Big Daddy Dispatch: June 2025

Dispatch Ninety-Seven, May 29th, 2025

Greetings WHM Family!

The newly expanded Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza rages on into its second month, and this time we’re only doing 80’s movies! That’s right, for all of June (except on We Love Movies), we’ll be doing movies we’ve been dying to do from the “totally awesome” 80’s! We’re super stoked that we get to do an impromptu theme month in the middle of the SBE!

The theme is carried over to our Digital Live Show on Superman II! That’s right, we’re finally getting to the much embattled, but still second-best entry in the Christopher Reeve Superman franchise! We’ll be talking about it all:  Richard Lester’s fucking up of Richard Donner’s vision, the Donner Cut (though we’ll mostly go through the theatrical, fyi), Gene Hackman phoning it in, Terrence fucking Stamp, and of course super sexual intercourse! Followed of course by another inimitable After Party Q&, where we’ll answer your questions! It all goes down LIVE, on Friday, June 20th starting at 9pm/eastern followed immediately by the After Party! Can’t make the show live? Don’t worry, it’ll be available to stream for two weeks after the broadcast! And remember, Patreon subscribers on the Belushi and Walsh tiers can bundle in their After-Party ticket free by linking their Patreon account to Moment before checkout!

Get your tickets now and enjoy! 

Banner Credit: We Hate Movies Logo by Felipe Sobreiro

Image Credit: Superman II Digital Live Show Logo by Felipe Sobreiro

WHM GOES ABROAD

UK Friends, have you got your tickets yet for our residency at The Oxford Comedy Festival? If you haven’t you might run into one of these:

That’s right, two out of six shows have already sold out and tickets are moving fast on the remaining four. You don’t want to miss out on this one, our first trip across the pond!

July 18th – Early Show: Animation Damnation on TMNT’s “Elementary My Dear Turtle”

July 18th – Late Show: WHM on Quantum of Solace  SOLD OUT!

July 19th – Early Show: Gleep Glossary on Darth Vader

July 19th – Late Show: WLM on Hellraiser  SOLD OUT!

July 20th – Early Show: The Nexus on TNG’s “Sub Rosa”

July 20th – Late Show: WHM on King Ralph

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 798 – Mission: Impossible - Fallout

The fellas ask you to trust them one more time to talk about Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, dealing with the White Widow and the nefarious double-agent John Lark in what might be the high point of the Cruise-McQuarrie era of Mission: Impossible movies. Is this the most consequential mustache of all time? Are we allowed to talk about Tom Cruise without bringing up Scientology? Probably not! Has there been a better helicopter chase in cinema history or are we just giving them the Golden Propellor? Scheming double agents will always be more compelling than evil algorithms, unfortunately.

Episode 799 – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Andrew, Eric, Chris, and Steve team back up after the “event in New York” to meet Scarlet Witch and a man who acts an awfully lot like Quicksilver, as well as a silver-tongued self-made robot who wants to cleanse the world of the Avengers. Does James Spader have the best voice in the world? How many cringe lines survived to Whedon’s final draft? Has any MCU volume benefitted from time more than this one? Also, not that it matters, but it does kinda suck that we never got a good, workmanlike War Machine movie that isn’t just the Iron Man 2 scenes.

Episode 800 – 8MM – Our 800th Episode Spectacular!

WOO-HOO!!! Big 800, baby! Let’s talk snuff films, Nic Cage, and pornography collectors! Is this maybe a little...tame for a sex-work-world neo-noir? Would you want to know about your deceased partner’s sex tape(s)? Where does this land on the spectrum of Joaquin Phoenix performances in the 90s? For whatever misgivings we have about this movie, Joel Schumacher should have made at least a dozen more porn noirs in his lifetime.

Episode 801 – Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Right on time for the film’s return to theaters, the boys return to Gleep Glop World once again to evaluate the concluding volume in the prequel trilogy, in which Anakin Skywalker finally takes the plunge and becomes what he was fated to be: a fucking really good child killer. Where is this film currently on the Reevalutron-5000 rankings? Are most of the problems with this movie the same as the overriding problems with the prequels? Has time been any kinder to Hayden Christensen’s performance? One thing is for certain, it looks absolutely brilliant in comparison to The Rise of Skywalker.

Episode 802 – Mission: Impossible III (with Ben Worecester)

While Ethan Hunt once again faces off against Gabriel and the Entity in theaters, Andrew, Chris, Eric, and old pal, Ben go back in time to the end of the auteur era of Mission: Impossible, with Tom Cruise facing off against one of the best to ever do it, Philip Seymour Hoffman, to nab the Rabbit’s Foot. Does Hoffman wreck the curve by being this goddamn good? Is the Michelle Monaghan storyline a drag on the franchise? Will there ever be another J.J. Abrams blockbuster movie after The Rise of Skywalker? God, remember when Simon Pegg had cheeks? Man alive.

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:  Okay, between doing the WHM on Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Animation Damnation on that new Spider-Man cartoon, and catching Thunderbolts* in theaters, I had a bit of a spark ignite and I started diving back into reading some comics and along with that, nerdily going back to the DC animated movies, a piece of cinematic real estate for which I have a soft spot. So, all that in mind, here’s what’s been going in front of my eyes this past month:

Justice League: Doom (2012): This is a really solid DCA feature that’s basically the Tower of Babel storyline if anyone’s familiar. In this one, it’s Vandal Savage who steals Batman’s plans for how to take out the Justice League, member, by member. It’s a real fun one with a great voice cast. 

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013): This is a better Flash movie than that live action travesty from a few years back. Bonus here is Michael B. Jordan as Cyborg which is fantastic. And you still have Kevin Conroy on Batman so another big bonus there. Big recommend. 

Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016): Damian Wayne, all-time disgusting shit boy extraordinaire. (This one is also a lot of fun.)

Justice League Dark (2017): I like when DC gets dark and weird, and what better place to do that than with the JLD? This is a very Constantine-forward story and as far as I'm concerned, the more John Constantine in this world, the better. I also like the JLD because usually Batman is the only JLA member weird enough to fuck with them for any real length of time, so you’ve got him along on the journey as well, voiced by Jason O’Mara who I’ve grown to like in the role. 

I’ll close with a couple of reading recs of stuff I’ve been discovering lately:

The Sentry: The five-issue run that Paul Jenkins & Jae Lee did in the aughts is really entertaining and a cool look at The Sentry. My interest was piqued after Thunderbolts* and this was a great place to start. (On Marvel Unlimited.)

Godzilla Vs. X-Men: This is the fourth in a series of six one-shots where the G-Man is hobnobbing with some of Marvel’s finest. Fabian Nicieza and Emilio Laiso craft a really fun little story where, I mean, come on, Xavier’s trying to talk to Godzilla folks, it’s hilarious. (Out now.)

Daredevil: If anyone’s still got the itch for more of the Man Without Fear after Born Again, Marvel’s primary Daredevil title just started a new story arc (issue #20, Saladin Ahmed & Jose Luis Soares) so now’s a good time to jump back in with Matt Murdock & Co! Bullseye’s dead and Matt’s torn up about it. Plus, some fungus guy. Fun so far! (Out now.)

Batman Full Moon:  I’m two issues into this wild arc by Rodney Barnes and Stevan Subic from late last year where Batman is battling an outright werewolf with the help of Man Bat and others. Fun stuff, great art. (First two issues on DC Infinite.)

Justice League Dark: Spurred by my watching of the animated film, I jumped into Jeff Lemire’s 2011 run and am about 14 issues in. Like I said earlier, I find the dark side of DC really interesting and weird, so this title really scratches that itch. Big recommend! (DC Infinite.)

Chris:  Hurry Up, Tomorrow: The scene that you’ve possibly seen clipped from this movie has poor Jenna Ortega singing the hit song “Flashing Lights” to the man who wrote it, Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd, who she has tied up to a hotel bed. The first thought is probably Misery but this is much more in the vein of Swimfan and a significantly less enjoyable film than that one. Unless you take the music and persona of The Weeknd very seriously, I can’t imagine being able to take the movie seriously and they very clearly want you to. Not very funny or romantic or unnerving, all three of which it tries to be at once in several instances. Continues an unfortunate downward trend in regards to the output of its director, Trey Edward Shults, the man behind the striking 2015 drama Krisha. Bleh.

Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist: Perhaps unintentionally one of the best modern movies I’ve seen about loving someone. Yes, the story of Flanagan, who documented his life with cystic fibrosis and a loving dedication to S&M via a long-running series of performances, exhibitions, and recordings, would be worth it just to see what this exceptional human being put themselves through. The real fruit of the film, the best film by Kirby Dick by a mile, is its focus on Flanagan’s relationship with his partner, Sheree Rose, who collaborated with him on much of the artwork he made with and regarding his body. The second half deals largely with Flanagan’s passing in early 1996, and for whatever idea you might get from the title, what Dick finds is exceedingly tender and caring in ways that docs about popular artists rarely ever capture and make sing like this. One of the best documentaries of its year and of the 90s on the whole as well, I think.

Land of the Pharoahs: I’ve been trying to catch up on Howard Hawks movies that never came across my desk during my college years in the auteurism trenches and this is by far the weakest of the bunch. The story – about the planning and building of an impregnable tomb for the Pharoah to be laid to rest in – shares a similar taste for death the way Hawks’ narratives so often did in that the man who designs the tomb must agree to be buried along with the Pharoah to avoid the plans being known by anyone. Not as exciting as the death-defying pilots of Only Angels Have Wings or The Dawn Patrol but certainly fascinating. That’s the word for this film and you could be handed much worse, especially with an evil Joan Collins at hand to keep things simmering. That being said, it’s far less than what I’ve come to expect from even minor Hawks.

Eric: Call Me (1988):  Was hoping for more out of this. Stars Patricia Charbonneau who you might remember as one of the short-haired brunette scientists in RoboCop 2. So, we got her, a young Steve Buscemi, David Strathairn, and Stephen McHattie, with his hair dyed as blonde as mine, playing a Polish gangster named Jellybean. Somehow this manages to be boring. I'm marking it Safe To Skip. So, add it to your Safe To Skip list.

Point of No Return (1993): I know it's a remake and the original is better, blah, blah, blah - but this kinda slaps. Are the children still saying "slaps"? If not, insert whatever term is currently "on fleek." Bridget Fonda, street lady-turned assassin by Gabriel Byrne who, despite having a thick accent, yes, works for the US Government. There's a good moment of early 90's internet/PC (personal computer) culture here where a screensaver talks to Bridget Fonda. I'm a sucker for bad never-was early 90's tech. We also have Miguel Ferrer talking down to people! If Miguel Ferrer is in it and giving someone guff - it's a good movie. Sorry. Harvey Keitel as a "cleaner" which he'll do again later in Pulp Fiction. Dermot Mulroney in young hunk mode. It even has Geoffrey Lewis for Christ's sake! 

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022): Not the show, well, yes, the show, but I finally watched the Patterson fan edit that condenses the show into a two and half hour "movie." While far from perfect there's a lot to like here. I forgot Vader snaps a random guy's neck for one. Ewan McGregor was the best thing about the prequels and I'm glad he got another time at bat with this role. Really wish they did do this as a film. This fan edit can only do so much and the back end, like the show, drags once we get to planet Jimbeam or whatever.

Rust (2024): Yeah, I rented it. I'm the guy. You got me. Dead parents. Little kid fights. A teenager sentenced to hang. Bad vibes in the badlands. Not made for westerns, Alec Baldwin stars as the titular Rust who attempts to passage the to-be-hanged boy to safety. Thus begins our meandering 2 hour and 20 minute journey. Could've seen this being a serviceable Dadfernoon title if it clocked in at least 30 minutes shorter. It's a shame since the cinematography, on location shooting, and overall look here is solid.  Recommend checking out Owen Gleiberman's review in Variety. He uses this movie's release as an excuse to shit all over what he considers a worse movie - The Crow (1994). Now that's a truly bonkers, mindfucked opinion.

The Bare-Footed Kid (1993): This Johnnie To movie is honestly hilarious. Lots of comedy and that Shaw-esque veneer I've come to love.

Steve: Fail Safe (1964): About sixty years before Ethan Hunt’s ill conceived nemesis, The Entity, another movie had something to say about how our technological obsession with removing humans from the equation would lead to almost certain doom and holy shit does this movie bring the existential dread! I had seen the TV version as a kid but barely remembered it, but I was lucky to have an afternoon free to catch this at the Roxy in NYC. Kind of an odd companion piece to one of the best films ever made, Doctor Strangelove…, it’s pretty close to being the exact same movie only played completely straight. If this movie wasn’t directed by Sydney fucking Lumet, no Kubrick but certainly no slouch, this would be resigned to the dustbin of history, but Lumet’s taut plotting, sweaty claustrophobia and a wall to wall stacked cast keeps this memorable. Standouts are Henry Fonda as America’s dad doing the impossible, Walter Matthau being a suave, smirking, world class piece of shit (that would fit right into the current cabinet), and an all-star turn from Dan O’Herlihy, as the film’s desperate, terrified, outmatched moral center. Seek it out.

The Shrouds (2024): Not as fantastic as Crimes of the Future, but certainly unsettling and just as memorable. A didactic, plodding, but absolutely devastating meditation on grief in the age of A.I. and how insidiously our technologies have seeped their way into every facet of our lives and even our deaths, and how with all that innovation the truth becomes even murkier. Not sure I’ll go back anytime soon, but I’ve been thinking about it all month.

Drop (2025): I’m in the minority here, but man, I really couldn’t get into this one. Immediately the “fun” way that text was displayed in the film irked me to no end. Add to that a very bland, forgettable cast giving bland forgettable performances and add in a very ham-fisted overlay of trauma and domestic abuse and you can fucking keep it. It takes a very long time to get to anywhere remotely fun or exciting and the juice is absolutely not worth the squeeze.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mitchell (1993): I’m kind of always watching MST3K and I never bring it up here, but I felt the need for two reasons, one being of course the passing of Joe Don Baker, who absolutely did great work in his career and proffered a very believable version of the American male on screen that I worry we’ll never see again. RIP to that legend. Secondly, you’ll see below, episode 800 has us at WHM a bit navel gazey and I really think this episode in particular has as much to do with the show’s beginnings Pack as anything else–there's a reason The Pack was episode three!–and is responsible for about 2% of my personality. This was my favorite episode growing up and I proceeded to show it to all of my friends the second I could (though I feel like Eric at least had probably seen it already) as a kind of primer of sorts. Well, it’s still as funny today as it was then and still my favorite.

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 there’s a reason --- steve

Nick, from the Iowa who asks:

“Which one of you was first to say ‘Hey let's start a podcast?’ Tell us about those early days when you were young and naive.”

Andrew: I think we’ve told the tale before, but yes, so the legend goes, I was the one to utter the words, “let’s start a podcast,” or something like that. Which is fine, but over the years I’ve suggested a lot of stuff that turned out to be a bad idea like, “sure, I’ll join this intramural basketball team,” or, “yeah, give me that party-sized margarita right before my flight,” or, unsurprisingly, “I’m sure these brownies can’t be that strong.” So, when you think about it, “let’s start a podcast,” could’ve just been another notch in my Series of Bad Ideas belt. The only reason I bucked the trend and it didn’t turn out to be a bad idea, was that I had the foresight to recruit the three guys sitting next to me on that ratty futon to be a part of the project. Without these three dudes saying yes, and being up to the task, and seeing the potential we had, this whole enterprise surely wouldn’t have flourished. And yet, like that brilliant Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, life, uh, found a way. And, so, here we are, nearly two decades later, still rocking and rolling, finally getting our asses on an overseas trip to play some shows, producing multiple monthly offerings across our family of shows, and entertaining people all over the world. I’ve always loved making people laugh and getting to do it professionally has been the biggest privilege of my life thus far. Your four angry uncles are some pretty lucky fellas.

Chris: As you know, I can be extremely annoying. Part of that, though certainly not the core element, is my belief that creation is necessarily chaotic and therefore more difficult to chart and remember accurately. That being said, it was definitely Andrew and I’m relatively certain he’s always been the driving force in scheduling out recording times and asking everyone what they want to talk about. Before we got popular, it was a bit of a free-for-all as far as finding and bringing movies to the table. One of us would watch some insane thing or be reminded of a forgotten, er, treasure after a date and bring it to the boys for confirmation. We all recorded in our apartment and poor Andrew had to drag all his recording shit to our place and set it up in Eric’s (massive) room in our place. It got quite funky in that space and I am thankful that some of the funk remains, if not all of it.

Eric: Andrew said "let's start a podcast" and I thought it was a bad idea. That said, I figured - what the hell? We then started to ruin our good family names each and every week. Well, at first, it was every other week. We got to work. We treated it, and still do, as a job. We rolled up our sleeves and started producing freshly made hot pods. The frequency kept increasing with demand. What went from hoping we get noticed by 1 or 2 people in the AV Club comment section, to distributing our hot pods, cooked fresh weekly, across the entire planet. Humble beginnings from recording in my bedroom across from one another, microphone cables strewn across rarely washed crusty sheets, to a multiple show pod factory.

Steve: I was the last of my college buddies to move out of my parents’ house after graduation. Three WHOLE YEARS I went back and lived with my mom in the Bronx getting my shit very slowly together (let that be a lesson kids, no shame in living at home!). I finally moved out and after about a year living with another friend in his very nice condo he owned (in a room with no windows, but the rent was cheap!) I found myself looking for a new place to live and Eric and Chris were amenable to taking on a third, scrappy roommate. I moved into Astoria and Andrew lived up the road, which bumped up our “hang out” time from, on weekends to literally every day. So, that was fun. At the time I was banging my head against the wall doing all sorts of comedy things, a lot of them with Andrew, improv, sketch, trying to make a movie, but not stand-up…Never stand-up. So, when he suggested the podcast, I said sure as I was always down to clown with my friends and I thought it would be cool to work with Eric and Chris for once. Not for a second did I expect anyone to ever give a shit, and man was I wrong. To Eric’s point, we’ve worked our asses off to build what we’ve got, but luckily when that work is a lot of jokes with very funny and talented people that happen to be your best friends, it’s not so bad. And of course, this whole stupid thing would’ve ended years ago if not for you, gentle reader. I remain eternally grateful every time someone listens to this fun little show of ours.

JUNE SCHEDULE

Say what? The schedule in advance?! It's the least we could do! By subscribing to this newsletter, you get a sneak peek at what we're putting this month

June 3rd  – Rambo: First Blood Part II  

June 10th   – Willow

June 17th   – Crocodile Dundee  

June 24th  – The Return of the Living Dead

Patreon Episodes:

June 5th --  We Love Movies: 28 Days Later

June 6th -- MELR0210: 90210: “Duke’s Bad Boy” (s3, e23) Melrose Place: “Love Reeks” (s3, e8)

June 12th -- Animation Damnation: Superman: The Animated Series “Mxyzpixilated ” (s2, e8)

June 13th -- The Nexus: TOSTAS: “Mudd’s Passion” (s1, 10), TNG: “Qpid (s4, e20)

June 19th – Once in a Lifetime: Killer Contractor

June 26th -- Gleep Glossary:Andor: Season 2 Wrap-Up

June 27th – John Wick 2mentary Syncable Commentary

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

On Screen Live has been a little less consistent as we ramp up our recording schedule for our Oxford residency, but no less awesome! Check out our latest entry where re-capped Thunderbolts*, Sinners, and Final Destination: Bloodlines! New episodes are Mondays at noon/et! Subscribe on our YouTube Channel to never miss a broadcast!

We also have all officially sanctioned VHS Trailer Game episodes up to this point. Eric has also put out great clip packages like WTF Exorcism with Marc Merrin, 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 Rampage (2018), Any Which Way You Can, 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! 

TJ Hooker…Is back! Eric and Ben run into one of the most dangerous things two fake cops can, a backdoor pilot!  Listen here!

Please note that from now until at least the end of 2025, ALL PROFITS from our merch store store will be going directly to the Center for Reproductive rights! Shit’s bad out there and we know it’s likely to get worse and we want to do something,  SO, If you're a fan of the show and a fan of looking sharp, you should check out our merch on our new and improved merch store! We have some hot off the presses designs by Felipe Sobreiro such as the Scream 4 Live Show, Too Old For This Shit and Sheenpril Logos as well as A Certain Fat Director enjoying his favorite film filter of all time! We also have "The DILF Den", and 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! Enjoy all the totally cool, awesome-80s episodes this month!

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