequel to the Michael Jordan phenomenon, with LeBron James in for Jordan and computers in for aliens. Did the Don Cheadle algorithm kidnap Chris? Doesn’t this make LeBron seem like the worst parent on this or any realm of existence? Why do the updated looks look so…bad? WHY SO MUCH GRANNY?! Michael B. Jordan, you should know better!
 

Episode 588 – Infinite



UH-OH! With Chris back from the Netherverse, the boys head into a world where Mark Wahlberg is ONCE AGAIN the reincarnation-descendant-rightful heir to superpowers that will save the world from a group called the *checks notes* Nihilists. Was there ever a movie that begged to be kicked to the bowels of Paramount+ more than this one?  What the fuck happened with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s career? Didn’t this lady do the exact same thing in Kingsman? Seriously, what the fuck was even with that Dylan O’Brien cameo? God damn, this sucks!

Episode 589 – Dune (2021) Patreon ONLY

Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve get in their tight-as-fuck stillsuits and hop onto a dragonfly helicopter to get their asses to Arrakis to talk about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which concerns the early days of one of the great rulers of the universe, and also Jason Momoa. What are the marital strains implicit in moving from a lush planet of water and plants to a planet of sand and worms and spice? How much is this spice per ounce on the open market? Are they hiring immediately for people who can speak worm? Isn’t it great to see people excited to go out and be excited about a movie like this? Hell yeah!

Episode 590– Eternals



The fellas head for the heart of the shitty, boring sun to deal with Ikaris, Sersi, Ajak, and a handful more of stupidly named individuals who want to abort the baby at Earth’s core in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals. How is this worse than what Twitter thought it would be? Is Kingo somehow the most entertaining part of this shit show? Why would you promote the fact that you have a sex scene that is this bland and short? Is tasteful trash really what Marvel's gonna try now? See you at the Oscars, MCU!

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 last week of January had me knee-deep in films from Sundance. I saw some really solid stuff, a good chunk of middle-of-the-road movies, and a few duds. Here are some highlights:

John Patton Ford's Emily the Criminal - Aubrey Plaza shines as a down-on-her-luck Door Dash-type driver who finds her life (and bank account) improved after she becomes a successful "dummy shopper," someone who buys merchandise using duped credit cards. It's a super tense crime thriller that's incredibly watchable, especially thanks to Plaza who really outdoes herself with a kind of performance we've yet to see from her. 

Will Lovelace & Dylan Southern's Meet Me in the Bathroom - This doc, adapted from Lizzy Goodman's music scene biography of the same name, was a massive nostalgia trip for me as the film tells the tale of the early-aughts New York City indie music scene. Following the rise of bands like The Strokes, Interpol, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, and more, the film is also just a great New York story that will play for fans of the music, nerdy NYC history, or both. I loved this one. 

Kogonada's After Yang - Colin Farrell shines in Kogonada's fabulous follow-up to Columbus. Farrell stars as a man pondering mortality, the soul, robots' rights, and much more as he tries getting his family's lifelike android, Yang, repaired following a crippling malfunction. It's a truly beautiful film and the best thing I saw at the festival. 

So those are just some highlights from Sundance. It was a strong year for the festival if you looked in the right places. Oh, and this past weekend we re-watched the director's cut of Zodiac and hot damn that's a perfect film. Wowza. 

Chris: It’s a new year, so things are slow for my personal watching. I finished How To with John Wilson last week, so I’m mostly just waiting for that to come back now. Seriously, it’s just the best. The new season of The Righteous Gemstones is good, and I also finally concluded my Deadwood rewatch – great show, rightly part of the holy HBO triumvirate along with The Sopranos and The Wire.

As for movies, there are three movies out of Sundance I really liked. Though I was moved by both Kogonada’s After Yang and Sierra Pettengill’s Riotsville, USA, the one that really has stuck with me is The Cathedral, Ricky D’Ambrose’ s ambitious sophomore feature. Spanning a few decades and based on the director’s own family, it concerns happenings in an East Coast family with long-held grudges and incalculable little secrets that put them all on edge against each other. The story and script are wildly dramatic, tragic in portions, but D’Ambrose’s distinctive visual style sets everything at a low simmer. D’Ambrose’s brings small details to the foreground – the way his toys were set up on the rug in his first bedroom matters as much as how his father looked at his high-school graduation ceremony. “Bressonian” is a good descriptor but you really do have to see it for yourself. It’s not for everyone but after loving D’Ambrose’s shorts and his debut, Notes on an Appearance, this really confirmed for me how compelling and alluring I find his way of packing dense personal and familial histories while not letting it weigh down the visual (or narrative, for that matter) tempo. Check it out when it gets a release, which I imagine will be later this year. And, in honor of the big man, Peter Bogdanovich, passing away, I finally watched his country music melodrama, The Thing Called Love, and just adored it. Nearly made me want to relisten to my Dwight Yoakam records.

Eric: We have been going through DePalma rewatching and first timing a few, my lord Body Double held up better than I expected. Plus I discovered Sisters (1972) starring Margot Kidder which I think might be my favorite for the moment, I see a lot of Malignant's DNA in this movie so if you liked that James Wan picture and never hit up DePalma's Sisters, do it up!

Another rewatch was Bound (1996) and it is great but I totally forgot how much of the mafia plot begins to overshadow everything else. We're on a budget so locations are minimal, and we're in the 90's swing revival, I guess, so that's why everyone dresses like a character from Dick Tracy (1990) but still, I must stress – really good movie.

Brief Kung Fu corner this month as I wish I had seen more but I finally checked out Yes, Madam! which people had been raving about but nobody told me it was basically a Lucky Stars comedy. Whenever people like John Shum and Sammo Hung show up, I try to stress to people to go check out Winners & Sinners (1983) So if you like Yes, Madam! hit up their other films.

Five Shaolin Masters (1974) which is included in the Shaw Bros. boxset was pretty solid, but I stalled a little and didn't see Chang Cheh's follow up Shaolin Temple (1976) so get ready for that in the next Big Daddy Dispatch. Now all of this said, the clear winner for me in Kung Fu this January was the The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter (1984). That movie is damn near perfect and has everything you could ever want. Plus people getting their teeth knocked out! Time and time again! There goes your teeth!

Steve:  This was a big month for movie watching and TV watching so let's get to it!

Nightmare Alley: This one I outright loved. It's hard to rank del Toros for me because so much of his aesthetic just hits a chord with me personally that I am usually over the moon for them no matter what. This one was no exception, but what stood out for me was the cynical tone throughout (a new mode for GDT), which due to the current state of this world I found to be a welcome surprise. There's something so, well NIGHTMARISH, about Bradley Cooper's descent that feels so uniquely American that really has stuck with me in the month since I've watched it. Add in some gorgeous cinematography featuring breathtaking tableaux's worthy of George Tooker or Edward Hopper and easily one of the best cast's he's ever worked with and it's hard to not put this near the top of Guillermo's filmography. 

The Suicide Squad: Holy shit did I have a lot of fun with this one! I think you know, dear reader, that I consider myself more of a DC guy when it comes to comics and that I've been fairly disappointed in their Cinematic Universe with very few exceptions. Well, this one was exactly that. A fun, vibrant, colorful, silly, violent, love letter to the weirder corners of the DC Universe. This is everything that that Ayer film should have been and more (and I'm willing to bet my bank account it's even better than the fabled "Ayer Cut" as well). We keep the action coming and we lean into how silly this all is without ever resorting to cynical winks at the camera. It's a total tightrope and James Gunn pulled it off masterfully. Is it 15 minutes too long? Absolutely! But what isn't these days? I also must commend Gunn and co. for making Starro the Conquerer a truly unique and awe inspiring vision as opposed to ya know a big gray sinewy NOTHING like some Deviants I could mention.

This was easily my favorite Super Hero thing released in 2021 and it's not particularly close. 

Also, we're trying some new TV in the Sajdak household...First up we're about 2/3 through Yellowjackets, which I'm mostly enjoying though not completely sold on. First things first, the cast is ...tremendous as advertised. It's so much fun to watch Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci bringing hot fucking fire episode after episode, and in her own way Tawny Cypress is doing her best with a very thankless role (does anyone in the world spend that much time or money on a STATE Senate campaign?) The teens are also really fantastic with Sophie Thatcher and Jasmin Savoy Brown being the standouts on that end. I'm interested in both mysteries but I'm finding each episode itself to start and stop without much artistry or care. The plot moves forward and there are cliffhangers as you would expect, but for the most part the story just moves forward without any specific theme or focus to the episodes themselves. So there's that. I am a total sucker for 90's needle drops and I do think the show integrates those with great aplomb. I still have a few episodes left, so please don't yell at me on twitter and spoil the end of Season 1. I mostly like it!

One thing I'm loving right now is The Terror, Season 1, which we started on Saturday during a snowstorm (a perfect time to watch), and it is exactly was what I was looking for. Existential dread on a frozen, frozen barge? Yes, please!

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 

Chris from Chicago who asks: 

"Now that you covered the worst of 2021 - most of which were obvious choices - were there any heartbreaks in 2021 - Things you were looking forward to that missed the mark?"


Andrew: My biggest disappointment of 2021 was Halloween Kills. I know a ton of folks liked it, and I really wish I could count myself among them, but I just can't. Who knows, maybe if I'd seen it in theaters instead of in a lonely hotel room on tour, I would've felt differently. But as it stands, there was just so much that didn't work for me, including but not limited to: the incessant chant of "Evil dies tonight" to the point where I was laughing, that really bad monologue that Anthony Michael Hall gives, the very idea that all those third-tier characters from the first film all get together every Halloween, the extreme lack of Jamie Lee Curtis, I dunno, I feel like I could go on, but I'll stop. I still want to go back and re-watch and see if it plays any better, but considering how much I liked Halloween (2018), I had high hopes for the sequel and was really let down.  

Chris:  Jesus, where to start? Though I think it’s better than most fans of the show do, The Many Saints of Newark is, at best, spotty. Last Night in Soho was a major letdown, one of the rare cases where Wright’s style cannot begin to compensate for the script’s shortcomings. I had high hopes for Candyman, Halloween Kills, Don’t Look Up, and Roadrunner and I would rank them among the least satisfying. I also think its funny that Kenneth Branagh liked Roma so much that he just kinda made his own version of it in Belfast but without any of the patience, intimacy, or fury that Cuaron brought to that film. Oh well, onward and upward with the arts and so on.


Eric: I know this might be controversial but I was looking forward to The French Dispatch but it left me cold. All the other guys on WHM loved it though, so don't go announcing “we hated it” to the world. It just didn't grab me and I don't really know why. I loved the Benicio Del Toro and Jeffrey Wright parts but was kinda checking my watch otherwise. And when the credits hit, I realized I didn't give a shit about what I just watched. I am not fully in on Wes Anderson though, I was never crazy about The Darjeeling Limited or The Life Aquatic. I think Wes has a tendency to make these movies about wealthy intellectuals and it can be a bit of a bore (to me) but yet I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and Bottle Rocket. I think Bottle Rocket is actually vastly underrated. In conclusion, who knows why I didn't like this beyond my 3 star Letterboxd rating... Maybe because I got dropped on the head too many times as a baby? 


Steve: There's a lot of movies that missed the mark (please see last month's slate of podcasts), some I was just a little deflated by, but none that flat out disappointed me as much as Last Night in Soho. I'm a huge admirer of Edgar Wright's and having been non-plussed by The World's End, I was incredibly relieved by Baby Driver, which felt like a graduation of sorts to more diverse fare, even though it's hard to rewatch what with...the cast...ya know.... But all that said, it made me really excited to see what he would do next! All the preliminary buzz made me feel like Last Night in Soho was going to be one of my favorite movies of the year and then...I saw it. Not outright bad, but really really not good either. It's just a genre that he never truly had a handle on. Psychosexual horror proved to be a fridge too far for our boy, even though he wound up with some fun musical sequences, a charming cast, and some interesting visuals it just was a huge, toothless let down. I never felt that dread he was going for, which is a shame. I'll be there for his next one but I'll be more guarded about it.

FEBRUARY 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 February! 

Episode 591 —  Big Bully

Episode 592 —  The Truth about Cats and Dogs with Jenn K.!

Episode 593 —  Blown Away (1994) with Jamelle Bouie

Episode 594 — C.H.U.D. Live at The Bell House! 


Patreon Episodes:

Patreon Exclusive We Love Movies — Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & Kill Bill: Vol. 2 - THAT'S RIGHT, TWO FULL EPISODES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! 

Animation Damnation — Doug "Doug Plays Cupid" (s7, e26)

The Nexus: TOS: "The Enterprise Incident" (s3 e2) TNG: "The Defector" (s3, e10)

Gleep Glossary: The Max Rebo Band

Melr0210: 90210: "Leading from the Heart" (s2, e11) Melrose Place: "State of Need"  (s1, e31)

Once in a Lifetime: Stalked by My Doctor: The Return

And don't miss the last two episodes on the $10.00 Level...of:


Episodes 6 & 7 of our hilarious recap of this massively disappointing series will be comin' atcha!

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 Toby Jones in Bee Movie, 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 Jungle 2 Jungle, 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 return and this month, Romano's on FIRE (literally)! 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! See you next month for LISTENER REQUEST MONTH! 

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