Shower Beer Vol XL: 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) It (2017) - (Max) Andy Muschietti (not going to check if that’s spelled right) is a Director I have a soft spot for. I think his Flash movie was better than people give it credit for, and this movie is pretty fucking fun. Skaarsgard is creepy as hell, and the period setting of the 80’s is something I always have a soft spot for. The relationship with the kids is crucial, and it works in every way. If you’re talking one of the better horror movies of the past decade I think this has to be on the backend of any respectable list.

2) It Chapter Two - (Max) So It from 2017 I loved, and here we load up a solid cast of adults playing the same kids from Derry we previously met. Unfortunately this thing is bloated, and in the last twenty minutes goes completely off the rails. I did like a lot of the setup in learning a few things about Pennywise, but the juice ends up not being worth the squeeze and all stakes seem to go out the window when the CGI fest ending gets going.

3) Alien: Resurrection - (Hulu) What an utter pile of shit. I’m a big Alien-head, and even love Prometheus. This is the worst in the franchise if you exclude AVP, and it’s not even close. Alien III felt like a departure from the franchise, and if this was trying to get back to it’s roots it failed miserably. The whole premise is so inherently stupid to begin with, and when you couple that with humans that even for a horror franchise make dumb decisions it just totally loses the audience. I saw Joss Whedon penned the script and it makes me wonder how people found him to be such a wunderkind and gave him Buffy.

4) Wicker Park - (Digital rental) Confusing as fuck, but a decently fun ride. Josh Hartnett playing a guy who has to choose between two 10’s is something I think we can all relate to. The twists and turns sort of collapse in on themselves, but once Rose Byrne enters the fray things really pick up. Matthew Lillard is Matthew Lillard which is all you want from him. The final shot is perfectly early 2000’s cringe and I absolutely love it. I think this is a movie that film students love as it’s full of metaphor and allegory, but I love it because it’s a product of it’s time both narratively and visually and we just don’t get movies like this anymore.

5) Summer House S9 - (Peacock) While I can say this is one of the least dramatic seasons of Summer House, in a gross way I’ve matured and grown with this cast to the point where it’s still so watchable because it feels like I’m hanging out with my friends. We have some interesting developments with Lindsay and Carl, and even though Carl is annoyingly the voice of reason for the house he still mixes it up when he needs to. The real start of the season is our boy Jessie Solomon who begins dating a model who’s in the house named Lexi. I’m sure you can guess how that goes. A side plot that also has some nice juice to it is how Ciara still hates West and wants him to die a fiery death, but West is everybody’s favorite and works to try to win her over by the end of the Summer. Also one of the better reunion episodes that this show has had.

6) Scooby-Doo! In Arabian Nights - (Tubi) While this thing is barely a Scooby Doo movie because the bulk of the runtime is devoted to two anthology stories that don’t feature him, it’s still a pretty fun watch. My two month old daughter fucking loved it, so that gives it a half star bump. The Aladdin parody was my favorite, and there are honestly some scenes that I prefer to the Disney version. Don’t get me wrong that film is by far superior, but this takes a bit of a more ruthless approach to how the Sultan is running Agrabah. The Sinbad the sailor plot is pretty ridiculous, but I laughed a few times at the idea of our Macguffin being a golden tooth brush.

7) Death Race (2008) - (Max) Jason Statham must have had to dig deep into his bag of acting tools to portray this character. A grizzled man with fighting skills who speaks little, but is willing to do what’s necessary. Throw in some Tyrese Gibson driving a car and calling people “mother fucker” repeatedly and I don’t know what more you could ask for. The practical effects are to be admired, and there are a few really cool deaths. I feel like the premise here has so much more to it that can be explored, but instead we focus on the tired old plot of the prison inmates who are really innocent and shouldn’t even be here. I haven’t seen the original, but I’ve heard good things and will definitely check it out.

8) The Monkey - (Digital rental) A lot of Stephen King in this squad blog I noticed. The Monkey was a pleasant surprise. The trailers didn’t do much for me, but I saw a few positive things about it online and figured I’d give it a poke. Theo James pulls off the twin portrayal well, and even though the plot device is utterly ridiculous and unexplained we get some of the best kills I’ve seen in a horror movie in a few years. It has that Oz Perkins levity that you hope for, and it’s a really interesting follow up to Longlegs for him. I actually think I prefer this type of Oz Perkins horror. Tatiana Maslany is also great in it and delivers some crucial dialogue throughout. Def a recommend from me.

9) The Hills S3 - (Paramount Plus) What are we gonna do about Heidi and Spencer? Well promote Heidi obviously! In season three of the Hills we see Lauren turning into the nagging shrew, and running off another roommate in Audrina. Justin Bobby returns as the lamest most pretentious dumbass in the Hills-verse, and we get introduced to Spencer Pratt’s sister Stephanie who you can always tell is one espresso martini away from a full on mental breakdown. The show does start to feel like it’s losing steam towards the end of this very long season, but I know Kristin Cavalarri is about to show up and just blow up this entire social world so that’s exciting.

10) A Deadly American Marriage - (Netflix) Holy shit this frustrated me. I knew little to nothing about this story, and at the rate Netflix pops out these true crime docs I’m surprised I even found this on their platform. I won’t spoil anything because I really do think this could result in a few different opinions on what really happened, but this murder to me seemed pretty cut and dry. You get a family where a father had two kids from a previous marriage where his wife passed away, and he is the murder victim. What takes place is the two kids aged five and eight being drawn into the investigation, and being manipulated from both sides to craft favorable narratives. It inevitably turns into a custody battle between the victims family, and his wife that spans almost a decade. One huge factor in me liking this was the participants they got to be interviewed. Sometimes when you see these we only get to hear from one side, and that’s not the case here.

-JH