Shower Beer Vol LXI: 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. Don’t Turn Out The Lights - (Hulu) My Hulu algorithm has definitely had it’s hits lately, this was not one of them. The premise is a road trip in an RV with some old college friends to attend a music festival. Along the way debauchery ensues, and in their state of inebriation mistakes are made and they get lost along their route. Things go from bad to worse, and people…start dying. The movie begins with a reaaaaaaal attempt to establish that these people are friends ok! They like to party together and they’re not going to apologize for that. In fact, getting drunk is the only thing that matters at the expense of all other things in this world. While I love a good dispensable character, this movie has way too many of them and the poor actors in this are being asked to punch way above their weight. No one in this is capable of carrying the load, and the film goes for a lot of over emotional beats that not only fall flat, but stop the thing dead in it’s tracks. Ultimately when the conceit is revealed, it is just too dumb to be interesting, and has a deus ex machina element where whatever they want to be able ot explain narratively they just can. Feels lazy, uninspired, and sadly like I said horribly acted. I don’t mean to trash anyone involved in making this, but it is a mish mash of ideas and horror elements that are just cringeworthy, or audibly make you unintentionally laugh like when women see me naked for the first time.

2. Masters of the Universe (1987) - (Tubi) Who the fuck knew Courtney Cox was in this? I respect how serious this film took the assignment, but the troll playing the guitar and not knowing how the hell his own powers even work was where it started to lose me. Lundgren is incredible at being able to give absolutely no emotion, but still keep you interested. Skeletor could’ve been a bit more tongue in cheek, but the late Frank Langella only knew one way to play it and that was full speed. Seeing the dickhead principal from Back to the Future in this, and with a pretty sizeable part was a kick and I have to imagine that in the mid 80’s he had Hollywood in the palm of his hand when it came to casting a bald asshole who hates kids. I’m not a huge fan of this IP, but love some of the visuals. I have no idea if this is a true origin story, or if it took a lot of liberties, but the story taking place half on Earth wouldn’t have been my first preference. I’m excited to compare it to the one that came out this year.

3. Summer Rental - (DVD) Yea you read that right…a DVD! I rented this from my local library because I saw John Candy, and I’d never even heard of this movie. After watching it I realize I had seen it several times as a kid on cable, but never in one sitting. I particularly remembered the scene where the beach house gets hijacked and turned into a block party and remember thinking that for the first time in my life a movie was actually making me feel anxious. Candy doesn’t get as many bites at the comedy apple in this as you’d like, but he plays a family man which he was so good at, and the running theme of him doing anything it takes to defend his family’s vacation. The egg eating scene in the beginning of the movie while he’s trying to drive to work was fucking hilarious and done in a way that only Candy could’ve pulled off. I’d rank this towards the bottom of his filmography, but it is a good 80’s comedy that I don’t think you’d regret watching if you were a Candyhead.

4. Better off Dead… - (Digital rental) When I saw John Cusack and 80's high school movie my head went to Say Anything, or even something like High Fidelity where he plays the wear your heart on your sleeve hopeless romantic. I was blown away by this, and the meta element it leans into with regards to high school comedies. I found it fucking genius, and for the first half of it things were going over my head, then shit just clicked. All the characters are written as caricatures or parodies of classic tropes, and the dialogue of Cusack's best friend alone is worth the price of admission. The foreign exchange student and the family she is with could be a movie in and of itself. The brother might be the funniest part of the film, and you don't even realize it until the final scene with the car in the garage. This is a movie where I feel like you will pick up on more with additional rewatches so I'm excited to do that. I was shocked I hadn't seen this before based on how right down my alley it was with the comedy style. Tip of the cap here.

5. Fright Night (2011) - (DVD) I’ve heard that the original Fright Night is really well regarded among horror fans, and this movie had always intrigued me and I know has a cast that had a bunch of great actors before they really blew up. The late Anton Yelchin was always one of my favorites for his ability to subtly play the everyman and not overdo the trope of the kid who isn’t the coolest at school. Colin Farrell plays this with the perfect amount of camp. Surprisingly David Tennant was my least favorite performance, and I think he was given the most to work with of anyone. Imogen Poots and Toni Colette are a great injection of badass women who aren’t just damsels in distress, and this movie knows the perfect amount of Christopher Mintz-Plasse to give us and doesn’t overdo it.

6. Peppermint - (DVD) I was sold on Jennifer Garner going full Elektra and killing fucking everyone, but was not prepared for how depressing the origin of that would be in this movie. John Gallagher is in this and I’m beginning to feel like there is something embedded in the Geneva Convention that legally he had to at least be asked to be in any movie in the mid to late 2010’s or face severe fines. The twist in the third act is pretty bland, but the movie does a good job of not depending on it to stick the landing. If you want to see a bunch of gangbangers get sliced and diced then this is the movie for you. Garner is still very believable in this role and the physicality of it are handled by her really well. There’s not really another interesting performance in this thing, and the villain is pretty weak and only serves to give her henchmen to brutally murder. I’d offer to lend you my DVD, but I returned it to the library last week.

7. The Tuxedo - (Digital rental) I think this is the only time I’ve ever found Jackie Chan’s schtick annoying and overdone. He plays the cutesy role alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt and his character is supposed to be very incapable and socially awkward until this tuxedo that is designed to upgrade any person who wears it finds it’s way to him. This is definitely a product of the early 2000’s, and I can see teenagers going to it the Friday night it came out just to make out in the back of the theater figuring the showing would be mostly empty. Jason Isaac is fun in it, but has nowhere near enough screen time to affect the overall quality of this movie. The villain(s) are hardly even in it,a nd when they are their plan isn’t really explained until the final ten minutes at which point nobody gives a shit anymore. For a Jackie Chan movie this also really underutilizes his stunt ability in favor of over the top whacky set pieces where the tuxedo has him doing things either done with a wire, or CGI. This really made me want to watch any of the Rush Hour movies because those are infinitely better, and actually know how to utilize him.

8. Air Bud: World Pup - (Disney +) The original Air Bud was a staple of my childhood, but I have to say on a rewatch for our movie commentary a few years ago I realized there is way less fun to be had in it than I remembered, and more of a morose story about abandonment. Air Bud World Pup is all about the fun and absurdity, and the human characters are probably more hilarious than the animals in this one. Air Bud as we know is a multi sport athlete, but here he has to carry more of the load than we’ve seen before because the Timberwolves soccer team is absolute ass. They can’t move the ball forward, and they have a bunch of players who think they should be strikers, but don’t have any ball skills or pace to their game. The most difficult thing about this team is they only have eleven players so if anybody pulls a hammy or god forbit loses their cool and gets a red card the team is absolutely fucked. The main character (who I believe is named Josh, but I’m not going to look it up) is our same guy from the original, but here he’s trying to get laid for the first time so he’s trying to be perceived as a badass. We’re talking wearing sunglasses at night that’s how few fucks the guy gives. While this is a classic made for tv movie and the quality in sound, acting, and cinematography is questionable, I enjoyed the 80 mins or so runtime.

9. Broken Arrow - (Digital rental) Is there anything more 90’s thriller than Christian Slater, John Travolta, and Howie Long in a movie that takes itself very seriously? No I don’t think so. Broken Arrow is a film of it’s time, and we are lucky to have it. The movie has Travolta awfully performing as a villain who is just so diabolical us as the audience should be clutching our pearls at most of the things he does. Instead we find ourselves laughing as he thinks he’s chewing up the scenery, but really he’s overacting and doing things that whoever scored this movie had to be thinking “well I have to match his level!”. The stakes in this movie are about as high as they can get, so thank god we have the cool hand of Christian Slater to save the country. He has just the right dash of aw shucksy doodles to his character where you know he’s in over his head, but also he is capable of more than he’s ever done in his life. There are some great character actors in this, and Delroy Lindo has a decent part and it’s always good to see him in everything. If you know of any other movies from the 90’s that are akin to this one please recommend them.

10. How I Met Your Mother S6 - (Hulu) Winding down on my fifth watch through of the series, and season six is one of ups and downs for me. While I dislike Zoey probably the most of any of Ted’s serious girlfriends, the Marshall and Lilly storyline, coupled with Barney’s development make this a season that helps HIMYM stand out among other sitcoms as one that does the emotion as well as the comedy. Zoey is written as very selfish and vindictive, and seems to only like Ted when it is convenient for her. Ted is also in a really bad spot mentally and can’t seem to really hone in on anything he wants, despite finally gaining a little traction in his career. The 13th episode, Bad News, is one of the top three of the entire series in my opinion. I won’t spoil anything if you haven’t seen the show, but I highly encourage you to watch the series and let me know what you think of it. Don’t watch the episode without seeing the preceding six seasons though because it will not hit the way it’s intended to. Looking forward to cruising through the last three seasons as I’m feeling like I’m going to like the end of the series more this time around than in previous watches.

-JH