Shower Beer Vol LI: Stuff We’re Watching

Hey there fellow movie and television fans. If you've ever listened to our podcast you know that the second segment of our show is called our "protein shake" where each bro discusses things that are "in our cup", or what have we watched lately. Well recently I've been watching too much shit to bring up on just the podcast, so with the help of our creative team (Nate Thurmond) we decided to blog about a few of the things we've seen recently that we wanted to discuss that we might have left out. We're naming it after the greatest pre-gaming invention of the 21st century, the shower beer!

Here are the things I've seen lately as well as the link to their IMDB page if you want a little bit more info to see if it's something down your alley. In addition, I write Letterboxd reviews for all the movies I see without any spoilers, but I might go into a bit more detail in this blog than I do over there.

1) Ip Man 2 - (Netflix) The first Ip man has some iconic action scenes, but is a tale of two movies between the historical fiction part in the first act and a half, and then the gangs of New York vibe it gives you the last hour and a half. Ip Man 2 takes a few pages out of the Rocky playbook, and for the most part it works pretty well. I love the way over the top British asshole as the villain, and the rival school leaders who Master Ip has to contend with give him some antagonists who are douche bags that we can latch onto without wondering “why the fuck are these guys fighting again?”. I do have to say I find Ip very boring as a character, and his family area bunch of cardboard cut outs, but if we get to use his son in some of the future movies I’ll be into it, which is what it feels like it’s setting up.

2) Until Dawn - (Netflix…but you need the premium plan) I’ve never played the video game, but as you might know I’m a big horror hound and the concept of this from the trailers had me intrigued. A time loop movie where a group of teens are trying to escape from a house where they keep getting murdered. The movie itself get so bogged down with lore and narrative that it fucking collapses in on itself in the last part of the second act. The “twist” that they go for at the end of this doesn’t work in any way and you can tell the movie thinks it has itself an “oh shit!” moment when it in fact does not. If the film could focus on just one of the things killing the teens, or maybe two it would work much better, but we end up with a Deus Ex Machina situation where the antagonists can just do anything they want with zero explanation and based on the “rules” of this curse it will be explained away. Maybe the game is way better and if so I’ll give that a shot.

3) Pixels - (Paramount +) For some reason I’d been seeing clips of thai movie all over the place the past few months. I’m not sure what my internet algorithm is telling people, but they baited the hook with Pixels and I bit. I had a blast with this movie. The concept is really fun, and despite Josh Gad’s best efforts, it has a lot of great laughs. Michelle Monaghan is always awesome, and Peter Dinklage absolutely steals the show. Sean Bean even shows up for a bit which I did not expect. If you don’t like a lot of the Happy Madison stuff I wouldn’t use that pre conceived notion on this movie because it will surprise you. The CGI steps up to the plate and delivers, and it is asked to do a lot of heavy lifting. Also Adam Sandler doesn’t do a weird voice or anything which is a big plus.

4) Surf Ninjas - (Prime video) An absolute staple of my childhood. You take karate, combine it with video games, and the guy who played Keno in Secret of the Ooze…sign me the fuck up! Surf Ninjas is objectively not a good movie, but it is a movie that I love. Leslie Nilesen is the villain, and as a child I had no idea who the hell he was, but as an adult I really appreciate him slumming it here and hamming it up to the best of his abilities. Rob Schneider is even tolerable which is a rarity. This movie made me want to try to learn how to surf because I was already good at video games, and assumed that as an eight year old who watched Power Rangers every Saturday morning I knew karate by osmosis. I never have gotten on the board, but if you don’t think I can kick the shit out of a bunch of ninjas trying to keep me from fulfilling my destiny you’re out of your mind. If you can turn your brain off and transport yourself back to the mid 90’s you will enjoy this movie.

5) How I Met Your Mother S1 - (Hulu) My favorite sitcom of all time, and I believe this is my sixth watch through. Season one has as much heart as you will find in any sitcom out there. Like so many other shows that run for several seasons, here we have most of the main characters not fully developed, specifically Ted and Barney. Ted ends up becoming a bit of a caricature of himself in later seasons, and Barney really goes full on psycho around seasons three and four, but in the best ways. The Marshall and Lilly arc in tandem with Ted and Robin’s in season one is so great, and I can’t help but always want more of Ashley Williams as Victoria when I rewatch this. There are surprisingly few jokes that don’t age well, which is very hard to do with something that’s basically 20 years old at this point. I’m excited for the rest of the rewatch, but it’ll probably take me at least a year or so to get through it.

6) The Girl Who Got Away - (Netflix) I know my Netflix algorithm has them thinking I’m a fucked up individual because they recommended this. The story centers around a young girl who escapes being held captive by some fucking psycho whoman who has abducted like half a dozen kids. The film picks up after a quick prologue with the child now an early 20’s adult trying to cope with that trauma, and to make matters worse that psycho bitch who abducted her just escaped captivity so look out! It works kind of like a police procedural following the lead detective played by Chukwudi Iwuji, who also plays the High Evolutionary in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Sadly here the performances outside of Iwuji are really awful, and only get compounded by a very “bold” move by the script which I won’t say when it takes place. There are the bare bones of a good movie here, and I can see why a studio got sucked into producing it, but I cannot in any way suggest you go watch it.

7) Lego Marvel Avengers: Code Red - (Disney +) I eat these mini Lego movies up, especially when they’re based on established IPlike our Marvel Heroes. While none of the MCU actors come back to reprise their roles for this (to my knowledge) it still feels very MCU adjacent, and is definitely in the spirit of those movies. The villain being the Collector is awesome, and we get Wolverine joining up with the Avengers which is badass, and for me came as a surprise. These films make levity the main focus, so if you’re wanting a more true to the comics take on anything you’re not going to find it. Being in the Lego world they’re allowed to take a ton of liberties and they’re all very well executed. A big example is the literal plot here is that The Collector wants to imprison all the Marvel Heroes and villains who have the word “red” in their name. That’s fucking genius to whoever thought of it, and on concept alone had me cracking up.

8) Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound - (Crunchyroll) A rare Dragon Ball Z movie that kind of fits into cannon, Bojack Unbound is a very solid entry to the DBZ franchise. I am on my fourth rewatch of the series, and right now an in the middle of the Cell saga so I was itching to go back and revisit this. We get another rarity in that Goku is not able to help the Z fighters as he has died after the Cell games, but does kind of cheat to put his fingerprints on this one. It’s a bit paint by numbers in the teams strategy as they rely once again on Gohan getting angry, but we get solid performances from the other two saiyans in Trunks and Vegeta, and even Piccolo gives the team some quality minutes. King Kai trying to establish Bojack as a villain who’s been here the whole time is a bit weak, but he and his cronies are still formidable enough to make the film work. We also get some vintage Hercule who I swear could’ve easily won this battle by himself if he didnt’ get fucking food poisoning!

9) The Bad Guys 2 - (Peacock) It’s weird because I remember liking the first Bad Guys movie a lot, but when this came out I really wasn’t rushing to Peacock to watch it. I’ve heard the book series is awesome and want to check it out at some point, and the world these exist in which is like a pseudo Zootopia where humans live along sentient animals is really fun. The voice cast is all back, and Sam Rockwell as the wolf is fucking perfect. Here we run it back with another heist needing to be pulled off by The Bad Guys, but this time it’s to prove their innocence after being framed. We get a new set of villains, but don’t worry Marmalade is still a part of the story. The last act gets a little ridiculous, and reminds me of when Fast and Furious went too far recently. The soundtrack still slaps, but doesn’t go quite as hard as the original one did. I expect us to get a third entry in the franchise, and the ending of this one definitely sets it up well.

10) Anaconda (1997) - (Netflix) If I have seen this movie, it’s been at least twenty years. With the Paul Rudd version out now and me really wanting to see it, I figured it would be good to revisit the classic to get the context of some of the jokes. This is a quintessential 90’s film. The kind you would go to the theater in as a teenager and spend $16 in the arcade in the lobby before your showing, then talk the entire duration of the movie and probably get kicked out of the theater. It is campy, but not enough to where it’s in on the joke and that does make it a bit fun. Jon Voight really thinks he’s doing something here, and the rest of the cast around him plays their stereotypical characters well enough to let him cook. As is always the case with films like this, I wish we got more of the titular Anaconda, and it shows up a bit too late in the film. I will give credit as the script does come up with enough different scenarios to get the crew off the boat frequently enough to tangle with the snake, and the CGI is very very ambitious for it’s time which you have to tip your cap too.

-JH