Dispatch One Hundred and Eight, June 30th, 2026
Greetings WHM Family! We are blazing through the Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza just as the sun is blazing through our brains. We’re having a blast on the main feed (Birthday Dog anyone?), as well as on Patreon (have you heard Jango Fett making grunting noises for two minutes straight? If not, you’re not listening to the Gleep Glossary). We have some fun as hell stuff coming your way this month, as well as an amazing set of live shows for degenerate gamblers (see below). It’s a good ass time to be a WHM fan and we’re going to be ending Season 16 (SWEET SIXTEEN) with a big, fat bang!
Banner Credit: We Hate Movies Logo by Felipe Sobreiro
Image Credit: Celebratory Fan Art by @vaxtorino.bsky.social
WHM HITS VEGAS NEXT MONTH!
We are just one month away from three incredible live shows in Sin City (no, not the Frank Miller one)....That’s right, WHM is hitting Vegas for the very first time for our VERY FIRST fan convention to celebrate 10 amazing years of The Nexus at ST: LV! The only way to do a convention this big is with the three BIGGEST Star Trek movies encapsulating both halves of The Nexus—TOS & TNG! We’ll be talking Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Thursday, Star Trek: Generations on Friday, and then finishing it off with Star Trek: First Contact on Saturday! The line must be drawn HERE! And the cool part is, you don’t need to be a convention attendee to come see the shows, it’s ticketed separately! So, if you want to pick up tickets, check out this page for all the details! We can’t wait to see you all there!
LAST MONTH ON WHM
Episode 866 – Masters of the Universe (1987) REDUX
To kick off our Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza, Andrew, Eric, Chris, and Steve headed back to a previous live show title to pay disrespect to one of the most memorable misfires out there. What on earth is this Billy Barty Gwildor nightmare and why isn’t it dead already? Why is James Tolkan such a big character in this movie? Could we possibly get more He-Man in the…He-Man movie you made? Where is our beloved Pig Boy?! Thankfully, it offers all the grossness and lack of originality & competence that one has grown to expect from the Cannon label.
Episode 867 – Minority Report (2002) (Patrons Only)
For the June ’26 We Love Movies episode, the gang went into the future with Spielberg and Tom Cruise to catch criminals before they commit crimes…which somehow still makes them criminals? What did Spielberg and his production team get right about the near-future? Did we get enough Colin Farrell as the suck-up IA agent? How many forests have we mowed down to make sure these guys get these beautiful wooden balls for each victim and perpetrator? Also, let's see who else is in the pre-crime jail…Ralph Kramden?! Really? Is Al Bundy in here too?
Episode 868 – War of the Worlds (2005)
Continuing our celebration of Spielberg and his divisive Disclosure Day, Andrew, Chris, Steve, and Eric ran outside to duck for cover from the giant, humanity-eradicating alien tanks alongside Tom Cruise and Justin Something-or-Other. Would a few puppets over CGI aliens have killed the production? We think not! Is this quietly one of Tim Robbins’ best performances? How dramatically damaging is the fact that Ray’s boy ends up surviving the alien invasion? And c’mon, there had to have been some extra room in the runtime to introduce the audience to Ray’s girlfriend, royalty of Bayonne, NJ, Cigaretta DeMarco!
The fellas mourned with the world over Chuck Norris’ timely passing by talking about his dog-police movie, in which everyone’s least-favorite action star is partnered with a shaggy, unwashed mutt who is also a high-level criminal witness. How did this dog survive getting shot five times? Scratch that, how did this dog survive being fed mostly doughnuts for the last five years or so? Has any dog movie featured this many white supremacists and talk of white nationalism? Also, be alert and be aware of the closest open Blimpie’s near you, for it may be the last one.
Episode 870 – Minions (2015) with Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert of Talking Simpsons
Our boys were aided once again by old friends of the show and animation experts, Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert of Talking Simpsons to once again venture into the Despicaverse to talk turkey about 2015’s Minions. Why don’t we get to see what the villain-seeking Minions were up to between 1933 and 1945? Is Sandra Bullock incapable of doing a voice or just lazy? Can we take it easy with the needle drops? They do not make up for an overall lack of humor and character detail, as much as Hollywood would love that to be true.
Episode 871 – San Andreas (2015)
Take cover! Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson takes his city-funded helicopter away from the desperate masses to save his own family, and his own family only, in this disaster joint from 2015. Is Ioan Gruffudd’s Daniel Riddick character cinema’s greatest coward? Does Kylie Minogue’s death befit that of a Looney Toon or a human woman? Why does this catastrophic earthquake have it out for Alexanda Daddario’s clothes? Plus, look out for President Brother!
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:
The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008): In anticipation of this new “darker” cut from Chris Carter, I decided to go back and check this out for the first time since theaters. Well, nearly two decades later and nothing much has changed. It still just plays like a not-great MOTW episode, one that I’d never go back to when I cherry-pick my faves to re-watch at 12:30 at night. I like all the Mulder and Scully interpersonal stuff (minus them fucking and going on vacation), but the balance of that with the case they’re involved in is way off because the case stuff sucks. Anyway, I’ll report back when this new cut comes out, if it ever does. Widow’s Bay Season 1 (2026): Best television season of the year.Ocean’s Eleven (2001): Our first attempt at screening Disclosure Day was cancelled when the entire theater lost power after blaring the air conditioning all day. By the time our show was up, the place was dark. So, we went home and threw on the 4K disc of this sucker. Yeah, besides Don Cheadle’s abysmal, confounding accent, this is a perfect film. One of my comfort watches, for sure.The Evil Dead (1981) / Evil Dead II (1987): I rewatched part two, a masterpiece, for a recent chat with our buds over on the Sleazoids Podcast, and man, that thing is top-to-bottom excellence. After we recorded the episode, having also naturally talked about the first one quite a bit, I felt like revisiting that one as well. Gotta say, as much of a schlock-sterpiece as it is, it truly is kind of an unpleasant watch. Its vibe is not one of fun, but it certainly is a viewing experience. I watched both on the 4K discs contained in the “Groovy” box set that also has all three seasons of the show on Blu-ray. Those are up next. House Party (1990): Picked up the Criterion Collection 4K of this guy, a film I must’ve watched on HBO at least 30 times in the ‘90s. There’s an of-the-time amount of f-slurs in the movie, which isn’t great, but to be expected. That said, the entire musical number where Kid raps about being scared he’s going to be gang raped in prison really stops this dead. As bad as it is, I do think all the collective good in this movie outweighs the ignorance; indeed, there are positive signs-of-the-times as well. The music in this is fantastic. And although the important social commentary was lost on me as a kid, it’s definitely in there, and it’s what makes the film stand out as being more than just a party movie—but it also really nails the party movie part.
Chris:
Alpha (2025): Julia Ducournau’s third feature is her weakest by a large measure, but there are still traces of the visceral, bold filmmaking that made Raw and Titane two of the most striking French films to be released in the last two decades. The disease carried by many people, including the titular teenager’s severely afflicted father (the great Tahar Rahim), in the world of Alpha makes them into marble and the rendering of that in look and design is remarkable and lastingly eerie. One of Ducournau’s most potent gifts has been in her ability to evince ecstatic energy and hard-won emotional bonds in ugly, savage environments, but in Alpha, much of the drama is turgid, unable to find any lively friction aside from infrequent blips, such as a father-daughter excursion to a club that goes wrong. Alpha bills itself as a tragedy more than Titane and Raw, both closer to songs of rebirth and reinvention, and though there’s plenty to be sad about in Alpha’s world, it never electrifies in the way her previous works have. Not saying the new ones have to have the same feeling as the old ones, but here’s hoping whatever her next one at least has the same density of feeling that Raw and Titane burnished in their greatest sequences.
Shakedown (2018): Leilah Weinraub’s sole feature thus far retains the inherent mystery and excitement of her subject - intensely physical underground strip and grind shows around LA, catering distinctly to the local queer and lesbian clientele in the early aughts - while also showing an organic, unyielding curiosity for the community and its roots in the shows and balls run by trans icon Mahogany back in the day. The footage that Weinraub has gathered here of these strip shows has the unmistakable feeling of a risqué doc you taped off TV as a teen for illicit reasons, but Weinraub is dead serious about the scene and the people she met. Interviews with the performers, the forever-hustling creator-manager Ronnie Ron, Mahogany herself, and more give an intimate sense of not only the realities of the work but also the fiery desire to dance for women and a queer audience as compared to strictly straight men. The innumerable scans of all the flyers used to promote the Shakedown shows underlines the scrappy origins of Ronnie Ron’s vision, which feels mirrored in Weinraub’s whole production/distribution plan - the film was available to stream on its own website for a long time before moving to several other places, including the Criterion Channel for some time. Hopefully, Shakedown will eventually get a real physical release, as would be befitting for one of the best documentaries of the 2010s.
Supergirl (2026): With the lone exception of Milly Alcock’s thoughtful, invigorating performance, there’s little nice to say about the latest attempt to broaden the aperture of Gunn’s DCU as well as the largely ignorable filmography of Craig Gillespie. Whereas Gunn’s Superman focused hard on character while also keeping things bubbly, explosive, and funny, Gillespie goes for plot, sending the titular hero after brutal evildoer Krem and the cure for the poison he shot into poor Krypto, leading her into altercations with all sorts of grubby guns-for-hire, aliens, and the biggest sigh Jason Momoa’s Lobo, the famous immortal bounty hunter who is no doubt searching for his own movie or fingers uncrossed a trilogy of some sort. Everything here feels familiar or outright borrowed from any number of other superhero films and alien-action bonanzas, and that includes flashbacks to her father (the reliable David Krumholtz) and the quieter moments between Supergirl and her charge, hero-to-be Ruthye (Eve Ridley). As always with Gillespie, best known for Disney’s Cruella and Big Short rip-off Dumb Money, the movie is carried along by needle-drops, some okay (Modest Mouse, Rilo Kiley), others…less-so (Halsey, Eagles of Death Metal, a horrid cover of Jimmy Eat World), and none of it feels natural. Just a set of songs meant to momentarily make you forget how bad the dialogue is and how weak the stakes are. Wish it had worked on me for even a second. Oh well.
Eric:
Bastard Swordsman (1983): As kung fu moves into the 1980s these movies get wild. So much fun wire work in this akin to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Then some crazy powers like learning the "silkworm technique" wherein you become spiderman and shit out silk to tie up your enemies.
Killer Constable (1980): Very much enjoyed this. When someone steals gold from royalty, they seek out the best cop in China. The title is accurate because this cop is just a guy on a horse with a sword who kills pretty much everyone he meets.
Outlaw Force (1988): A honky tonk musician must stand up to the degenerate punks of Los Angeles after they rape and kill his wife and kidnap his daughter to star in CP. Unbelievable subject matter depicted on a shoestring budget and no tact just to give you a Death Wish knock off but this time we use the powers of Country and Western to rid the Earth of scum. That means he dresses as a cowboy in order to kick guys in the balls. Also featuring shooting and hanging, of course. Yeehaw. Also: Frank Stallone!
They Will Kill You (2026): Cheap xerox of Ready or Not with heaping doses of Kill Bill plagiarism. Didn't work for me on any level.
How to Make a Killing (2026): Genuinely think Glen Powell is running out of steam by agreeing to star in every bad movie just making him a constant fixture of "skip it" cinema. They should have titled this How to Go to Sleep.
Steve:
Widow’s Bay (2026): Really enjoyed season 1 of the best Horror Comedy series I’ve seen in forever. Just a hilarious set-up making a quaint New England island town as a mash up for any number of spooky goings on, Katie Dippold’s show is relentlessly funny and often actually scary! Usually one overtakes the other, but this is a perfect mixture of peanut butter and jelly. Matthew Rhys is so goddamn funny as the beleaguered Mayor/Hero(?) Tom Loftis, plunging himself deeper and deeper into the dark secrets of Widow’s Bay. Stephen Root continues to be the best thing you can watch on a TV Screen, and Kate O’Flynn steals every goddamn scene she’s in, and when she’s not on screen, you kinda wish she was. Also, major points for Dippold employing other UCB Alumns that I remember from the mid-Aughts, like Neil Casey, Anthony Atamaniuk, and Jeff Hiller.
Dunkirk (2017): Had only seen this in theaters and at the time this felt like a so-so Nolan adventure. Man, was I wrong. I revisited as I make my way through the big guy’s entire filmography (pointless Letterboxd ranking list to come!) and it melted my fucking face off. Wow. He’s at the top of his powers here, just a masterful blending of history, human drama, and action like no one currently working can direct. Ticking clocks abound! Tom Hardy’s face is obscured! Kenneth Branagh is around! This is Nolan, baby!
Faces of Death (2026): While not exactly a box office smash like Obsessions and Backrooms, this is yet another horror by a younger director that is pretty damn good! This one is a bit more traditional in it’s approach and borrows liberally from its predecessors, American Psycho, Scream, and half a dozen others, but it does so in a way to make something that feels fresh and timely. I feel like a lot of movies try to get at how scary it is to be on the internet and totally beef it, but this one sticks the landing of capturing how terrifying it can be to go down an internet rabbit hole.
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
Lemmy from Los Angeles who asks:
“What one fictional president would each of you pick to be on the Mt. Rushmore of fictional presidents?”
Andrew: Does Martin Sheen from The West Wing count? I know he’s a TV president, but President Jed Bartlet was a solid dude. If we’re only doing movies, I’ll vote for President Merkin Muffley, as portrayed by Peter Sellers in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, mainly because then when school trips would head to the monument, some tour guide would have to say “Merkin Muffley” 10 times a day.
Chris: Lots to choose from—Fredric March’s President Lyman from Seven Days in May is always my back-pocket pick - but I must go with Donald Moffat’s President Bennett from Clear and Present Danger, a real son-of-a-bitch who gets, to quote the man himself, barked at as if by a junkyard dog by Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan for soft-agreeing to the military-backed slaughtering of most South American cartel heads (and their families) when one leader, Escobedo (Miguel Sandoval), kills a single (1) white businessman (and his family) for bilking him out of eight figures. Moffat does a great job of showing how jovial arrogance and assumption of American dominance everywhere can unknowingly lead us down a dark path, even when simply trying to recoup “our money,” which in this case comes from an international drug dealer. If you haven’t seen Clear and Present Danger yet, I can’t recommend it enough - it honestly may be my most re-watched movie, up there with Dazed and Confused, Beverly Hills Cop, and the largely forgotten Farley/Spade joint, Black Sheep. It is by far my favorite adaptation of the Jack Ryan character/world, assuming we’re never going to get the adaptation where Ryan is rightly depicted as a sniveling, empire-protecting agent-at-large, sent all over the world to explain why America gets to take and kill whatever and whomever they feel they must for the goodness of the world.Eric: For me it's Harrison Ford in Air Force One. I don't even remember this fictional president's name but I think Harrison Ford's face should be on Mt. Rushmore in general. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Ford’s guy is the legend, President James Marshall - AJ]Steve: Maybe Gary Oldman as mean old queen Harry Truman in Oppenheimer…Oh, wait, FICTIONAL right, right…I’m gonna go for a deep cut and say Juror #4 himself, Clark Griswold’s bastard father-in-law, and the subject of many creepy crawly bugs…E.G. Marshall from Superman II. This guy did the impossible, gave up all executive power for the good of the people by KNEELING BEFORE ZOD on national television before weakly begging another Kryptonian for help, all while wearing cinema’s worst wig. You think he got re-elected after that? He’s got my vote.
JULY 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 July:
Free Feed:
July 7th – Star Trek (2009) Patreon Unlock
July 14th – Battleship (2012) with Brian Salisbury of Junkfood Cinema
July 21st – American Wedding (2003)
July 28th – Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Patreon Episodes:
July 9th – We Love Movies: Spider-Man 2 (2004)
July 16th – MELR0210: 90210: “Radio Daze” (s4, e5) Melrose Place: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s Dinner at Eight” (s4, e2)
July 21st at 8pm EST – WHM After Dark: Come with your questions at the ready and spend an hour hanging out with the gang!
July 23rd – Animation Damnation: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981): “Spidey Goes Hollywood (s1, e8)
July 24th – The Gleep Glossary: Dash Rendar
July 30th – Scaredycats #4: Evil Dead: Rise (2023)
July 31st – The Nexus: TOSTAS: “Albatross”(s2, e4) TNG: “The Game” (s5,e6)
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 we released the previously unavailable Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter virtual live show for purchase on our Patreon shop! This was such a fun show and it'll be awesome to revisit or experience for the first time as you get to talk us gab about (one of) the best entries in the Friday the 13th canon! 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!
You’re keeping up with our Youtube channel, right? On-Screen has been bi-weekly at Noon EST, subscribe now so you don’t miss it! We’ve covered a lot of great Summer movies already like Backrooms, Disclosure Day, Obsession, and Supergirl and we’ll be coming to you live on Monday the 13th with a Special NOON Mailbag too!
Also, speaking of Video Content, are you aware We Hate Movies is on TikTok? We are @whmpodcast! We’ve got some kick-ass short form videos releasing there, on the aforementioned Youtube page, and of course on Instagram! These are short, super fun ways to relive your favorite bit and share on these platforms to get new folks into the show too! All credit for these amazing videos goes to @gnarcissist on TikTok!
Hooked on T.J. Hooker has another classic ep in the books and this time Stacy is almost murdered! Like those True Crime Podcasts you folks like. 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. See you next month, stay cool out there in this post-apocalyptic heat!
Take it easy,Andrew, Chris, Eric, and SteveWe Hate Movies