Shower Beer Vol XLIV: 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) Pokemon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back - Evolution - (Netflix) Possibly the worst title ever for a movie, but still a pretty fun watch. I felt the whole time like it was eerily similar to the OG Pokemon movie, then I began reading that was intentional. I love this animation style for some reason even though the character models are a bit clunky. The original voice cast doesn't return, but it isn't much of a problem. The fights and ominous threat that is Mewtwo work really well, and after the first ten minutes he serves as a really interesting villain. If you're a fan of Nurse Joy she also gets a much bigger role in this than you'd expect, and Brock is as horny as ever so that gag keeps going. The Mew vs. Mewtwo fight lives up to the hype, but the final battle gets a bit over the top even for a Pokemon movie. The original theatrical film felt like it had more heart maybe because it was basically canon to the Anime. If you're a Pokemon trainer I'd recommend giving this thing a shot, but it's not better than the first movie.

2) Fear Street: Prom Queen - (Netflix) I'm a big fan of the Fear Street franchise, and even though this one isn't part of that original trilogy, it does end up wedging it's way into the canon in a way that I don't mind. The cast here might be the best in terms of name recognition for a Fear Street movie with Katherine Waterston, Chris Klein, and Ariana Greenblatt. The 80's setting is what makes this franchise so great as they constantly take the kills and gore into a different time period each time. It's definitely the most grounded of the Fear Street movies and serves as a straight up slasher. There are some pretty solid kills, and the Prom setting is always a good way to murder some teens with efficiency. The ending of the movie confused me at first because I actually watched this before I watched any of the other Fear Street movies. Of the four in the series I'd say this one probably ranks third, but it's still a solid slasher flick.

3) Materialists - (Digital rental) Hyped as the artsy fartsy movie of the year, Materialists gives us the lovable Pedro Pascal with the surprisingly growing on us Dakota Johnson. Is it weird that currently I'm the least interested in Chris Evans being in this? The movie has a really clunky script and the characters talk in the way that no human being has ever spoken to anyone, and I'm still not sure what the story really is as it feels like such little develops throughout the film. There are a few scenes that were very well acted and the runtime in the second act is really well paced. The ultimate message of the movie, if there is one, is totally lost on me and most of the characters I end up either not giving a shit about, or the ones I do really root for end up getting the shaft. Maybe this is one of those movies where I just don't "get it" and it's made for people much smarter than me. I'd love to hear a pretentious critic break this down and tell me why I'm stupid as hell for not really enjoying it. It's not a turd by any means, but not one that I'd give my stamp of approval to.

4) The Hills S4 - (Paramount +) Still wondering where the fuck Kristin Cavilarri is at in this show. In Season four Lauren gets boring as fuck, and I think it's her last season on the show without doing any research. We lose Heidi towards the end as she sets up her own show "The City" which I may give a try even though I can't imagine her getting into any juicy drama she's just too nice. You'll never believe how Audrina lets Justin Bobby walk all over her constantly this season, and how even after everyone and their dog tells her she's acting like an idiot she insists on learning the hard way by getting embarrassed by him at every turn. I've seen two seasons of Laguna Beach, and obviously four seasons of this show and still have yet to figure out why anyone hangs out with Lo. She's a nice enough person, but my god is she annoying and in any social situation she is unhappy and bored. Here's hoping that whenever I get around to season five Kristin shows up and starts fights with everyone for no reason.

5) The Blob (1958) - (HBO Max) Bryan Banner and I did a movie commentary on this movie as it is allegedly a classic monster movie, and we have a soft spot for those. I'll just be blunt, this movie fucking sucks. The actual blob is shown like for five minutes and all the characters in this aren't even poorly written enough to be funny. The people cast to play teenagers in this are like forty years old which is funny at first, but then you realize there's an attempt at a competent script that wedges it's way into the Blobness of it all and it really ruins the fun. The movie doesn't lean near enough into the zany and wacky elements that is promises, and I was really hoping for something more akin to Killer Klowns From Outer Space. We ended up with something closer to War of the Worlds (the Tom Cruise one) and I have to say it ends up being both boring as fuck, and not near enough genre to give us what we want. Hard pass on this one, and I'm not just saying that because it's an old film because I do have a lot of fun with those.

6) Andor S2 - (Disney +) Rogue One is one of my favorite movies of all time, and probably my second favorite Star Wars film so this show has had me on the hook since the jump. When I heard we were getting a season two I was both excited, but wondering how much more runway we had narratively until we ran into Rogue One. Here we bump it right up to the start of that movie, but the payoff is evident. It's so well acted that there are entire episodes where I forget it's in the Star Wars universe and it's just like a good HBO drama. Stellan Skarsgaard is in peak form and is an absolute scene stealer. I have to say though I don't know what the fuck Forrest Whitaker is doing as Saw Gerrera in this. He's so over the top and sounds like he smokes two packs of Menthol's a day which as we know are just as cancerous as death sticks. The character of Bix is so well written that she makes you forget that Andor is even the titular character. Could it use some more action? Yes definitely, but it's hard to levy that as a complaint when the inner workings of the Empire and how they set up the politics of building the Death Star are so well done.

7) Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - (Digital rental) Love the Mission Impossible movies, but what are we doing here with a near three hour runtime? The stunts are what you'd expect and top notch on top of wildly creative. The story line here falls victim to the Fast and Furious trope of needing to always get more and more end of the world and threatening, and at this point I don't even know what they could even do to "up the stakes". I got confused as fuck towards the end of the first act, but things smooth out a bit and in the second act when the team is essentially split up the movie really gains it's momentum. Problem is it still has nearly an hour and a half of runtime after that and if they didn't essentially already split this into two parts I'd have suggested it again. I think I'm happy with this franchise being put to bed at this point and ending on a somewhat high note, but if you threw a spinoff at me or brought back Jeremy Renner's character in some fashion I think I'd still be there to support it.

8) Love Island: Beyond the Villa S1 - (Peacock) After season six of Love Island USA was such a big hit this felt like an inevitability in some fashion. I'm a bit surprised that they haven't tried this previously in parlaying the Love Island season with a reality show that follows the Islanders after they leave the Villa. I have to say this really needed either more structure to work well, or a better way to orchestrate drama and fights with the Islanders. What we ended up with is essentially a series of events put together to get them all back into he same place, but they're mostly in happy relationships and there's really only one dynamic that functions as contentious and we need like four or five. If you're asking if I'm advocating for these people getting drunk and arguing with each other more I absolutely am. Kaylor still have the most ridiculous name I've heard in awhile, and she's the only one crazy enough to make shit interesting here. She's not meant to be your star player and functions better as a key contributor in role player fashion. If there is a season two I won't be there, unless they can promise to really expose Kenny and put him on blast for whatever happened between him and Jana. And just to clarify it's pronounced "Juh Nae" and not "Jan Uh". Read a book culture yourself.

9) On Deadly Ground - (Digital rental) If I told you this movie was directed by Steven Segal, featured Michael Caine as the villain, and there's a psychedelic hallucination scene where Segal gets a bear in a head lock would you even need more convincing? The movie gets as ridiculous in the second act as you'd expect something with Segal at the helm would. It ends with a beat you over the fucking head message on the environment that I feel like came out of nowhere, or maybe I just missed it between drop kicks from Segal's character. There are a few classic fight scenes where Segal uses his patented technique of letting people charge at him out of control, and he side steps them and uses their momentum against them while exerting such little effort that it looks like he's using the fucking force. Don't let anyone tell you this was a paycheck gig for Sir Michael Caine, because my boy is bringing it. John C. McGinley makes a sizeable appearance as number two to Caine, and even though his character is written with all the charisma of a wooden board, it's still fun to see him in something. The movie is awful, but there are enough fun moments of stupidity to make this a recommend for me.

10) Worth the Wait - (Tubi) We need a good anthology rom com every few years just to keep us honest. I was hoping that Worth the Wait would be that for 2025, and while it definitely scratches that itch, it's missing something in the way of charm that I was really hoping for. I think the problem here lies in how boring half of the storylines are, and how one of them is really heavy subject matter that feels so out of place compared to the other stories with much more levity. I always admire these movies with how they interweave the characters in the second act with a few surprises with how the characters know each other, and this movie pulls that part off perfectly. It's got a great cast which helps elevate it, but ultimately these movies depend on a balance of the storylines to help keep the tone consistent and we don't have that here. I think if the Lana Condor arc was it's own movie this would've worked better. I feel bad for Elodie Young because I feel like she's a solid talent, but here she gets the worst of all the arcs, and I haven't seen her in much of anything except some shitty show on Fox that lasted like a season.

-JH