Big Daddy Dispatch: January (Patreon)

Dispatch One Hundred and Three, December 18th, 2025

Greetings WHM Family!

Welcome to 2026, where nothing will ever go wrong! There, we jinxed it.

We know this is a little early, but we wanted to get this Dispatch out before the Holidays and before we go into a mini-coma. We are so stoked to keep pumping out great shows for you folks next year, and as you can see below, we’re off to a rollicking start. Oh, and FYI, the Listener Request lines open on January 6th! So listen to The Family Plan 2 for all the details! 

We also want to thank everybody who came out to the Bell House a few weeks back as that was a real perfect way to cap off a great year (of podcasting)! We can’t wait to make more silly shit for you and have some laughs both virtually and in-person! 

Banner Credit: We Hate Movies Logo by Felipe Sobreiro

Image Credit: We Hate Movies Live at the Bell House by Russell Peborde

WINTER TOUR! GET SOME SUN AND THEN GET YOUR COATS ON!

We’re hitting the road early this year! This past Monday, we announced a new Winter Tour that is going to kick ass in some of our favorite cities and find us exploring a brand new one! 

On February 22nd we return to sunny Los Angeles and the Hollywood Improv to talk about one of the most requested titles of all time, Broken Arrow (1996)! This is the movie where John Woo fell in love with John Travolta…also, Christian Slater is there! 

We take a little break and then bundle our parkas for the mid-west where, on March 20th, we’ll be in Minneapolis, MN to talk about Conan The Barbarian (1982) at the Varsity Theater! We’ve never been to Minneapolis (home of the Walshes), and we can’t wait to meet a new crop of WHM fans, eat your strange food, and sample your wares. 

Then, two days later on March 22nd, we’ll be in the great city of Chicago for a rowdy live episode on Tom Hanks’ sexual awakening in Big (1988) at the Den Theatre! This is going to be a banger of a live ep and we always slay in Chicago, so you won’t wanna miss it! 

All tickets are available on our Tour Page! Don’t delay and risk losing out on these shows!

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 834 – Just Friends (2005)

Andrew, Chris, Steve, and Eric headed home with Ryan Reynolds to New Jersey, by way of wintry Canada, to bang and possibly fall back in love with his high-school best friend (Amy Smart) before she gets swept up by a local secret tomcat. Why advertise the fat suit and then barely use it in the actual movie? How did they allow Anna Farris to walk away with this movie so breezily? Has there ever been a Christmas movie with less heart? Hell, even Bad Santa didn’t want that fat little boy to suffer a Christmas all alone. Give us something here, Ry-man.                                                                                                                                                                                       

Episode 835 – Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) (Patrons Only)

With Fire & Ash about to tear up theaters, the boys got blue again and headed back to Pandora to help Jake Sully’s family with their latest stand against the encroaching forces of Earth’s military, Na’vi-enhanced mercenaries, and intergalactic god-damn whalers. Why can’t James Cameron and many other lead creatives resist the siren song of AI? Do these movies need to be this long just to get the story right? Is there such a thing as too much good action? Pardon us as we commune with our space-whale brethren about what movies they got to stream underwater during their break.

Episode 836 – Krampus (2015)  

The fellas dropped into a real nightmare of a family Christmas dinner in the nameless suburbs, where Adam Scott and Toni Collette had to deal with their right-wing-coded relatives and their smelly, ugly children, as well as an enormous, demonic Christmas devil from Europe and all his goofy, murderous little buddies. Can we get to know any of these people or is that a no-go? Wouldn’t it be nice to see a real kill at some point? Is the Men in Black ending a cop-out or does the movie just kinda suck overall? Great practical effects tho!

Episode 837 – Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker (1991, with Alonso Duralde)  

Longtime friend of the show and Christmas-movie expert, Alonso Duralde joined the boys to take a trip to, uh, Petto’s Toy Store – mind the spelling! – where you can get toys that no one wants and a few that actually physically murder people in improbable ways. Was Puppet Master really so popular that you wanted to nab the premise to save your exhausted premise? Who fooled Mickey Rooney into doing this and did they give him real liquor at least? Was this all secretly a plot to reunite the boy’s mother and real father and bilk the (dead) stepdad out of his savings? If so, hats off, honestly.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) Patreon Unlock! 

Our Vault Master has agreed to release yet another prime episode from the Patreon vaults for the holidays, this time selecting Ron Howard’s absolutely demented and off-putting live-action adaptation of the classic Christmas tale of an annoying green freak who takes out a lifetime of bad moods on the local townsfolk by robbing all their houses the night before Christmas. Why does he look...like that? Could they have made this movie just 20% less horny or are we locked in on that one? How much Jim Carrey mugging/monologue-spewing is too much? Also, leave that cute dog alone, you alienating weirdo!

Episode 838 – Terror Train (1980) 

To round out the holiday season, Andrew, Steve, Eric, and Chris will take a ride on a shitty locomotive with a magician, a murderous and humiliated dweeb, the most obnoxious prankster/frat leader in human history, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Is Mo supposed to be a real character or just a talking body utilized in like seven scenes? Can you actually rent a party train like this? Why can’t we see a full kill after the first two? Are we celebrating Halloween on New Year’s Eve for any particular reason or not so much? Thank goodness for the old-Hollywood charms of Ben Johnson to give us some solid train drama in the middle of this tempest of nonsense.

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: 

Total Excess: How Carolco Changed Hollywood (2020): So yeah, this is a special feature on the Total Recall 4K I have, but it kicks ass. Much like the Cannon Films doc from several years ago, this traces the life of a most excellent movie studio that wasn’t beholden to the Big Dogs and paved its own path. Carolco was like a slightly classier Cannon—bigger budgets, better actors, etc.—but the story is just as nuts. Big recommend if you’ve got that Total Recall disc. 

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011): Finally got around to this 14 years later and I gotta say, second-best Harold & Kumar movie! I’m a fan of the first one, and just rewatched it a few months back so I can confirm it still holds up, but I really didn’t care for that second one. So, this one was a nice surprise. It picks up with Harold and Kumar as estranged buds whose lives went separate directions as they got older. I found that part largely relatable and a surprising turn for Harold and Kumar. And yeah, it’s just another one crazy night adventure finding our two heroes trying to replace a Christmas tree for Harold that was beloved by his intimidating father-in-law, played by a hilarious Danny Trejo. So yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s a new annual holiday classic for me, but it was an enjoyable 90-ish minutes that had me howling at parts. 

Good Fortune (2025): Aziz’s feature debut is pretty good! I really dug Keanu in the role of the Angel Gabriel, and the way the production captured Los Angeles was really great. Proof that bigger comedies can still focus on filmmaking aspects beyond script and performance, because this is a funny movie that also looks really, really good. Light recommend. 

Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny (2025): Okay, yes, this is History Channel series hosted by DD, so that’s really all that was needed to sell me. The funny thing is, it’s not aliens and all that shit, but it’s just a show that focuses on all this wild declassified stuff that various world governments have perpetrated throughout the years. Nothing paranormal, but still wild-ass Cold War era stories and stuff like that. So, all this to say, if you’re into that kinda stuff, and you love DD the way I do, def give this a spin, it’s fun.

MARVEL Cosmic Invasion (2025) - Viddya game update! This is fun as shit. I was devastated to learn that the Toxic Crusaders game was delayed until 2026, but Steve made me hip to this game and it’s fun as all get out. I’ve got it on Switch and can’t recommend it enough. If you’re an old bastard like me who really loves playing side-scrolling smash ‘em up games, hop-to and pick this up ASAP.

Chris: 

Dust Bunny (2025): Sadly, the first feature film directed by Bryan Fuller, the showrunner behind Hannibal and the excellent inaugural season of American Gods, does not deliver on the stylish promise of his television work. Reteaming Fuller with the king Mads Mikkelsen, this fantastical thriller pairs Mikkelsen’s professional killer with his young imaginative neighbor-girl, who has just recently been orphaned by the furious, hungry beast under her bed, to hear her tell it. Mads thinks that a hit squad that was out for him mistakenly took out her parents instead and feels he has a debt to the strange girl. Plenty of promise in the story, but it never really switches into high gear until way, way too late, to the point that you wonder if this was initially a pilot for a new show that he just stretched out. Even the imagery feels more fit for the small screen than the big, all foggy and smoky and dark, with bright pops and explosions of color. Mads and newcomer Sophie Sloan lead a fruitful cast that also includes Sigourney Weaver and David Dastmalchian, all of whom work to really drag this across the finish line. Enjoyable for Fuller-heads, but I don’t know if anyone else would find non-Mads things here to really find pleasure in.

Predators (2025): A tough, necessary doc that bluntly puts the media’s tendency to embellish the entertainment value of pedophilia as a crime at the expense of some morally complex matters of how to actually stop future rapes, assaults, and other cases, and cure these people. The ways to actually stop the epidemic do not make for easy, righteous drama the way Law and Order: Special Victims Unit or To Catch a Predator deal in, and the movie goes the extra mile to show how all of this has led to YouTube copycat Predator shows that have rendered this kind of media into an industry that has interests set directly against actually treating the behavior in favor of the cheap, ever-fading high of watching these guys get outed or chased or beaten for funsies. It will make you uncomfortable as any serious movie exploring such a dire and bleak subject should, which is part of the movie’s thematic argument, but also probably helps lead the director to get genuinely more confessional about how the subject matter affected him as the movie goes on. Tough pill to swallow.

A Little Prayer (2023): Every year there are a handful of these little American family dramas that largely get ignored for bigger films or TV shows that offer more narrative real estate for similar subjects but no more insight into the behaviors and actions of its characters. All the more reason to take 80 or 90 minutes and watch one of these every once in awhile, because you can see a story like this – an older father must reckon with his son’s casual, even playful infidelities as he grows closer with his daughter-in-law – so quiet and vulnerable being ruined by elongation and narrative bloat in the TV arena. You get a casually brilliant performance by the one and only David Strathairn, but also really superb work from Jane Levy, Dascha Polanco, and Celia Weston, competently helmed by Angus MacLachlan, who did similarly strong character work with Amy Ryan in the underseen Abundant Acreage Available.

Eric:

Honey Don't (2025): I was kinda dreading watching this one and threw it on expecting to hate it. I thought Drive Away Dolls was aggressively OK toward not good. This is a slight improvement! That said, I really wish those brothers would get back together. You're brothers! Also did not expect the nudity in this. Wowza. 

The Super Inframan (1975): Shawscope Vol. 4 is here and it's all the nutty movies. This basically feels like an extended episode of The Power Rangers but on acid. It's incredibly ambitious and features tons of creatures and costume design. I loved it.

The Oily Maniac (1976): A shocking amount of nudity for the Shaw Bros but maybe since it's filmed on location in Malaysia we can get wild. Great premise here and some great scenes but it gets repetitive and a little boring, sadly. The gist is a handicapped man takes revenge on criminals and romantic rivals by learning an old spell that transforms him into a giant monster made of oil. It's goopy, weird, and could've been an outright banger but it falls short. 

The Maze Runner (2014): Would people get mad at us if we ever covered these movies? People were mad we dared speak anything other than flat out praise regarding The Hunger Games so I'm guessing this is in that same category? Like the Hunger Games, it's aggressively YA novel which is kind of both a good and bad thing. I'd argue The Maze Runner is a little better made. It sets up the world clearer (mostly because it's so much smaller.) There's OK action and running around. The biggest problem is they try to sex up the little baby kid from Love Actually. He's supposed to be a hunk here and it's just gross. Also, his name is Newt. No, thank you. 

Steve:

Keeper (2025): Another Oz Perkins “trip” and this is the one I like the least of the last three (falling behind The Monkey and Longlegs). This had a ton of potential and a very game and good Tatiana Maslany begging for…something to happen. Something to be explained. Something to hold on to. But we do that very annoying modern horror thing wherein we keep all exposition as a twist and only let the audience in at the last minute which leaves no time to actually play in the world you’ve set up! The ending is cool but imagine if there was more than three minutes of clarity? It could’ve been interesting. Bit of a shame really.

The Family McMullen (2025): The Irish, handsome Woody Allen tries again! Ed Burns is back in another talky, New Yawky, jangly film, this one a sequel to his breakout indie The Brothers McMullen and set at the holidays! A total waste of time, really. Burns’ character is patriarchal and grating without any arc to lead him towards something interesting, though he has a few nice scenes with Tracee Ellis Ross, who’s the lone bright spot of this misfire. The Geico guy is back! And good for him. He’s far too broad and underwhelming, and the kids…woof. No thank you to those kids. Who asked for this? Why did this happen? How could it happen? 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011): I have a bit of a tradition wherein after our last recording session of the year, I pour myself a nice glass of whisky (neat, thank you) and sit down with this masterpiece. It’s such a perfect spy movie in all the saddest ways, this work drains the humanity out of all of these poor bastards, add in a corporate structure and a bureaucracy and you’ve really got a bleak setting for a film! The cast is absolutely stacked, but this time I was really drawn to Mark Strong as the shattered, closeted covert operative turned bitter schoolmaster. His scenes with the little kid are so brief but say so much. If you haven’t watched this you really should. AND IT’S A CHRISTMAS MOVIE (kind of). 

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

Jacob from Chicago, who asks:

“For each of the guys, is there a movie that is widely seen as a bad movie or a movie that is hated by the majority that you all thoroughly enjoy?”

Andrew: Yeah, I think there are a couple of films that I really love or have thought really highly of after seeing, only to find out most others hated it. Had to take a gander at my Letterboxd “Rated Higher Than Average” list for reference, but a few of mine include: Megalopolis, for sure—I just appreciate the full-on insanity of it all. Coppola doesn’t give a fuck if I like his vision and I wish more directors were able to conduct themselves with as much artistic freedom; then there’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, that’s one I think all four of us love more than most others do—I just think it’s a total trip, yes it’s chasing 2001 but who gives a shit, there were worse films to chase at the time; Den of Thieves is another film I love and most think is trash, I think—I have it as 4 1/2 stars on Letterboxd and the average is below 3—but there’s something about Gerry B. in the film (“Looks like I’m gettin divorced!”) and the whole Scumbag Heat of it all, it just works for me, plus a really good Pablo Schreiber, that dude rules; one more recent one is the film Marlowe from a few years ago with Liam Neeson as the titular detective, another film a ton of people either didn’t care for, or ignored, or didn’t know about, but one that at least Eric and I liked. And if anyone hates any of the films I’ve mentioned, I’m totally fine with it because, say it with me now, it’s okay to like or dislike a movie!

Chris:  Well, considering that I am somewhat known for this sort of thing, let’s keep this to relatively recent ones that I may not have made clear on the pod:

Tenet (2020)/Mank (2020): Though Oppenheimer has since firmly taken its place as my favorite Nolan by a mile, there was a time when Tenet was my favorite, just barely nudging its way in front of Memento. Working with Jennifer Lame and Hoyte van Hoytema has really opened up a new side of Nolan in terms of pacing, scale, and blocking, and he clearly locked onto all the more ambitious notes that really denote Interstellar in his filmography and doubled down on all of them. I’ve really become a fanboy with him, whereas I always have been a Fincher fanboy, and in all likelihood will always be. Yeah, seeing him do a full Phoenix on the pole in a g-string for Netflix does not fill me with positive feelings, but separating the art from the artist and all, both Mank and The Killer not only worked for me but felt notably moving and angry in ways new to the Fincher model that still stick with me.

Thirteen Lives (2022): I had long ago given up on the idea of me loving a Ron Howard movie again after Apollo 13 when this shockingly stylistically sophisticated and soberly gripping retelling of the now-famous story of a team of Thai soccer players and their coach who were heroically rescued from the unforgiving Tham Luang cave arrived on Amazon. Armed with some understated, lived-in work from Joel Edgerton, Colin Farrell, and Viggo Mortensen as the men who actually worked diligently and risked their lives to help save the kids and their coach (unlike Elon Musk), this film gives a good name to the recent flood of miserable-to-not-half-bad ripped-from-the-headline dramas in Hollywood by fully plunging the viewer into the physical world of each group, helped immeasurably by top-tier work from Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, maybe the most audacious DP currently working, responsible for one of 2025’s most visually luxurious films, Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour. That being said, credit really must be given to Howard, who shows game here that I was simply not aware he had for no other reason aside from the fact that he has refused to show them in every other production he has helmed in his career. I don’t know if it was Wheaties but whatever he was eating during this period, get it back in his mouth and keep him away from the erotic-thrillers and sea adventures for a half-decade or so. Do it for me, folks. I don’t ask for much.

Eric: There's a ton of movies I really like that most people hate. See our old episode on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for an example. I also love the Martin Short and Charles Grodin comedy Clifford. I won't be taking questions at this time, thank you.

Steve: Lotta great choices here. Firstly, I bring up Rob Zombie’s Lords of Salem a lot on the show, because I genuinely think it’s one of my favorite horror movies of the last 25 years. The vibes on that one are off the charts and Zombie leans into his good instincts for once. Also I feel like every time I mention my love of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus people get big mad. I know I’m not a lone defender of that movie, but I think in terms of scope and ambition and pure technical skill it can’t be touched. Also, another one that was maligned by general audiences that I genuinely loved was Brady Corbet’s prickly Vox Lux from a few years back. An arty (leaning pretentious, I get it) exploration of the millennial experience peppered with mass shootings and told through the eyes of a vacuous pop idol, dazzlingly portrayed by Natalie Portman. Not for everyone, but great to me. 

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 6th  – The Family Plan 2 (2025)

January 13th  – Tron: Ares (2025)

January 20th – Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

January 27th – Regretting You (2025)

Patreon Episodes:

January 8th – MELR0210: 90210: “Commencement Parts 1 & 2” (s3 e29 & e30)January 15th – We Love Movies: One Battle After Another (2025)

January 20th  at 8pm EST – WHM After Dark: Come with your questions at the ready and spend an hour hanging out with the gang!

January 22nd – Animation Damnation: King of the Hill: “Return of the King” (s14, e1)

January 23rd – The Gleep Glossary: Dorsk 81

January 29th  – TNG: “Redemption: Parts I & II” (s4,e26 & s5e1)

January 30th  – Scaredycats: 28 Years Later (2025)

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

In case you missed it we opened our Patreon Shop with our very first offering, our virtual live show from 2021 on Terminator: Dark Fate is now available for purchase! This is a killer show from the dark times and it’s safe to say we were still suffering from QUARANTINE MADNESS. If you missed it and always wanted to listen, here’s your chance! You get a new introduction recorded by us, the show from that night, and an audio file of the whole thing so you can enjoy the show again on the go!

On Screen Live just went into a small Holiday break but we ended with a BANGER of an episode that had some reactions to the Street Fighter (2026) trailer, reviews of Rian Johnson’s Wake Up, Dead Man, a holiday TV movie roundup, AND a VHS Trailer game! We’ll be back in January so 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 likeWTF 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 ourWitchboardepisode! 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 likeRampage (2018),Any Which Way You Can,Bram Stoker’s DraculaandSaw 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 this month! Join Eric and Ben as William Shatner directs an episode trapped in a church!  Listen here!

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 on Dashery! We have some new, super fun designs by Felipe Sobreiro such as the Total Recall Live show logo, a pair of vaguely gross ones like “Hot Out the Hole” and “The Coin Slot” and the Barbarian Scaredycats design! 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! Happy Holidays! 

Take it easy,Andrew, Chris, Eric, and SteveWe Hate Movies