Big Daddy Dispatch: July 2023 (Patreon)

Dispatch Seventy Seven June 28th, 2023

Greetings WHM Family!

The Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza is both in full swing and swiftly coming to a close! Isn’t that always the way…But it’s been a total blast! We’ve had an emergency episode! We’ve seen the return of one of our favorite guests last month (Mr. Ben Worcester) and we have the return of THREE MORE of our favorite guests coming at you this month as well. We’ve got another killer WLM on the way, as well as quite possibly…the most humiliated Jim Walsh has ever beenon MelR0210. We’re so stoked to share this month with you, we’re practically busting at the seams!

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

Image Credit: WHM at the State Theater in New Jersey by Stephen Sajdak

NEW LIVE SHOW ALERT!

TRI-STATE AREA, are you ready for a kick-ass Holiday show from your favorite podcast? Well, they’re not available. But we are! This December, We Hate Movies is doing a live episode on Tim Allen’s 1994 grunting Santa picture, The Santa Clause at White Eagle Hall right up the street from Steve’s apartment in Jersey City*! This is going to be a great time at a great venue talking about a shitty movie, which will get everybody in the holiday spirit. Our last New Jersey show (see above) sold out, so you definitely do not want to get left out in the cold for the live show on December 7th! Get your tickets now!

*Steve’s address is not available even to the highest level of Patreon subscribers.

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 678 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (PATRONS ONLY)

For this month’s We Love Movies, in honor of the second Indiana Jones movie in which Indy is an AARP member, the gang heads out with Indy and his horny, umbrella-loving father to find Christ’s favorite mug in the desert. Can you really have an Indiana Jones movie without Nazis? Do you have to kill your father if he sleeps with the same spy as you? Does the knight ghost have to stay there while the place crumbles or can he peace out as soon as the right cup is chosen? Brody hive assemble!

Episode 679 – The NeverEnding Story 

The fellas head off to a far-away land of rock eaters, mountain turtles, disgusting shit boys, and horse death for miles on end. Was this supposed to give a generation of children early on-set depression? Can you rent Falkors by the hour or what? Is Freddy Krueger hiding out and getting work at young Bastian’s school? Get ready for Ernest Borgnine voice!

Episode 680 – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts 

Andrew, Eric, Chris, and Steve head back to 1994, when rap ruled New York City and a large computer butthole called Unicron tried to devour the whole dang Earth. What exactly is the point of having gigantic animals as transformers over automobiles? Can someone find better work for Dominique Fishback, please? Why cast all these huge actors if they all sound the fucking same? Do not fuck up the Burger King order!

Episode 681 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop with Ben Worcester

Big Ben Worcester returns to the program to discuss this inexplicable comedy sensation, in which Kevin James plays the most humiliated and humiliating man in existence. Who had the genius idea of making 65% of the humor based on Segways? Is this somehow the worst film co-starring Steve “King of Honesty” Rannazzisi? Why is Chris going all-in on the long-forgotten teen comedy Angus…again? In this house, we expect much more from Mr. Bobby Cannavale

Episode 682 – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The boys head to India to help Indiana Jones, showgirl Willie Scott, and the Sam Fuller-referencing Short Round track down a missing mystical stone and stop a clan of screaming heart-rippers. Was there no way to make Willie Scott tolerable? How horny was Spielberg on set with his future wife? Is it not a bit fucked up at the British-backed Indian soldiers are the ones that save the day? WAS THAT DAN FUCKING AYKROYD?!

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: Kind of a weird month for me. We’re in the final stretch of production on season 13, and like every year we race to get all of our awesome August Patreon content finished way in advance so we can take the month off. But in my off-hours, I’ve managed to squeeze in a couple non-WHM titles. I’m also on a full-blown rewatch of one of my fave shows of the 90s. Let’s take a gander:

Asteroid City - Well folks, I absolutely loved this one. I’m a sucker for Wes Anderson movies (at this point you’re either in or you’re out, there won’t be a title that magically changes your mind) and this new one did not disappoint. It’s absolutely hilarious, but also incredibly sad. I really loved the cast of usual suspects, as always they didn’t disappoint. As far as the newcomers, I was really moved by the inclusion of Tom Hanks here. I wasn’t sure at first if he’d fit in with the rest of the crew, but I was pleasantly surprised. Geoffrey Wright had me howling. Love, love, loved it.

Break the Game - Caught this at Tribeca a few weeks back and was pretty equally moved and infuriated. It’s a doc about Narcissa Wright, a wildly talented gamer who amassed a huge following live-streaming her game play, setting a record for speed-running The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. When she comes out as transgender, she loses almost all her followers and becomes the victim of an insane bullying campaign perpetrated by the absolute dregs of humanity. The doc follows her as she tries to win over a new audience by speed-running The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, while also navigating her life both online and off. No clue what will happen to this after the festival circuit, but keep your eyes peeled.

Love & Basketball - Part of our Juneteenth programming at the house this year was a re-watch of what is still Gina Prince-Bythewood’s best film, Love & Basketball. It’s such a fantastic movie. Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps have insane chemistry together and combined with that killer soundtrack, this is one sexy-ass movie… that’s also filled with a ton of great basketball scenes! It’s also got a who’s who of great supporting turns from Regina Hall, Harry Lennix, Dennis Haysbert, and the GOAT, Alfred Woodard. The scene between Woodard and Lathan where they really have it out with one another in the kitchen, I mean, good god damn! If you’ve never seen this, it’s a total must.

The Flash - What a microwaved shit sandwich this film is—stay tuned for January, no doubt!

Oh, and so I’ve started a series re-watch of Star Trek: Voyager. I absolutely loved this show back in the 90s, but never quite made it to the finish line. After the appearance of now-Captain Tuvok on this last season of Star Trek: Picard, I decided to indulge a curiosity that had been dogging me for a while: does Voyager hold up? I’d been asking myself this since way back whenever it was that a Listener Request Month had us watching some rando Voyager ep and so a couple weeks back I decided there’s no time like the present. I gotta say, the vibes this show is giving back to me are incredible. Not only am I enjoying the characters and the writing, but I’m also getting these wildly powerful sense memories that are taking me back to my youth, sitting on the couch in my childhood home, watching Trek. I spent many a night hunkered down with my buds on the lost-in-the-Delta-Quadrant starship Voyager, eating up their wild, weird, terrifying, and sometimes outright goofy adventures. It’s a show that I think gets a little lost in the post-TNG Trek discussion because Deep Space Nine was just so goddamn good, but Voyager, I’d argue, is also so goddamn good, but in a completely different way. If you’ve never taken the plunge and are a Star Trek or sci-fi fan, I’d give it a shot. I’m having a lot of fun.

Chris: My computer broke about a week ago, so I have just been picking up movies I’ve been meaning to see – King Vidor’s Stella Dallas would be the best of the bunch – outside of the new releases. The biggest of those releases, for me anyway, is Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, and the film cements something I have been circling around for a while: Wes Anderson is my line in the sand. J. Hoberman once wrote this short capsule review for Robert Bresson’s foundational Pickpocketin which he said that 99% of the time he is a live-and-let-watch type of guy but that he draws the line at Pickpocket and Bresson in general. In Hoberman’s eyes, if you cannot at least appreciate the level of craftsmanship in Pickpocket and the boldness of the film’s political and spiritual queries, your opinion is of no use to him. That’s where I am with Anderson. Asteroid City has more going on in it, more ideas, gags, and moments of wonder, than anything I’ve seen this year short of Albert Serra’s monumental Pacifiction, and time may see it surpass that film too. I say that and Asteroid Cityisn’t even in my top five of Anderson movies right now. I’m glad that this seems to be his most popular film since Grand Budapest Hotel, but I’m also just exhausted by people using empty language to argue that any American director is doing as much in each frame as Anderson is. The only arguable competitors, in my mind, are P.T. Anderson, Jordan Peele, and Barry Jenkins. Maybe that’s not what people want from movies and maybe making sure that a movie follows all the rules that Robert McKee said they should follow is more indicative of what constitutes art for most people now, but I am done pretending that it’s not obvious that this guy is at the forefront of whatever cinema has been and is becoming.

Eric: Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) - Finally getting around to these later movies and this one was just okay. Definitely felt a little low budget as we're just sitting around a bombed out warehouse a lot. Kinda wish we had more Dolph Lundgren here too.

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) - Now we're cookin'. Scott Adkins leads this and I think they do a lot right here. It's from an outsider's perspective and JCVD really does become terrifying. Could've done with less strobe effects, but this movie is a banger. Kinda wish we had more Dolph Lundgren here too.

Sand Trap (1998) - is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It's low budget but never feels outright cheap. It's about a rich fella named Nelson takin' a trip to the desert with his wife and his sexy friend Jack. Well, whaddya know - turns out Jack and Margo are having an affair and it was all a ruse in order to kill him. Problem is, he survives. Part neo-noir, part brain damage. Check it out. Shout out to Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club for getting me into it!

Cole Justice (1989) - A straight to video movie about a film professor going vigilante while dressed up as a cowboy. You see, he likes to teach the class about westerns a lot and the movie shows straight up scenes from Shane and Once Upon a Time in the Westin it. That's probably the reason this is extremely hard to find. Cover art features NYC but the movie don't. Nevertheless, fun movie.

Crystal Heart (1986) - This movie is about a bubble boy dating Tawny Kitaen who stars as a would-be pop star. The movie is pretty wild, from showcasing the sleaze of the music industry, to falling in love, to full on lady-on-glass "sex" scenes with the bubble boy beating off. Plus, would you like a second helping of running through a plate glass window? Hard to describe this one, it's utterly bizarre and worth your time! Another Justin Decloux find.

Steve: Yeah, here’s a quick round-up of memorable stuff that I’ve been watching this month.

Sexy Beast – Jonathan Glazer has a new movie coming out this year and my wife and I decided it might be fun to revisit his very brief career output, and holy fuck did this guy start with a capital-B Bang, gang. Released in 2000 (and oh boy you can feel it), this movie serves as a beautiful Anti-Snatch, where crime is entirely unglamorous, uncool and filled with pretty vile people. And no, they don’t have cute names. Ray Winstone’s Gal is out of the game and proud of it, living a just short of modest existence in Spain, when Ben Kingsley arrives as the world’s worst houseguest. It’s a crime caper that hates crime, so much so, when we actually get to the caper itself it’s an afterthought, it’s all about the psychic damage of being thrust back into a life you left behind for good reason. Great, great movie. Winstone and Kingsley are easily among the best twosome of the new millennium.

Midnight Cowboy & Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy – Film Forum (which is a theater that I go to all the goddamn time and has an attractive membership program, and have I ever signed up? No.) was playing both Midnight Cowboy and the new doc about it (see above) and we didn’t have a ton going on so we spent the day there and watched both, and I’m really pleased that we did.

Cowboy itself is a movie that I haven’t seen since college on DVD and honestly it never moved the needle much for me. Watching it again in the context of a queer retrospective really changed a lot of my opinions. Watching these two wretched low-lives fail and fail again in the dark and dingy city all set against this impossible background of “breaking in” to the prostitute business is a perfect encapsulation of how difficult it is to survive in this shitty capitalist world. Hoffman’s Ratso is a perfect foil to Voigt’s big vacant smilin’ Joe Buck, a dude who sold himself a bill of goods but can’t seem to do the same to anybody else. Just iconic stuff to see on the big screen, with some real gritty late 60’s New York photography.

The documentary is really good too! A nice companion to re-visiting this film in a queer context. Centering mostly on Cowboy’s director John Schlesinger’s Hollywood career as a gay director, finding ways to sneak in his lived experience, but also finding ways to make Hollywood care about society’s underserved. It’s well worth watching if you’re to give the movie another spin, especially because it’s the most I’ve liked contemporary Jon Voigt in…I dunno, 20 years? I was especially moved by his pride in his performance and his debt to Schlesinger for letting him be in his best movie.

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

Lauren, from Austraila who asks: “What movie character do you wish you could trade lives with for a day and why?”

Andrew: Oh, boy, this is a tough one. Maybe I’m going the easy route here, but I’m gonna say The Dude. Why? Well, I love weed, I think bowling is pretty darn fun, and I hate the fucking Eagles! And yeah, most of the time I’m walking around my house without pants. But I think the idea of getting wrapped up in a zany, Los Angeles-set, Neo-noir scheme with my buds and then closing out the night with a trip to the In & Out, followed by a jay and a White Russian at home while I chill to some tunes sounds like a pretty fun day indeed!

Chris:  This is an easy one, though it is a titular character from a movie I do not like: Bruce Almighty. Look, we can sit hear all day and talk about how it would probably be great to be Arnold or Bruce or Sly in their prime, pumping the shotguns, banging the babes, and destroying any sense of a humane society with spectacular violence, but that is simply not as cool as being able to make a mountain collapse within itself or making it so that Ron DeSantis cannot stop farting while on live television. Would not trade places with Jesus, even the cool one, because then you got all this attention right off the bat, whereas Bruce just has to care about getting Jennifer Aniston off and humiliating Steve Carrell while he plays around with the world. Consider me sold, but never watch the movie.

Eric: Jason Voorhees. Even if I die during that day, did I? You could rip through people like tissue paper. It'd be very stress reducing. Besides that, maybe Han Solo or something so I can sex up some glops and watch myself in the mirror while doing it.

Steve: I’d go with Albert Brooks’ Daniel Miller from Defending Your Life. Why? You get to spend one day in Judgment City, that’s why! And you’re not even fucking dead. Bonus! You get to eat whatever you want, rock that dope tunic thing they wear, hang out with Rip Torn and put the moves on a 1991 Meryl Streep. That’s a big W for a day.

JULY 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 683 – Garfield: The Movie with Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert

Episode 684 – Mission: Impossible II

Episode 685 – American Pie 2 with Angelica Jade Bastién

Episode 686 – The Postman

Patreon Episodes:

Patreon Exclusive We Love Movies – Mission: Impossible

Animation Damnation: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai: “Never Get Them Wet” (s1, e1)

The Nexus: TOS: “The Mark of Gideon” (s3, e16), TNG: “Transfigurations”(s3,e25)

Gleep Glossary: Han Solo

MelR0210: 90210 “Misery Loves Company” (s3, e1), Melrose Place: “Reunion Blues” (s2, e16)

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 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. 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 watchthe 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 Uncharted, Jurassic World: Dominion, 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 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