I run this blog as a hobby and operate it with zero illusions that I’m Roger Ebert or Andrew Sarris. Movies have been a long time love of mine, and I write my own shit in the hopes that maybe something worthwhile will turn out. Still, I am just a fan. Nothing more, nothing less. There have been multiple write-ups and even a documentary (For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism) that touch on the proliferation of online film critics. Opening the gates to every Tom, Dick, and Harry has been a mixed blessing. The easiness of running a blog or podcast has enabled great voices of wit, passion, and thought to pour out their ideas on movies. They may have written for a magazine or newspaper before, but the internet has allowed a wider audience to discover them. There’s the acerbic style of Walter Chaw at Film Freak Central, whose opinions are always well measured and insightful, even if I disagree with him. Nick Schager, whom I discovered at Slant Magazine and follow through his site Lessons of Darkness, is another critic that would have been as big a name as Sarris and Pauline Kael if we were still living in the seventies. Stacie Ponder (Final Girl) and David DeMoss (And You Thought It Was Safe (?)) both tackle horror, sci-fi, cult, and trash films with smarts and wit, analyzing the stuff normally treated as cinematic offal.
Acting as a specialty niche are the blogs and podcasts that attempt to deconstruct "bad" movies. Mystery Science Theater 3000 turned quipping into an art form twenty-five years, and the show's influence can be seen all over modern film criticism. Discussing an offbeat movie is much easier than explaining why a run-of-the-mill film is merely 'okay.' Plus, more people are liable to read/listen to your review since movie fans enjoy hearing others tee off on a film. It supplies ample opportunities for comedy. What can happen, though, is people can lose the spark that made MST3K so special. Up until the last few years of its run, the show never appeared to be an elitist project. Host Joel Hodgson and his robot puppets would goof on a movie, but the teasing felt as though it came from a place of appreciation.
Nowadays when a group gets together and tries to reproduce the same effect, it often ends up sounding like Neck Beard ranting. Jokes don't land, the faux-anger is amped up to obnoxious levels, and the hosts never sound like they really know what they're talking about. From the rubble of crap podcasts arises We Hate Movies. Without an ounce of hyperbole, We Hate Movies is one of the best podcasts around. Created by members of the comedy group Private Cabin, the show has become a necessary weekly ritual for me. New episodes drop every Tuesday, meaning that I stop whatever I'm doing at twelve midnight so I can listen to the show. Like a group of old friends, the show's cast is consistently welcoming and comfortable.
Let me tell you about these funny fuckers. Andrew Jupin is the Grand Poobah of the show. A former projectionist at a movie theater, Jupin is the Joel Hodgson of We Hate Movies. His deep knowledge of movies and his Everyman personality cast him as the springboard for the other three hosts. Part of a rotating couch, Eric Szyszka, Stephen Sajdak, and Chris Cabin all take turns bouncing off of Jupin's straight man personae to lead the week's talk into strange waters. To further use MST3K for comparison, Eric Szyszka is Trace Beaulieu-era Crow T. Robot, his penchant for dropping quiet sarcasm on par with the gold puppet. On the opposite end is Stephen Sajdak, who is more in line with Bill Corbett's version of Crow, an angry oddball whose annoyance with a dippy movie can sometimes barely be contained. Finally, Chris Cabin functions as Tom Servo, an intellectual who brims with perplexed frustration. The four guys have a real camaraderie that's inviting for the listener, and their conversations build naturally. They may go off on tangents about Wilford Brimley or Sajdak's teenage run-in with a man who tried to lure him under a pier with the promise of booze, but everything ties back into the film of the week. This environment really benefits the movies by giving them some intellectual weight they may have not had before. How many other shows have devoted an hour and a half to the 2001 stinker The Glass House? Each of the films find a second life because of the gang's exploration.
The show's format stands out from other podcasts in that it comes across like a group of people who want to involve the listener in the conversation. When I've tried other podcasts (for example, How Did This Get Made?), I have felt left out, almost as though I'm eavesdropping on a group of friends whose references I don't follow. Everyone talks over one another, and they have an annoying tendency to not explain the movie they're discussing. If you haven't seen Nicolas Cage's latest direct-to-DVD movie, then you're totally out of the loop. We Hate Movies avoids that by covering a movie from beginning to end, stopping to detail and ponder specific moments that strike them as bizarre or idiotic. I hadn't seen the South African E.T. knockoff Nukie, but Jupin and the crew thoroughly explained the picture to the point that I felt as though I had just watched it. This is what brings me back to the show every week. Not only are the guys funny, but the analysis is always easy to follow and interesting.
I don't know how to really review a podcast. It's wildly different from reviewing a movie that contains pieces that are easily analyzed. What I can say is We Hate Movies is brilliant, hysterical, bizarre, witty, and simply a great, great show. It's the closest thing to Mystery Science Theater around. Any film fan worth their salt is obligated to check it out. Just don't do it as sandwichly as possible.
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