Shower Beer Vol LVIII: 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) Mardi Gras: Spring Break - (Netflix) Definitely feels like one of those American Pie spinoffs where the sheer promise of showing a few girls topless lures in the teenage demographic. Genius marketing really. Here we have Josh Gad serving as the comedic engine, which normally would make me fucking vomit all over myself, but I have to admit his hit rate on the jokes here is better than it usually is. I am probably a huge dumbass, but the “twist” in the movie I did not see coming, and the second act of the movie when the characters really start letting loose in New Orleans is pretty fun. This thing punched above it’s weight for me, but still falls victim to all the tropes the raunchy teen comedies of the early aughts did so it makes it difficult for it to stand out.

2) The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure - (Digital rental) I know there are a billion of these movies, and while I’m sure none of them hold a candle to the original, I’m pumped to give them a shot. Here the plot sees our band of dinos crushing life in the Great Valley, but having to protect an egg that they stumble across from some dinos that are looking to make a three egg omelet. There is one banger song by the villains about eating said egg, and even though the music usually sucks in these I thought this was a jam. The banter between the bad guys is pretty hilarious, and outside of a few moments with Spike is the funniest stuff in the film. There is one main character introduced here, and I don’t know if we’re not supposed to take this movie as canon or what, but he doesn’t show up in the next one…spoiler alert.

3) Case Closed - Eps 21-25 - (Crunchyroll) Running through what has become one of my favorite animes. The anthology series is very grounded, and sees a different crime/murder being solved in each episode for the most part, although some cases take two or three parts. I’ll highlight two of my favorites from this last batch of episodes I watched.

Ep 22 and 23 - The Luxury Liner Murder Case. A tale of a family fighting over inheritance leads to the murder of a rich man and Detective Conan is left to piece together the clues. The family is isolated to just them on a private cruise liner making it interesting to piece together all the alibi’s and the whereabouts of the suspects. We get the typical cast of insane characters, and Conan sees through the bullshit pretty easily in this one. Nice little twist that I enjoyed.

Ep 24 - The Mysterious Woman with Amnesia Case. Here we have a case that actually moves the overarching narrative forward a bit in the show, which rarely happens. Conan and friends find a woman who has amnesia, and appears to be in the midst of being hunted by a man trying to kill her. Things are not as they seem however, and the reveal in this one leads to a pretty explosive finale. I hope they pick up the pieces to this sooner rather than later in the show.

4) Summer House S10 - (Peacock) My favorite trashy reality tv show. I think it’s good for the soul to have something like this to invest in when you can just turn off your brain and watch people act ridiculous and judge the shit out of them. This was one of the top three wildest seasons yet, and the real juicy shit happened just after the summer which made the reunion fucking epic. If you don’t know, you might have seen some stuff on social media, so read on knowing I’m going to spoil Summer House S10 for you. Basically two of the cast members have been married for about four years, and that marriage has been falling apart in front of our very eyes for several reasons. This season they ultimately decided to spend some time apart, and when we catch back up at the reunion we find out the woman in the relationship is now dating one of the other cast members, who it turns out had us all fooled and is a legendary piece of shit and serial cheater. This all comes to light during an unprecedented three part reunion where the last episode actually even fast forwards a few more weeks and gives us essentially a real time update.

5) The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving - (Digital rental) Our favorite group of Dinos is back in their third adventure, and here we have the Great Valley in peril as a rock slide cuts off their water flow, and we start to see the dino politics take place with both who is to blame, and what the solution will be/how they will ration the water. Honestly Cera’s dad is a complete dickhead in this and his racism against non three horns is utterly disgusting. The children actually do a good job here of realizing their parents are being ridiculous and sticking together, and the antagonists in this aren’t in it much as the situation itself provides most of the plot tension. There are no banger songs to report from this one, and the attempts aren’t many either with I believe only two in the film. Animation style takes a step up from the second one, but is noticeably on a budget that the OG film didn’t have to adhere to. The sharptooth that was born in the second one is nowhere to be found or mentioned here so I’m not sure if he was just off screen doing other shit, or if he’s written out of the story. Stay tuned for when I watch the fourth one soon.

6) One Piece - Eps 16 - 20 - (Hulu) Save the island from the plot orchestrated by the fake butler. Ussop joins the gang. Background of Zoro and his training. I’ve always had interest in One Piece, and have finally started my way through it. I’m a closet anime fan, and this is one of the few I’m really devoting myself too. The last five episodes I watch really get Luffy and his crew set up for the series and have them basically fill out their crew and encounter some wild shit on an island that gets set up for a hostile takeover by a guy who has been posing as the richest family on the islands live in butler, but in actuality is the head of an evil group of pirates. We meet Ussop who if you watch the show you know is a total fuck up, but he has his moments and here really makes some selfless plays to help save his people. Zoro is his usual ass kicking self, and learns to trust Luffy and sees that the man gets results. The episodes here end with Luffy and crew having to work in a kitchen to pay off a debt after they fucked up a few precious belongings of the chef, and trying to duck the Marines who are currently dining at the restaurant.

7) Drunken Master (1978) - (Tubi) Saw this on a few lists of the best kung fu movies of all time, and who doesn’t love Jackie Chan? The first twenty mins of it I was all in thinking we were going to get an Emperor’s New Groove style story of comeuppance for a cocky rich kid who learns he can’t just fight his way out of every situation. I knew based on the title though that a drunken guy was gonna show up eventually, and boy does he. Tonally this thing goes back and forth between slapstick comedy, and family drama and while I found the comedic stuff pretty enjoyable and the action set pieces fun, it just gets so ridiculous by the end that it’s like a prolonged three stooges sketch, and the final fight that they try to give some gravitas to and stakes just ends up being an eye roller. With the practicality of some of the fights and sets being destroyed in this I can’t imagine how they filmed some of it knowing they only had one take. This movie will also have you questioning how you’ve been drinking your whole life since the characters in it get shit faced almost instantly when consuming alcohol. They were just built different back then I guess.

8) Sharkman - (Fubo TV) The title tells you all you need to know. An early 2000’s made for tv movie that isn’t trying to be something it’s not. Is it a good movie? No. Is it fun and the actors in it are really hustling out there because they don’t get many paid gigs? Yes absolutely. The CGI is actually sparingly used as the shark is mostly practical, but rarely seen which is the biggest flaw of this whole thing. There are some actual explosions which I tip my cap for, and then some CGI explosions that the poor VFX artists doing them were in over their heads on. The plot is exactly what you’d want, and the movie is pretty horny for itself I have to say. I wish the acting was a little worse to be honest, and I wish it were a little less competently made because while I wanted to laugh at the film, I found myself actually kind of into it. It maxes out on it’s potential which is always nice to see, and the main villain in it is hamming it up to the perfect degree.

9) Don’t Hang Up (2016) - (Tubi) A second watch for me. I was in a found footage rabbit hole recently, and I remembered this movie being like “found footage adjacent” and having some creative uses of the camera. The main character is pretty well acted, but his best friend is so over the top douchebag that it is hard to believe that no one on set was like “you think the audience will get it that he’s an asshole and we can tone it down a bit?”. I love how this movie is paced as we basically get right into the creepy part of the film, but then things move in real time and we can feel the tension that the two main characters are going through. There are some really fun, dated internet tropes in this, and the fact that a house phone is a part of the movie is something I love as it takes me back to those fun days where the internet was becoming pervasive, but technology hadn’t become so ubiquitous to the point where we all had six screens going at once. The end is ambitious enough to say it sticks the landing, but you can probably predict at least part of the “twist” if you’re paying attention. I eat movies like this up so I would def recommend it, but I have a unique sensibility when it comes to horror that not everybody shares.

10) Over Your Dead Body - (Digital rental) One of my favorite trailers of the year, and when I saw that Jorma from the Lonely Island was directing I was very curious. I’m a big fan of both Jason Segal and Samara Weaving and they really work well together. The first half of this movie is pretty awesome, and finds the perfect balance that a dark comedy needs between character stakes and laughs. There is a pretty big plot turn that takes place midway through the second act, and the movie basically becomes a full on thriller at that point which wasn’t as enjoyable for me. There are some crazy practical effects in this and it is like a Coen Brothers movie on steroids. I also enjoy how most of the movie takes place at one locale, being the local cabin. There are some pretty whacky moments in the second half, which I didn’t necessarily hate, but it didn’t feel like the movie I signed up for. I think this is one that on a rewatch I might be a lot more forgiving of, and I would definitely say it’s not a bad film at all. 2026 so far has put out a lot of average to above average films so this will no doubt get lost in the shuffle, but if you liked the trailer like I did I think it’s worth a poke.

-JH