Big Daddy Dispatch: January 2025

 Dispatch Ninety-Two, December 19, 2024

Greetings WHM Family!

A brand-new year is upon us (…in ten days)! Forgive this early-ish dispatch, but this is one of the last pieces of content we need to produce for the end of the year, and we all want some time to sit at home, look at our Christmas trees and recharge our batteries*. We just recorded our last episode of the year with The Flophouse’s Stuart Wellington, a crossover that was a long time coming, and it felt like a really fine cap to a great year of podcasts.

What’s better than that? ANOTHER great year of podcasts! You caught us on the cusp of one of our favorite months of the year, January, which means it’s almost time for The Worst of 2024! Just a quick reminder: WORST doesn’t mean WORST in that Neal Breene sense. There were hundreds of bad movies released this year and if we dedicated these measly slots to the absolute worst, we’d pull our hair out. Worst means…well, it means whatever we think will make good episodes, with some variety, and not have us hitting the same points over and over again. Hell, there are some selections this year that some of us actually like, such is the evolution of this great, big enterprise. We’re a movie show that’s looking to poke fun at movies, good, bad or otherwise. We’re really stoked for this year’s line-up and you should be too.

Keep your ears peeled for a few announcements next month, one of which is the opening of the Listener Request Month lines in early January. There will be a bumper at the start of an upcoming January episode that will have all the relevant info. The other announcements? We can’t say, just that they are great ways of connecting with us, both in person and beyond.

Just from what we have in our brains about this coming year, we might be in for the best year of WHM yet. We can’t wait to share it with you all, thanks for sticking around and your continued support!

Banner Credit: We Hate Movies Logo by Felipe Sobreiro

 Image Credit: We Hate Movies Live at Laugh Boston by Brooke Daly (@BDalyxx on X)

*Get black-out drunk.

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 771 – The Santa Clause (Live in Jersey City)

 To kick off the final month of WHM in 2024, the boys time traveled to retrieve a recording of their live holiday show from 2023 on this possibly beloved Christmas comedy, in which Tim Allen is unwillingly turned into Santa Claus when he accidently offs the original guy. What are the rules of fault when it comes to killing a holiday icon? Why did they give Wendy Crewson the same haircut as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction? Isn’t it unfair to put noted asshole Tim Allen up against noted sweetheart Judge Reinhold? Also, reports from the field on what it was like working with Mr. Allen on the Santa Clause Disney+ series.

Episode 772 – Lethal Weapon 2 (Patrons Only)

DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY! Sorry, just had to get that out, much like the fellas do on this Patrons-only We Love Movies episode on a great, openly political sequel to Lethal Weapon, in which Riggs and Murtaugh go to war with a power-mad South African ambassador and his racist cronies. Why aren’t more sequels to good junk this good? Even though it’s good, why didn’t they just use Shane Black’s material in whole? Is Steve Kahan a mildly botched clone of Richard Donner? And what’s this? We’re actually enjoying Joe Pesci in a Lethal Weapon movie? It’s a Christmas miracle!

Episode 773 – Deck the Halls  

Wouldn’t be a WHM Christmas without checking out a more recent Christmas...classic...so, the gang headed out to the suburbs once again to witness a dad vs. dad holiday showdown over which supposed adult celebrates their love for Christmas louder, Danny DeVito or Matthew Broderick. Did Michael Haneke originally write and plan to direct this before it went to the majors? Why do they write DeVito and his family as if they are actual aliens from space? Is it possible that absolute abomination, Christmas with the Kranks is a better film than this? Plus, the fellas searched the filmographies and crunched the numbers to see if this is actually the worst film Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito have been in. The answer may shock you.

Episode 774 – The Holiday (2006)

 Andrew, Steve, Chris, and Eric got the travel bug and switched studios with a British podcast, who got to watch a good movie, while they were stuck talking about Nancy Meyers’ trashy romance about two heartbroken thirtysomething ladies who find true love when they decide to move to each other’s house for the holidays. Did they not want Kate Winslet to have any chemistry whatsoever with her romantic interest...for funsies? Can watching Nancy Meyers movies technically be labeled gooning? What’s it like to rock out and hang out with Hans Zimmer? Is there a man more handsome than Jude Law in this movie or any movie? Serious answers only! Also, more discussion than we’d like to admit about the mid-aughts rock band Jet.

Episode 775 – Ernest Saves Christmas

Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve say hello to their invisible friend “Vern” in beautiful Orlando, the Christmas capital of the world, when they set their sights on quite possibly the best Ernest movie of all time? No, it’s not. But it’s still kind of fun. There’s more Santa magic in this than in Tim Allen’s version, but good news, no murder required this time around! Also, won’t someone get that 16 year-old girl AWAY from Ernest. It’s giving us all the creeps.

 Episode 776 – New Year’s Evil with Stuart WellingtonTo say goodbye to inarguable shitty year 2024 all classy-like, Andrew, Eric, Chris, and Steve welcome long-time friend of the pod and first-time guest, Stuart Wellington of The Flop House to their own house of flops to talk about a Cannon slasher centered on a hunky, woman-hating serial killer who broadcasts his crimes during a New Wave New Year’s Eve telethon. Shouldn’t movie serial killers be more handsome in general? Why can’t we get a bit more world-building or at least some of these Hollywood Hotline calls? Is Derek in this movie only to do a sequel set-up? Ladies, when you go out this New Year’s Eve, be weary of tall, hot guys with mustaches, especially if you have a chronic diarrhea affliction.

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:  Most of my stuff is going to be holiday-related crap I watched as I went cHrIsTmAs CrAzY this month. Let’s see:

Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary (2024): This movie is absolutely only for people who know what “Yacht Rock” actually refers to and enjoy hearing the music. I don’t really see any other way in, lol, but I have been known to park my SiriusXM on the Yacht Rock channel well beyond more than one occasion. Anyway, this thing is comprehensive, really fascinating, and features the funniest “we got hung up on” moment I’ve witnessed in a while. 

I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1998): My wife finally sat me down and showed me this Jonathan Taylor Thomas Christmas flick and good lord, stay tuned for December 2025. I watched a massive chunk of Home Improvement when it was on, and was aware of JTT also in The Lion King, and so on. But I never really followed his movies and good god, this is a wild ride. It’s hilarious because you can tell they wrote it like he was supposed to be a college student and then hastily rewrote it as a high school movie. And his character is such a total sociopath. It’s a fascinating watch. 

Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984): This London-set Christmas slasher is an alright time. I like the notion of some guy just going around icing all these dudes in Santa suits. The kills are all solid, but the ending really circles the drain and I was getting bored. Light recommend. 

The Signalman (1976): While not a Christmas film, this was part of that cool collection Shudder put together around the tradition of the English taking in ghost stories on Christmas. This is a short starring the great Denholm Elliot as a signalman working for a railroad in a remote area. He’s visited by a stranger and he confides in the guy how he’s been seeing this vision of some shadowy figure alerting him to something, but he can’t quite figure it all out. It’s a cool little ghost story with a fun twist and frankly, as I’m writing this entry well before Christmas, perhaps that’s a Christmas tradition I should take up this year? British listeners, do any of y’all partake in this tradition? What do you watch?

A Creature Was Stirring (2023): Absolutely massive whiff here. Dogshit. I really enjoyed the lighting but that’s about it. The whole thing is this massive addiction metaphor and I just can’t, folks. Horror needs to start scaring again, enough caring. Good gravy. Also, the twist of the whole thing is so laughably bad that as it was unfolding before me, I just felt bad for everybody.

Chris:  The Serpent’s Path: It has been a uniquely great year for die-hard fans of Japan’s greatest living director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The big man put out three films this year and had they all been released stateside, they’d all be in my top 15 of the year and two of them would be in my top ten as of right now. The best of the bunch, Cloud, was the best thing I saw at TIFF this past September, but right at its heels is this absolutely stunning remake of Kurosawa’s own 1998 banger about a father who kidnaps the man he believes to be responsible for the gruesome murder of his young daughter with the intention of killing him. Twists and surprises abound in this one, but what truly shocked me is the way Kurosawa expands the narrative in small but wildly effective ways. Both this and Cloud are far more aggressive than the glut of Kurosawa’s previous features and it feels like a very purposeful move. Similarly, his use of an international cast – the great Mathieu Amalric plays the first suspect and Damien Bonnard is excellent as the primary kidnapper – melds well with his more obvious nods to his French influences. It should come as a shock to no one that Kurosawa is a major Melville guy. And not unlike Cloud, the film’s unsettling mood and chilling final sequences suggest that the director is considering his own legacy and influence, which sits this beside another one of this year’s great works, M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. Seek this out when it is available next year.

The Sugarland Express: Someone really should have told me that I was unknowingly saving one of Spielberg’s very best for last. Why does no one except Peter Labuza, Filipe Furtado, and friend of the show Josh Lewis seem moved to let everyone know how hard this rips? Anyway, don’t make my mistake! This thoroughly rambunctious and gorgeous on-the-run thriller-comedy gives Goldie Hawn and William Atherton plenty to play up as an estranged married couple who bust out of jail to save their son and find a way to live far away from the hands of the law. As one might expect with the director, the crisis at hand is as much about the state of the American nuclear family and modern marriage as it is about the armed pandemonium that seems to follow the lead couple around. It’s essentially Spielberg’s Bonnie and Clyde, and is nearly as good as Penn’s masterpiece, if we’re talking turkey here.

Eric:   A Quiet Place: Day One (2024): This kinda worked for me. It's not great or redefining a genre or anything, but I like that it just happens. We don't hem and haw too much. It's just happening, let's try to survive. I do think it's bullshit that everyone would realize to be quiet so fast. I'd be yapping until Day 37. Ultimately, I have to admit that despite thinking all of these Quiet Place movies are stupid - I kinda had a good time with all of them. 

Santa Claus, Battle of the Mages (2016):  This one is about Santa Claus being a high wizard in a blatant Harry Potter knock-off from Mother Russia. Ice mages keep the fire dragons at bay, you see. And there's some kids who need to join up to help save the world or Christmas or whatever. Pretty terrible but a curio. Thank you to Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club Podcast for alerting me to this one's existence. 

The Seventh Juror (1962): This movie is pretty amazing. It's beautifully shot and has an incredible concept. A man goes for a walk in the woods, sees a pretty girl, strangles her to death, flees and her boyfriend gets arrested for the murder, then the murderer is called in to be on the jury. Really, really good! Another find from Mr. Decloux. 

Conclave (2024): I'm late to the papal party, but it's great. It rocks. I was engrossed the entire time. I thought it'd be a bit dry but no, it's riveting. Check it out if you haven't! 

It's A Wonderful Knife (2023): I like the idea of this but I feel like they dropped the ball, I mean butcher knife. Not for me, but I get it if you like it. 

Steve: Did a bunch of diverse watching this month, a lot of what you won’t see here is a bunch of Hallmark crapola that my wife and I watch end to end all December. A small bit of warning for the Hallmark Mega-Corp: Stop being self-aware. It’s not your brand, it’s not cute, and it’s just makes the experience of watching more embarrassing than it needs to be. The fourth wall must remain firmly intact for these little disasters to not implode on themselves.

Non Hallmark stuff I’ve been watching:

Queer (2024): I see a lot of vitriol for this film and I can’t really understand it. I mean, sure, it’s an episodic drug film that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at the end of the day, but … I kinda dig on episodic drug movies! I think people were expecting this to be Call Me by Your Name, but that book wasn’t written by William “Weird as Fuck” Burroughs. This falls in line with the little I’ve read of his. Also, this is a high-water mark for Daniel Craig’s career, a totally honest, brave and new creation. None of the winking of the Knives Out or Logan Lucky character’s he’s re-branded himself on. Craig makes the movie worthwhile no matter where you land on the actual substance of the piece.

The Order (2024): A little slighter than I ultimately would’ve liked, but a really enjoyable crime caper centered with a fantastic Jude Law mustache…Performance! Jude Law performance. Nicolas Hoult is good here as the charming but ultimately dastardly Tuner Diaries obsessed white supremacist, but I couldn’t help wanting this movie to get a little ugly on the race war stuff. Show me how vile these fuckers are, just don’t say “white supremacist” and hope that I get it. I do, but in the current climate, if you’re going to tackle this subject, vagaries are not your friend. Good action though. Worth a spin.

The Agency (2024): I’d been intrigued by this show ever since I saw the incredibly STACKED cast and I have to say, this is extremely my shit. Wanna watch Michael Fassbender move into a dope London apartment, only to spend minutes upon minutes scoping the place for bugs with a small mirror? This show is for you. Do you want to see Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere swap speeches and bon mot’s in a room that they needed a retinal scan to get into? This show is for you. Do you want to hear geopolitical intrigue spouted back and forth by characters for minutes on end and only barely hold on to what the hell they are even talking about???? This show is absolutely for you. And it’s for me too.

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 

Felipe, from Brazil who asks: “What movies are you looking forward to most in 2025?”

Andrew: Thanks for asking this, Felipe, because you actually made me sit down and think about it. Here’s just a few, I don’t wanna be here all day: Love Hurts, Paddington in Peru, Sinners, Mickey 17, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, 28 Years Later, F1, and James Gunn’s Superman.

Chris: The Battle of Baktan Cross: The latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall, may or may not be a secret adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. Regardless, it’s the new PTA and thus easily edges out any other American film I may be looking forward to, short of Wes Anderson completing and releasing The Phoenician Scheme this year.

The Way of the Wind: Terrence Malick has been working on his vision of the story of Jesus Christ for coming up on a decade and probably longer than that even, knowing Mr. Let It Gestate. Either way, I would like to see it right now and it sounds like it might be ready in time for a Cannes premiere.

Presence/Black Bag: Two new Soderberghs, one being his return to the espionage genre and the other, an experimental, quasi-POV ghost story. Very much missing big-screen Soderbergh.

 Sinners: Ryan Coogler takes a brief break from finishing his Black Panther trilogy to reunite with Michael B. Jordan on a Southern vampire story. Hmmmm, a film about people who suck blood made by a director in the middle of his Disney contract, you say? I’m in.

 Love Child: Word has it that Todd Solondz’s long-overdue follow-up to his superb Wiener-Dog, about a child’s plan to eliminate his father to pair his mother with a handsome stranger and starring Elizabeth Olsen, will hit the streets in 2025. My boy is coming home!

 Highest 2 Lowest: Spike Lee takes on one of the most towering works by one of the most towering of all directors, Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, about a kidnapping gone wrong. Denzel reteams with Spike to play the corporate overlord whose child is the target of the plot, and really, that’s all you need to know to make this one of the most potentially great works of 2025.

 The Bookie & The Bruiser: The new S. Craig Zahler puts Vince Vaughn alongside Adrien Brody as two Army vets, an Italian and a Jew, who find unexpected new paths for making a living when they return home. In the wake of his venomous Dragged Across Concrete, I could not be more excited for this and for another pungent Vaughn performance in collaboration with Zahler, who has given him some of the best work of his fascinating career.

Flesh of the Gods: Will 2025 be the year when we finally glimpse at what Panos Cosmatos has been working on in the years following the release of Mandy? I really hope so, man.

The Running Man: Edgar Wright returns to action-comedy, his realm of expertise, with Glen Powell and Katy O’Brian in tow, to remake Paul Michael Glaser’s junky, entertaining Schwarzenegger vehicle from 1987. It has to be better than Last Night in Soho and at least a little less evil than Baby Driver. It just has to be.

Eric: TRON 3 is kinda the top of my list right now. The casting gave me pause but I love that Nine Inch Nails is doing the music. Not Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Nine Inch Nails. We'll see what that brings! Other than that: Mission Impossible, Predator: Borderlands, and The Battle of Baktan Cross.

Steve: Sorry folks, I’m writing this on the morning of December 19th, so you know what that means? I’ve been fully Superman-pilled. It was just a wordless trailer but holy fuck, are my hopes all the way up for this one. We don’t get to hear much of David Corenswet’s Superman or Clark, but I really like what I’m seeing here, the actual heroism, multiple Daily Planet scenes, big monsters to fight, and shit, even Krypto! Krytpo, I can see will make the more grimdark fans turn their nose at this project, but to me, I was sold instantly and it really underscores the tone that Gunn seems to be trying to achieve. I haven’t been this excited for a superhero film since Green Lantern, which is a dangerous concept, however, I knew from the trailer that things smelled fishy. Not so here. Not so, at all.

JANUARY 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 out for January!

January 7 – Madame Web  

January 14 – The Beekeeper

January 21 – Alien: Romulus

January 28 – Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Patreon Episodes:

January 10 - We Love Movies – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

January 16 - Animation Damnation: The Caped Crusader: “Nocturne” (s1, e8)

January 23 - Gleep Glossary: Winter

January 24 - MELR0210: 90210: “Midlife…Now What?” (s3, e18) Melrose Place: “In-Laws and Outlaws” (s3, e3)

January 30 - The Nexus: TOSTAS: “The Survivor” (s1, 6), TNG: “Galaxy's Child” (s4, 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

 On Screen Live had its winter finale this week, but the show is back in mid-January when we resume our (mostly) weekly box-office recap show, where you can hear reviews of recent flicks, watch live trailer reactions and just see us do our thing week in and week out! Check us out on Mondays at Noon for all that and more! 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! And this time Eric and Ben follow T.J. as his reputation is smeared by those bums in Internal Affairs!  Listen here! 

Please note that from now until at least the end of 2025, ALL PROFITS from our Tee Public 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 the merch on our TeePublic 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! We are most definitely going to hit the ground running in the New Year. See you next month!

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