Shower Beer Vol XII: 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 Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead - (Hulu) I had been aware of this movie for quite awhile; probably because of the pretty creative title and it being one of Christina Applegate's first movies. I was WAYY off on the premise. I was under the impression that it's about a wild night with a babysitter wherein the children accidentally kill her, and spend the rest of the time trying to hilariously cover it up. This is actually set over the course of a few weeks and follows a group of siblings who become independent when essentially left to fend for themselves by their mom. While there are some comedic moments, it's actually kind of sad and has more heart to it than I anticipated. It still ends up being ridiculous, and has a few characters that are basically caricatures. Not a full recommend from me, but it was solid.

2) Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives S1 - (Max) Went back and started from the beginning with the OG season of one of America's staple shows on Food Network that introduced us to the man Guy Fieri. The show starts a bit slow as Guy hasn't really developed his persona yet, and focuses on mainly coastal restaurants with the Northeast getting a lot of play, and Northern California. While there are of course some delicious looking items, there was a restaurant in I believe New Jersey that served the most disgusting looking onion rings I've seen in awhile. Also there is a bit of controversy as according to an app I use to track my television viewing called the TV Time App, the second episode of the show entitled "That's Italian" is nowhere to be found on Max. I performed a cursory search of season 2 and did not find it there either, so I think this is conspiratorial enough to think the Illuminati is involved.

3) Guy's Grocery Games S4 and S5 - (Max) Are you noticing a trend here? The wife and I absolutely devour this show while we eat, and I have to say that in seasons four and five the judges are out for blood and the shopping spree reaches an all time high difficulty. Guy has now incorporated the "odd or even" game wherein the chefs are limited to either only using the odd or even number aisles which effectively eliminates either meats, or produce every time. For the first time in the show Guy also brought back former contestants who didn't win, but were considered fan favorites which was really cool. I'm excited to keep plowing through the show as it's just an incredible comfort watch, and they're constantly reinventing the game while keeping the core conceit the same which works very well.

4) Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons - (Max) If you've been around our pod for awhile you know I'm a big fan of DC animated fare. While in the last half decade since we've been fully removed from the Bruce Timm-verse of shows and movies and DC has effectively rebooted the quality has wained a bit, it's still a consistent source of good content. This movie however is an utter piece of flaming dog shit. While Michael Chiklis brings something solid to Slade Wilson, the story is unbelievably derivative and boring as hell, and the title makes no fucking sense at all. There isn't a single idea in this movie that you haven't seen before, and while there are some pretty sick action set pieces, for the most part the animation is pretty trash.

5) Heart of Stone - (Netflix) While I'm fully aware this was entirely cooked up by the Netflix algorithm, I'm a sucker for these action movies. I love both the Extraction films, and I enjoyed Red Notice way more than I should. Gal Gadot does exactly what you'd expect, and while this movie definitely has no business being over two hours long, it manages to keep the plot moving well enough to not lose it's focus. I have to give credit to Jamie Dornan who was my absolute favorite part of this movie, and is someone who I have unfairly shit on many times in the past. I hope as he is reading this blog post he will accept my apology.

6) Where the Crawdads Sing - (Netflix) I have not read the book, but I'm always game for a murder mystery set as a period piece. The performances in this are pretty unbalanced and are definitely the weakest part. As far as books being adapted as movies go, this seems to work pretty well as the story doesn't span too long of a time period to make it difficult to translate to the screen. It wains a bit in the second act as it gets a bit distracted with a few side characters and their development, but manages to stick the landing in the end.

7) Stand By Me - (Netflix) This one has been on my radar for awhile as many people tout it as one of the best coming of age movies ever made. I have to say it blew me away even with my high expectations, and nearly cracked my top 100 movies of all time list. Utilizing narration to perfection, and helping to encapsulate that moment of lost innocence where as a kid you know there is no going back and your burgeoning teenage years are upon you are what makes this movie so great. River Phoenix is incredible, and Will Wheaton gives the performance of a lifetime. This might become an every other year watch for me.

8) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - (Max) Getting us in the mood for Halloween, we did a watch along movie commentary for the OG Freddy Krueger slasher. I claim to be one of the Horror hounds on the podcast, and somehow I did not know Wes Craven directed this. While it is of course dated, that's the charm and it is so ambitious and fun that it will definitely be in my Halloween rotation going forward. The practical effects are swings for the fences, and it's the first movie for Johnny Depp who you basically want to see get murdered the whole movie just for the enjoyment of watching this brash heartthrob get shredded apart.

-JH