Shower Beer Vol X: 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) The Blackening - (Theaters) The marketing and word of mouth on this had me curious enough to venture out to my local AMC. I will admit that I am not the target audience for this, and as a result many of the gags went over my head or just didn't hit. It's an interesting mix of comedy and horror, but definitely leans much heavier on the laughs than anything of merit within the horror genre. I wasn't a big fan of the ending, but it's a nice breezy runtime and there are a few laughs along the way.

2) The Evil Dead (1981) - (Max...although I think they just removed it) The Evil Dead franchise has always eluded me for some reason, but our legal counsel Rony Seikaly made the recommendation to me that we give this one a poke, and I don't regret it. I actually watched this twice in the span of a week, one viewing we recorded in a movie commentary that will drop soon. My first viewing It really didn't resonate with me and I was having trouble understanding the cult following behind it. On a rewatch it was like the heavens opened up and everything clicked. The camp, the humor, the performances all worked on a much better level and I had a blast. You'll see below that I went pretty hard on this franchise in the past ten days.

3) Guy's Grocery Games S1 - (Max) The absolute best "background watch" or something to watch while you're eating dinner. I'll update on future seasons in more detail in the future, but the concept of the show is four professional chefs/caterers compete with one being eliminated after each challenge they face. They have to shop for their ingredients, cook, and plate their meals for three judges all in thirty minutes with specific tasks in each round. So much fun. In the final episode of this season "Cart Wars!" one of my favorite chefs of the season who is the chillest bro you will ever see. Give this show a watch if you haven't before. There are over 300 episodes which is awesome.

4) Evil Dead II - (Max...although I think they also just removed it) As much as The Evil Dead from 1981 clicked with me, this one totally missed. It opens with an insane retcon that even after doing my research on it's explanation makes no sense. The gags in this and the camp just take things too far and once it's fully in on the joke and self aware it struggles to really find a tone that works even with it's absurdity. It feels too much like an extended scene of the original with nothing new to offer except new people to kill. Maybe some people dig that about it, and more power to you, it just didn't work for me.

5) No Hard Feelings - (Theaters) In a year that's been pretty light on good comedies, this was a breath of fresh air. There's actually much more meat on the bone in terms of a dramatic story than I anticipated, but Jennifer Lawrence shows she can basically do anything on screen. Not a mile a minute in terms of the laughs, but most of it's attempts at humor hit the mark. Also has one of the greatest musical performances of the year which I can guarantee you did not expect to hear about this movie. Give it a chance.

6) Army of Darkness - (Max...but see above with the other movies in the Evil Dead franchise) Sam Raimi crushed it here. My favorite Evil Dead movie, and something I'll probably rewatch every couple of years. The humor is the best of the franchise so far, and even though it goes a bit off the rails in the second act, the third act sticks the landing in every way possible. Costuming and special effects are pretty solid for an early 90's movie. Bruce Campbell gives us an Ash that we haven't seen in the previous two movies, and this version is my favorite by far.

7) Past Lives - (Theaters) One of my most anticipated movies of the year, and had a top five trailer of all time. Sadly, very disappointed in this one. I was hoping for a heartfelt love story with dramatic stakes, but the movie has such low energy, and one of the two main characters is so personality-less and uninteresting that it killed the film. The relationship isn't depicted very well on screen, and we are simply told that these two people are important to each other and rarely if every shown it. I wish I had better things to say about this.

8) Wedding Crashers - (Netflix) Revisiting this movie for literally around the 30th time in my life, I still rate it as the greatest comedy movie ever created. Much to the annoyance of my wife and anyone around me I can quote 90% of this movie, and unfortunately do when watching it. I'm proud to say this has even aged fairly well, and Vince Vaughn gives the peak performance of his career. "I'm all state I can make it rain out here if I want to."

-JH