BIG DADDY DISPATCH: JUNE 2023 (Patreon)

Dispatch Seventy Six June 5th, 2023

Greetings WHM Family!

We’re back home! Apologies for the delay, but those cross-country tours will really take it outta ya! We were lucky enough to play for two great crowds in two of our favorite cities, and even better, we got to meet a ton of you nice folks! It’s always the highlight of our year to put names to faces and shake hands and hear from you folks in person.

But we can’t rest on our laurels here! Because it’s finally upon us, the Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza for 2023! We’ve got some real bangers coming your way as the season comes to a close, both this month and next, and friends—you’re gonna be really, really happy with this lineup! So, what’re we waiting for…Let’s get after it!

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

Image Credit: WHM Gang in the Green Room of the Hollywood Improv by Stephen Sajdak

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 672 – The Edge with Brant MacDuff

The boys head into the woods with Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and author Brant MacDuff to face off against nature, pissed-off bears, sexual jealousy, and David Mamet’s dumbass script. What’s with this old pervert who runs the B&B? Does everything Anthony Hopkins say have to be some Wikipedia fact purge? Did they have to do Harold Perrineau dirty like that? Buy Brant’s Book!

Episode 673 – Guardians of the Galaxy Patrons ONLY!

For this month’s We Love Movies, the gang returns to one of exactly six Marvel movies that the guys agree are good, the 2014 blockbuster that introduced everyone to Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax, Gamora, and opened a chaos ruin that insisted Chris Pratt be in 72% of big movies. What makes this film feel so carefree as compared to the desperate fan service of so many other titles in the MCU? Do we ever get to like Chris Pratt again or is the youth-ministry version of Andy from Parks & Recreation here to stay? Can we get in writing that Chris likes this movie and how much will that cost? More John C. Reilly, you bastards!

Episode 674 – Son in Law 

We’re going back to Pauly World, buuuddy! Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve head out into the country with his weasel-ness Pauly Shore and a not-yet-famous Carla Gugino as they try to pass as a new couple for her conservative farming family and her aggressive soon-to-be fiancée. What is the timetable for Gugino to go from farmer’s daughter to righteous beach babe? Why wasn’t Lane Smith in every movie? Isn’t the climactic scene of this film kinda dark for a sweet-hearted film about an affable bozo? John Denver Rules!

Episode 675 – World War Z 

The fellas catch a ride on rich people helicopters and the government-assassin super-boat alongside Brad Pitt’s Gerry Lane and his family when the world gets overrun by fast, shitty-looking zombies—from America to Israel to Scotland. Shouldn’t the wife character have more to do than shuttle kids around? Is it really a zombie movie if there’s no blood or gore to be found? Who was asking for prestige horror that looks like it was made by Skynet? Come for a shitty James Badge Dale cameo, stay for the most insane Pepsi product placement you’ve ever seen.

Episode 676 – The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Just in time for the first of two, three, or four movies that may possibly end this series, Andrew, Eric, Steve, and Chris head to Tokyo with Lucas Black to learn about car drifting, get involved with local crime lords, and race Dominic Toretto for…something. Would this be better if it wasn’t called Fast & Furious? Was anyone really putting all their chips on the stardom of Lucas Black? What is with this dad character and his behavior around his, er, “girlfriends?” Get ready for one of the last theme songs to just be named for the movie. Shout out Teriyaki Boyz!

Episode 677 – Saw IV: Live in Toronto

Recorded at a recent tour stop in the Great White North, the boys spend another night in a shitty murder house with Jigsaw, the oldest serial killer in existence, as we finally learn the origin story of the man who makes the death machines. Does the VHS Trailer Game work in a live setting? Are pregnant women given ample warnings about doors? Don’t all engineers spend their free time making death traps? Here’s holding out that we get an origin story about Danny Glover’s character next.

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: We spent a good chunk of last month on the road, and before that we were breaking our backs to crank out all the eps we needed to get done before hitting the road, so most of my watching was show-related in May. That said, here are a couple films I caught that had nothing to do with WHM and our family of shows:

Eastern Condors (1987) - Holy crap is this fantastic. Eric, Chris and I caught a 35mm screening of this total action classic at the Academy Museum when we had an off-day in Los Angeles. The movie is Sammo Hung’s answer to Rambo: First Blood Part II in the sense that it’s an action film set in Vietnam (right as the war is winding down), however the action is way better, the stunts are way better, the acting is way better… you get the idea. It was also really fascinating seeing a take on America’s Vietnam bungle from a Honk Kong perspective. And like I said in my Letterboxd review, a dude gets a knife shoved up his ass in one of the very first action scenes. You gotta find this one immediately.

Zodiac (2007) - One of my all-time favorite films, I just have to scream to the high heavens whenever I re-watch it. The four of us caught a screening (again, another off-day in Los Angeles) at the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre and boy howdy, am I envious of you folks that can easily schlep out to Santa Monica to see movies at that place! One, fabulous facility. But two, fabulous curation! I loved the place and I still love the film. If you haven’t jumped into this one yet, well hey, You Gotta Do It as the podcaster once said.

Menace II Society (1993) - I rewatched this for the first time since college and boy, does it still pack a punch. It’s an absolutely gutting film, but is it ever powerful. Wowza. I checked it out on the Criterion Collection 4K which I thought looked and sounded great—so much so, I felt bad watching it late at night because all the music and gun shot sound effects were BOOMING. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I’d recommend giving it a spin. It’s a quick 97 minutes and a wildly fantastic feature debut from the Hughes Brothers. It features an incredible cast, including Jada Pinkett making her feature film debut, and she’s amazing in the movie.

Finally, I watched all of FUBAR in two days. It’s no secret this is a pro-Arnold podcast, so me checking this out was inevitable. Also made for great plane viewing coming back east. I gotta say it was really fun seeing him back on screen this much. It may seem like the show is a “he’s got a whole team” kind of cast, meaning we aren’t really seeing the big guy that much in favor of showcasing a group of younger actors, but I assure you Arnold is in every single episode (8 eps in the season) and he’s almost in every scene of every episode. It’s most definitely a light comedy kind of action comedy, but it had me laughing a lot (especially Fortune Feimster, who’s fucking hilarious at all times). Also hilarious? Tom Arnold in a single-ep guest spot. The show kind of plays like USA Original Programming (think like, Burn Notice type stuff), but the biggest difference is the language, action, and violence are all totally amped up. For better or worse with everything else that’s going on in it, FUBAR is jam-packed with explosions, wild deaths, and tons of violence—including Arnold slitting multiple throats. Incredible stuff. I’d say give it a shot!

Chris: On my way back from our shows on the West Coast, during a mostly smooth airplane ride back home to Connecticut, I finally got to watch something that has been on my to-see list since I read Jonathan Rosenbaum’s appreciation of it back in college: Howard Hawks’ The Big Sky. Think of it as a proto-version of Aguirre: The Wrath of God, with Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin playing traders who join an expedition up the Missouri River to trade with the Blackfoot tribe.

Among Hawks’ many gifts is an ability to evince an organic and striking sense of discovery in his adventures. The dangerous business of early flight as a capitalist enterprise is what gives Only Angels Have Wings its undercurrent of desperation and anxiety. Here, the charting of new trade routes, the plying of Native Americans with much too much whiskey being the only side effect, brings two good-time boys into conflict with a big, ever-developing world of relationships, rivalries, and unlikely romances. Every scene feels as if its reinforcing and expanding Hawks’ view of history, through the people, the lands, and the sharing and mutating of traditions. More than lived up to the hype.

It's not fair to put a Hawks film up against the latest Fast & Furious movie, but I must, if only to put in no uncertain language what doesn’t work in this film. That would be Vin Diesel and the film’s noticeable narrowing in scope in this film. Yes, the world of Dominic Toretto and the world at large are once again under attack – Jason Momoa is the big dumb villain this time – but what has made these films so interesting is the clever way in which the action and exposition was stratified between characters, a narrative scheme that often allowed us to just hang with these (mostly) fun characters. This film feels more focused on Toretto and legacy, and it sucks the life out of a franchise that had recently found its groove, despite the catastrophe that is The Fate of the Furious. Turns out you probably needed Justin Lin to make these films work.

Eric: This Memorial Day I decided to do a sorta car/trucker mini-marathon and it more or less sucked. It peaked with the first movie, Ron Howard's Grand Theft Auto which is aggressively OK. That movie is about Ron and his girlfriend Nancy Morgan fleeing her rich parents to get married in Vegas against their wishes. This causes a bounty hunter type of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to start up with tons of people trying to stop them because the jilted groom put out a bounty on the radio. Kind of cool to see the regular Roger Corman players mix it up with every goddamn Howard there is.

After that we moved onto Black Dog which is so thin I feel like it's barely a movie. Boilerplate arms running plot with the truck being attacked by goddamn Meat Loaf. Some cool stunts but I don't know or care about anyone or anything in it. Patrick Swayze needs money or he might end up living in Newark, NJ - that's the set up and the horrors if our hero fails. Maybe if I had seen it in 1998 when it came out, I'd have more of an affinity for it. As with most movies, not enough Stephen Tobolowsky!

Rounded the day out with the Chuck Norris vehicle (get it?) Breaker! Breaker! Might as well be called Boring! Boring! And it's still true, Chuck Norris always manages to make the action genre hit the snooze button.

Recent releases:

Fast X - It's another "movie" in the "franchise," that's all. Really wish they could figure out how to add personality to these or make anything about them seem at all refreshing. I don't know how people still love it when all these post- Fast 5 movies have been more or less identical. Oh this guy was just off screen the whole time. Oh and this other guy who was dead is alive all along for some reason.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - Really thought this would be my shit but it's just fine. It's okay.

Steve: Yes! Movies! I watched ‘em! Here’s some highlights, friends.

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar - Jenn and I watched this just this last weekend as it’s June and ‘tis the season and I gotta be honest, I was supremely let down by this one. This was my first time through and I absolutely can understand how folks love this movie, it’s got three absolutely terrific performances from Swayze, Snipes, and Leguizamo, all at the top of their games and totally committed. No winking, no fear from any of those gentlemen and it’s inspiring to see. However, it’s basically three great performances in search of a movie and the movie never really shows up. Once we stumble our way into Nebraska (after a great cameo by the late, great, Chris Penn) there’s just not much to do.It’s a movie you have to respect, especially since it means so much to so many, but I just wanted more of these three amazing performances and felt ultimately let down.

Bloodmatch - This is a hard one to talk about and it’s not really a recommend, but it’s kind of a seeing is believing. This is hands down the craziest movie to cash in on the kickboxing “craze” of the late 80’s/early 90’s. Somehow this is a revenge picture, and the Prime Minister of Schlock himself, Albert Pyun plays it like a kickboxing chamber drama? We spend so much time telling the audience the story, you’re thrilled when these dudes finally get into the ring and start actually fighting. A deeply strange film that should be enjoyed no earlier than 12:15am.

Sweet Smell of Success – Caught this last night at Film Forum in 35mm and it was a stone-cold stunner. This is a mean, nasty and gorgeous picture. Probably my favorite Tony Curtis at this point? His desperate scheming and toadying is so unglamorous, but it vibrates off the screen sixty or so years later. Burt Lancaster is also fantastic, as a … (get this folks) newspaper columnist that holds so much societal power he’s even got the cops in his pocket. A lot can happen in half a century, it turns out! James Wong Howe’s cinematography steals the show, always framing all these characters in deep, luscious shadow. If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and seek out the best quality copy you can find. Just wow.

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

Alan from Dalton, PA, who asks: “With Air as the latest prestigious installment in the growing Business Biopic genre, what product or company do you want to see immortalized next as a feature film?”

Andrew: Love this question! You know, Air is one of my favorite films of the year so far, and I’ve heard great things (from Steve and Chris, mainly) about Tetris and Blackberry, so this kind of genre is really taking flight. Yes, there’s even that movie coming out soon that’s allegedly the story of the creation of Flaming Hot Cheetos—which, honestly may prove to be a fridge too far for this genre and could easily kill it off upon release, but let’s hope not.

I think the audience for this one would be super-small, but a light comedy about whoever the hell created the game SNOOD would be fun. Remember that period from like 2001-2003 when that weird computer game dominated college dorm rooms everywhere? Someone could have some fun writing a goofy telling of that, although maybe it’d turn out closer to the Weird Al movie, who knows?

Now that I think about it, I’m sure the story about the guy who created Beanie Babies is a wild and sleazy tale in some way. Let’s do that.

Chris:  I’ve made the joke before, but I would sincerely love to see the creation of the McRib and how McDonald’s decided to hire relatively unknown country star Tony Joe White aka The Swamp Fox to be the man to sell the sandwich to the nation. This seems a lot more viable than my long-standing dream project: a four-hour biopic, utilizing talk show footage and interviews, of the man who created the glory hole. I don’t know who he is but his life was very funny whether he agrees or not and probably quite suitable for the 18+ public.

Eric: Try this on for size: Podcast: The Movie. It's about how me and the other fellas here invented podcasting. You can have a lot of it set within the halls of The AV Club back when Podmass was a thing. It can end when the AV Club hired a new editor and destroyed Podmass then get this: Serial begins. Now regular people are learning about podcasting but it does nothing for us, the humble inventors of podcasting who have been cast out onto the streets.

Other than that, I'm not so sure I love this corporate biopic genre despite really enjoying Air. I guess if we were going to have to do more, how about the invention of some sort of slime? Nickelodeon Gak? Or was it gack? Or how about, Playdough: The Movie. You can open it with a quote from Plato and then not smash cut, SMUSH cut into the offices of Playdough where high-powered execs scream at science nerds until a new mushy product is available? Maybe they invent blue playdough and it's never been done before and it's a lot of trial and error getting it just the right shade of blue?

Steve: I’ll second Andrew’s love for this burgeoning genre, if only because I like a bunch of people in suits talking about THE DEAL and whether or not THE DEAL can get done. Sue me.

For other versions? Maybe LeCroix: The Motion Picture? Just imagine Matt Berry or someone as Tim LeCroix, a small-town guy with big dreams about making bubbled water cool again, dammit! Or Hell, how about we get really interesting and do Volkswagen! You know, that fun brand with the cute 90’s car commercials. The 90’s are big right now and I’m almost positive that that brand has no skeletons whatsoever in its closet. So yeah, that’s my choice.

JUNE 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 June!

Episode 679 – The NeverEnding Story

Episode 680 – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (EMERGENCY EPISODE)

Episode 681 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop with Ben Worcester

Episode 682 – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Patreon Episodes:

Patreon Exclusive We Love Movies – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Animation Damnation: Beast Wars: Transformers: “Double Dinobot” (s1, e14)

The Nexus: TOS: “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (s3, e15), TNG: “Ménage à Troi”(s3,e24)

Gleep Glossary: Boss Nass

MelR0210: 90210 “Wedding Bell Blues” (s2, e28), Melrose Place: “Under the Mistletoe” (s2, e15)

Once in a Lifetime: Stalked by My Doctor: A Sleepwalker's Nightmare

2nd Quarter Synch-able Commentary: Spider-Man: No Way Home

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

Our Youtube Channel continues to kick-ass folks! That's where you can catch all the new WHM On-Screen Live episodes wherein we break down Box Office news, react live to trailers, and talk about stuff we're watching, all on a weekly basis! It is MUST SEE viewing for the WHM fan. We also just did a live Mailbag! You never know what’s going to happen on that channel, folks!

We also have all officially sanctioned VHS Trailer Game episodes up to this point. Eric has also put out great clip packages like 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 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 Avatar, Rocky V, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and 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!

It's back in stock, baby! You can get a KICK ASS edition of the super fun B-Movie Scanner Cop, which includes our commentary track, which isn't available anywhere else! Get yours here!

Eric and Ben are back in the the blue and they've got FIVE STARS and the helicopter is swooping in, as they talk about "Grand Theft Auto" with our good friend Andrew Jupin! And they’ve un-archived an episode of Blame It On Outer Space concerning the dubious theory regarding The Montauk Project! Listen here!

Did you know that Andrew has a website? No, it's not an OnlyFans (yet), it's a cool blog for some musings and Jupin-centric goings on. Lookit that fancy graphic from Raphael Sarmento! Check it out at andrewjupin.com

If you're a fan of the show and a fan of looking sharp, you should check out our merch on our TeePublic store! Our newest design celebrates our 2023 tour with a kick-ass design by Felipe Sobreiro! We also have "The Dilf Den", 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!


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