This week, the Dads take another step through JanuArnie with James Cameron's 1994 spy action-comedy True Lies, and Steve is practically vibrating with joy from minute one. He calls it possibly the most fun he's had watching any of the 45 movies they've covered together. The film doesn't let up for its full two hours and twenty minutes, and neither do the Dads, who find themselves completely won over by Cameron's crowd-pleasing magic. From Arnold emerging from a frozen Swiss lake with a perfect tuxedo under his wetsuit to subtitle parentheticals reading "perfect Arabic," the guys geek out over every slick spy detail while Tom Arnold's Gib provides running commentary from the surveillance van, lamenting his ex-wife who took the ice cube trays out of the freezer. What kind of sick bitch does that?

Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely steals the show, and the Dads are here for it. Her legendary hotel room striptease gets the extended appreciation it deserves, with Steve and Nic marveling at her physical comedy chops and the sheer commitment of her performance. The dance is awkward and sexy and hilarious all at once, right down to her ankle buckling in those heels. Bill Paxton's sleazy used car salesman Simon earns equal time, spinning tales about being the mystery spy from the hotel shootout while eating a hot dog and declaring that "the 'Vette gets 'em wet." The Dads debate the impossibility of fast-forwarding and rewinding cassette tapes to precise dialogue cues and agree it's somehow less believable than anything involving nuclear warheads.

Then there are the Harrier jets. Steve loved Harriers as a kid, and this movie delivers them in full glory for the entire third act, from bridge pursuits to Arnold blasting out an entire floor of a Miami skyscraper. A pelican tips a truck off a bridge. Jamie Lee Curtis beats Tia Carrere senseless with a champagne bottle that refuses to break. Dana steals the detonator key despite having zero spy training. It's gateway Arnie at his absolute peak, surrounded by James Cameron's bulletproof blockbuster instincts and a cast firing on all cylinders.

This week, the Dads get their asses to Mars with 1990's Total Recall, the second Verhoeven joint on the podcast and a movie that has seared itself into the collective consciousness whether you've seen it or not. Nic's pick here, and he wastes no time pointing out this is peak Arnie at peak powers, a cable descrambler classic, and one of the all-time great films for doing impressions of a man in distress. Steve agrees, noting that so much of our cultural love for Schwarzenegger comes from imitating the specific noises he makes, and this movie is absolutely overflowing with them.

The Dads walk through the dystopian premise of a company that will implant fake vacation memories directly into your brain, and immediately spiral into how psychotically insane the "ego trip" upgrade sounds. Why would anyone want to believe they were a secret agent and then just wake up and go back to jackhammering? The cognitive dissonance alone would destroy you. Nic's wife gets a solid moment when the nail-painting receptionist appears on screen with her instant-color-change manicure tech, prompting a frustrated "son of a bitch!" from the couch. They appreciate the Verhoeven commentary on casting Schwarzenegger as a quote-unquote regular guy, acknowledge that Sharon Stone is acting her face off while playing a character who is also acting her face off, and give proper respect to the escalator shootout, the human shield that got used for way too long, and Johnny Cab's inexplicable decision to kamikaze itself into a wall over an unpaid fare.

The conversation inevitably lands on three boobs, Kuato's weird little voice, the "see you at the party" callback, and the big question: is any of this real? Steve's now convinced the whole thing is an ego trip and Quaid is a lobotomized vegetable, while Nic figures he just wakes up disappointed and goes back to his crappy life married to peak Sharon Stone. Either way, blue sky on Mars was a new one.

This week, the Dads kick off JanuArnie with 1987's Predator, and it's clear from the jump that Steve would die for this movie. As in, top ten favorite of all time, no notes, completely unhinged levels of love. Nick's right there with him, calling it the ultimate guys' guys movie and the perfect beer-chugging, high-fiving experience. They walk through the testosterone-soaked helicopter ride, Jesse Ventura's sexual Tyrannosaurus energy, and the absurdity of Arnold arriving dressed like he works at Target.

The Dads marvel at the 72 on-screen deaths during the guerrilla camp assault, Blaine's legendary "I ain't got time to bleed" followed by Poncho's perfect reaction face, and the sheer gratuity of watching Arnold bend vines over his shoulders while making a bow and arrow. They note that Carl Weathers apparently had to take his shirt off just to help pull a rope, which tracks. Nic's wife gets a few good lines in, observing that there's "not a lot of dialogue, just a lot of big puss jokes" and that the unmasked Predator has "a Dark Crystal-ass looking face." The Dads dig into the film's clever creature design, the way the Predator adapts its tactics based on circumstance, and the deeply satisfying payoff of Billy's laugh getting replayed in the alien's dying moments as it finally gets the joke.

They wrap by marveling at the fact that this movie stars two future governors, that the Predator suit actor also played Harry in Harry and the Hendersons, and that 80s action movies just hit different than anything made since. If it bleeds, we can kill it, and if it's Predator, it absolutely rules.

This week, the Dads close out the 2025 Dadvent Calendar with Rocky IV (1985), a film they openly question is even a movie at all. Steve's verdict: it's two boxing matches and four music videos loosely tied together with a little bit of dialogue. Nic calls it eight montages in a trench coat. They're both right. The Dads marvel at the sheer audacity of a 91-minute runtime that somehow contains nearly 30 minutes of training sequences, driving montages, and flashbacks set to complete songs that fade out naturally, as if Stallone couldn't bear to cut a single track short. The Christmas bonafides are slim: the final fight takes place on Christmas Day, there's a tree visible behind Rocky's son, and the robot wears a Santa hat. That's it. That's the Christmas.

Ah yes, the robot. The dads cannot get over the fact that Rocky gifts his brother-in-law Paulie a talking robot servant for his birthday instead of the sports car he wanted. This is a Season 7 of ALF type decision, Nic notes, a creative choice that belongs in no franchise. Meanwhile, Rocky gives his wife Adrian a wraparound watch and a deeply unsettling anniversary cake featuring bride-and-groom figurines in boxing gloves. The implications are not great. Carl Weathers, doing all the heavy lifting as Apollo Creed, gets a full James Brown concert before getting beaten to death in an exhibition match while Rocky holds the towel and does nothing. The Dads point out, correctly, that Rocky is the villain of his own movie: a man who let his best friend die, then abandoned his family on Christmas to fight in Soviet Russia because he needed to avenge a guy he clearly loved more than his wife.

It's loud, sweaty, deeply stupid, and somehow still kind of fun if you treat it like the world's most expensive music video compilation.

This week, the Dads crack open another window of the Dadvent Calendar with Die Hard (1988), the action Christmas classic that redefined what an everyman hero looks like when he's barefoot, bleeding, and absolutely not having it.

Steve and Nic dig into everything that makes this movie work, from the brilliant "fists with your toes" setup that justifies our hero's shoeless chaos to Alan Rickman's ludicrously good turn as the gentleman criminal Hans Gruber. They obsess over Theo's sports commentary running gag, debate whether Notre Dame would really be playing USC on Christmas Eve, and unanimously agree that Ellis is the most perfectly hateable 80s cocaine douchebag ever committed to film. "Hans, bubbe, I'm your white knight" gets the appreciation it deserves, as does the fact that this movie basically invented the MP5 as the standard issue bad guy weapon for the next decade. There's some pointed commentary about Al Powell's tragic backstory being framed a little too sympathetically, and plenty of love for Argyle living his best life in the parking garage while everything above him descends into absolute mayhem.

The dads also celebrate the details that make rewatches so rewarding: the samurai armor in the vault, the "no more table" and "no bullets" one-liners that deserve their own remix, the way Holly knows John's still alive because only he could drive someone as unhinged as Karl, and the sheer audacity of a movie that finds time for titty distractions and a "Helsinki Syndrome" joke while blowing up an armored SWAT vehicle with a floor-mounted rocket launcher. When a movie this influential is also this endlessly quotable and fun, you just watch it every December like the Christmas tradition it absolutely is.

This week, the dads open another door on the Dadvent calendar with Home Alone (1990), the Christmas classic that feels impossible to skip during the holiday season. Steve and Nic dive headfirst into the beautiful chaos of the McAllister household, marveling at the absolute sociopath behavior of packing for a two-week international trip the night before a morning flight. They wonder aloud why an eight-year-old is trusted to pack his own bag when Nic's own wife still has to check his suitcase for missing socks. The dads dissect every baffling detail: the family's inexplicably red-and-green permanent decor, the suspicious number of mannequins in the basement (Buffalo Bill would be proud), and the staggering fact that $122.50 bought ten pizzas in 1990. They also note, with some alarm, that every single pizza appeared to be topped exclusively with kalamata olives and zero pepperoni.

The conversation turns to the many adults who should have called the cops but didn't. The grocery store clerk, the pizza delivery boy, the town Santa, Old Man Marley. An entire village conspired, through sheer negligence, to let an eight-year-old nearly get killed by burglars. Speaking of those burglars, the dads conduct a thorough injury audit, tallying up blowtorched scalps, paint cans to the face, BB gun shots to sensitive areas, and the tar situation that led to Marv's barefoot ornament stomp. They agree that Daniel Stern's tarantula scream is the greatest man-scream of the decade, possibly ever, and praise the film's surprising physical comedy chops from both Stern and an against-type Joe Pesci. Nic gives particular love to John Candy's brief but perfect turn as the pushy polka bandleader, calling it the detail that elevates the whole thing.

It's a warm, chaotic, deeply 90s time capsule that somehow makes you feel cozy even while children commit felonies and criminals sustain injuries that would kill lesser men.

This week, the dads continue their Dadvent Calendar with The Ref (1994), a pitch-black Christmas comedy where a cat burglar named Gus hijacks the wrong couple and spends his Christmas Eve playing unwilling marriage counselor to a pair of wealthy Connecticut WASPs who simply will not stop fighting. Steve brought this pick to the table as a movie he's loved since college, one he watches nearly every holiday season. Nic came in cold, his Dennis Leary fandom from the "No Cure for Cancer" days somehow never steering him toward this one until now.

The dads dig into the film's hostile charm: the Scandinavian nightmare dinner with lit candle wreaths and Middle Earth cuisine, the volunteer cops who accidentally record It's a Wonderful Life over their only evidence, and the blackmailing military school kid who might be the most competent person in the whole movie. They marvel at Judy Davis absolutely dominating every scene she's in, holding the screen like a stage actress while delivering ice-cold lines about garnish and corpses. Steve calls out Kevin Spacey's presence with the requisite asterisk, but acknowledges the man is undeniably good here, especially in the present-opening scene where he finally tells his mother to shut the fuck up and offers to buy her a cross she can nail herself to. Nic notes his frustration with the wacky escalation format and wishes for more Leary ranting, but appreciates the Christmas bones of the thing.

The dads align on Judy Davis as the MVP, debate the ethics of therapists attending family dinners, and bond over the universal experience of stopping for food before arriving at a relative's house because you know the situation will be weird.

A holiday hostage comedy where the gunman is somehow the most reasonable person at the table.

This week, the dads tackle Trading Places (1983), the John Landis comedy that asks the age-old question: what if you took a rich guy's entire life and gave it to Eddie Murphy? What follows is the dads marveling at how this movie somehow gets away with everything, from its gleefully un-PC opening minutes to Jamie Lee Curtis in one of her most revealing roles. They're genuinely impressed by Eddie Murphy's performance, calling out his ability to sell both the comedy and the emotional beats, and they can't stop talking about Dan Aykroyd's commitment to the bit, especially during his spectacular downward spiral. The gorilla suit comes up. The Santa beard comes up. The sheer audacity of the third act comes up a lot.

The conversation veers into fond territory when they dig into the Duke brothers as villains, the satisfying mechanics of the commodity exchange scheme (which they absolutely do not fully understand), and why this movie feels like it belongs to a different era of studio filmmaking. There's genuine affection here for the craft, the pacing, the way the screenplay threads everything together, and how Landis directs it all with confidence. They also spend quality time on Denholm Elliott and the supporting cast, appreciating how stacked this thing is with talent. The nostalgia runs deep, but so does the respect for what the movie pulls off, even when it's being completely ridiculous.

They wrestle with the movie's rougher edges, the stuff that wouldn't fly today, and somehow land on the idea that Trading Places is both a perfect time capsule and a genuinely smart comedy about class and capitalism wrapped in an absolutely unhinged Christmas caper. It's dumb. It's brilliant. It's Trading Places, and it still works.