Shower Beer Vol XLIII: 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) Two For The Money - (Tubi) I feel like this movie is a bit forgotten when you consider the McConnasaince and the fact that Al Pacino is dialed up to eleven in it which would get butts in seats. There aren’t enough movies made about sports gambling in my opinion, so this one scratches an itch for me. I’ve never really gotten the Rene Russo as the super hot female lead, but she’s capable in everything she’s in. We get a young Jeremy Piven chewing the scenery and showing that he’s disturbingly good at playing the douche bag roll. I’d say to reload your Bovada account before you watch this because it’s gonna have you wanting to lay down a three game parlay with a few props sprinkled in there.

2) Gremlins 2: The New Batch - (Digital rental) I’m still not sure if I like the Gremlin movies, or if they’re total dog shit. Here we have the Gremlins taking over a skyscraper in what I believe is New York City, and the characters involved are almost as ridiculous as they are. Christopher Lee shows up in this as some evil scientist, and he’s the best part of the movie. Of course because we can’t have nice things we barely get any Lee at all. The Gremlins are complete assholes in this movie with the lone Gremlin you have to root for. I’m not exactly sure how the main human character knows the Gremlins lore, but the kid is a fucking stats nerd who knows all about not feeding them at midnight and not letting them get wet. I’m a sick person so even though I didn’t really enjoy this one I’ll probably check out the next one in the franchise.

3) Timecop - (Digital rental) After watching Bloodsport I had a bloodlust for more JCVD, and Timecop was next on the list. You cannot make a simpler sale than telling me Van Damme is going to kick the shit out of people as a time traveling police officer. This movie however is nowhere near as ridiculous as it should be, and if I’m being honest JCVD kind of gives a good performance which really disappoints me. He has a job to do, and it’s to overact and do the splits in between kicking the shit out of disposable henchmen. Sadly neither of those happen here, but the movie is very watchable and doesn’t drown under the high concept. In fact I feel like it really underutilizes the time traveling aspect of the movie.

4) Sealab 2021 S1 - (Max) Twelve minute episodes and utter ridiculousness every time. Sealab is up there with Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and the Brak Show as my midnight watches during the Summer that take me back to my teenage years. This show has the dumbest fucking humor, but that’s why you visit the Sealab. Stormy is my favorite character, but he doesn’t get much to do in season one. The highlight is the captain and his inability to refrain from blowing up the Sealab at every given opportunity. The episode where he pays to renovate the lab is probably my favorite. You probably have to be high to enjoy this show to it’s fullest potential so keep that in mind. Looking forward to watching season two as I think that’s where it really is in it’s prime.

5) Tommy Boy - (Netflix) One of the greatest comedy movies of all time. A buddy of mine and I realized we hadn’t rewatched it in about a decade and saw it was leaving Netflix so we fired it back up. All the jokes still hit, and the Spade and Farley duo is one wae got taken from us way too soon. The scene on the sales trip where Tommy takes the model cars on the guys desk and gives a reenactment of what happens when you’re using the “other guys” brake pads is iconic. I do feel bad for anyone who watches this movie with me because I can’t help but quote the whole damn thing. “All out only got diesel. Better head to the next station!”

6) Fear Street: Part One - 1994 - (Netflix) If you’ve checked out the pod before you know I’m a huge slasher guy. You also know I’m a 90’s kid through and through. The Fear Street books are some of my favorite, and I will fight anyone at the bar who says a bad thing about R.L. Stine. I have no idea why I didn’t give these movies a poke when Netflix first released them, but better late than never. I think 1994 is my favorite of the series, and that’s saying something because I really enjoy all of them. 1994 starts off the trilogy with a classic opening scene that is akin to Scream, and with a killer whose mask is badass which I feel is very important. We get a great setting of Shadyside and Sunnyvale’s football rivalry and how Sunnyvale talks mad shit to Shadyside because they just can’t stop murdering their own students. We get to meet a few characters who carry over to the other movies, but this one has an interesting ending that feels both like a complete film, but really teases the story further in an interesting way.

7) Fear Street: Part Two - 1978 - (Netflix) Take everything I said about Fear Street 1994, but now we roll back the clock about twenty years and set it at one of the greatest places for slashers…a summer camp. Here we have a few of the characters from 1994 as teenagers trying to get through the epic color battle between Shadyside and Sunnyvale while campers are starting to turn up very dead. It starts with the fucking psycho camp nurse who lets be honest was either way off her meds, or way too on them from the jump. There are some great practical effects with the kills which help crank up the tension. I do have a bit of a critique for this movie in that it gets a bit more supernatural than it’s predecessor, but just as it appears it’s going to go full The Conjuring it pulls the reins back and delivers on the promise of some dumb teens getting fucking chopped up.

8) Fear Street: Part Three - 1666 - (Netflix) Wrapping up this trilogy of Fear Street movies we go to the year of our lord 1666 where a story akin to the Salem Witch Trials takes place, but with the familiar actors from the previous Fear Street movies playing their ancestors. We get a lesbian witch sex scene in the woods which I’m sure we all saw coming, and a classic “She’s a witch I seent it!!” situation happening at the local town hall after something bad happens. Ultimately what I like about this movie is it doesn’t waste time in the period setting, and actually ends up in a different place than it starts which is all I will say without giving too many spoilers. I was initially wondering why the movies were released in order going further back in time with each entry instead of telling the story in chronological order, but that is very much explained here and has a good narrative reason for being the case. This is probably my third favorite of the three movies, but it’s really close with 1998 for a second place tie.

9) Here Comes a New Challenger - (Tubi) This is a documentary about Street Fighter II the video game, and it’s massive cult following and emergence into the cultural zeitgeist. We get details on it’s development, subsequent re-releases with updates, and the Street Fighter movie and anime that spawned from it. Quite frankly the story here isn’t too interesting, even though the game is badass and iconic. There isn’t much drama with how it got made, sold, or came to be so popular. Additionally it’s way too fucking long clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes. You don’t get too many interesting characters for the talking head interviews, but I do love how there are some absolute mouth breathing psycho Street Fighter fans that we meet, and I mean that as a compliment. It did inspire me to go watch the anime movie which was pretty sick, and I didn’t know there was a short lived tv show that was basically GI Joe reskinned as Street Fighter that was not popular with fans.

10) Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie - (Digital rental) This is what I think Street Fighter II fans had in mind when they heard initially that they were getting a live action movie. The plot centers around Bison using mind control (who the hell knew he could even do that) to alter the behavior of some of the street fighter characters and pit them against other fighters. I’m not pleased with how little screen time Blanka gets as this is really the Ryu and Ken show, but that’s to be expected. The action pulls no punches (pun definitely intended) and there is enough gore and an authenticity to the fighter’s styles from the games that any true fan will be pleased. Guile is the focal point of the story, but probably does like the fifth most fighting. There’s a badass Chun Li fight against the dude with the Wolverine claws whose name is forgetting me, and we are given set pieces in a bunch of cool locations. If you haven’t seen this movie and are at all a Street Fighter fan I highly recommend it.

-JH