Shower Beer Vol XX: 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) Lenny Cooke - (Amazon Prime Rental) If you don't know the story, Lenny Cooke was a Brooklyn high school basketball star in 2002 who was ranked ahead of Lebron James by some very reputable publications who never made it to the NBA. That's as much of the story as I knew, and to be honest this documentary does little to fill in the gaps. It has some great footage from his high school days at various basketball camps, and gives a great look into the people around Cooke who could very well be the reason for him never reaching his potential. The problem is it's fly on the wall style makes it impossible to figure out what the narrative is, and where things really go off the tracks with him. The movie picks up 15 years after his "prime", and while it's tragic and very candid, I have no fucking idea how he ended up where he did.

2) X-Men: The Animated Series S1 - (Disney +) I'm rewatching this show in anticipation for the X-Men 97 series that just came out, and finished the first season. A few thoughts, some are very obvious. First we all know the intro music is fucking banging off the charts, but it's incorporated in several culminating fight scenes and I honestly get dizzy by hoe much it pumpes me up. Second the series needs more Morph in the narrative. I understand he comes in early in season 2, but his disappearance in the pilot episode is meant to be pretty devastating, and he's never seen or heard from again the rest of the season. The fact the X-Men don't mention him on the daily kind of make them seem like assholes for not giving a shit. Lastly, The sentinels are a great foil, and while Magneto himself is absent for large chunks at a time he is a very ominous villain who I expect a lot of in the next few season. I'll close with saying Master Mold in the season finale was a massive wet fart, but the show had built up so much goodwill at that point it didn't matter to me at all.

3) Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies - (Funimation App) I'm a huge Dragon Ball Z fan, and I realize that Dragon Ball is aiming for a different demographic which is not me. I've always found it amusing, but not as fun as it's sequel series. This movie was a microcosm of that. Some interesting aspects with a villain corrupted by a treasure with an insatiable appetite for gold, but it then collapses in on it's emphasis on kiddy whimsy that it's hard to really give a shit by the end. There are some cool set pieces and the lair where the final fight happens is pretty sick. Yamcha though...bro wtf are you doing?

4) Guy's Grocery Games S12 & S13 - (Max) I've been crushing this show like no other the past few months. Seasons 12 and 13 have some pretty interesting games that Guy introduces like the grocrey masters tourney where he brings back past winners to compete against each other, and another similar concept where he brings back people who had devastating losses in previous episodes for a chance at redemption. In season 13 he ups the ante by making things personal with a twin episode, a family themed episode, and to the detriment of the show having Reverend Run from Run DMC (not a joke he's literally on this show) as a judge. The dude just fucking loves everything he eats it's like me going on a show where you ask me which dog is the cutest....they're all adorable bring out some more!

5) Spider-Man:No Way Home - (The streaming app on any Southwest Airlines flight) On a flight back from NYC I saw this on the list of free movies offered by Southwest and it had been about a year since I watched it. Well...it still slaps hard as imaginable and is a 5/5 film for me. Fan service me up bitch as I'm like a pig in slop while watching this. The emotional core of the Peter and Aunt May relationship has been invested in so much previously that it works very well in this and the third act is so incredible it's one of my favorite film moments ever.

6) Ready or Not - (Amazon Prime rental) I missed this one a few years ago when it came out even though it had me intrigued. The premise is right down my alley as someone who appreciates a good cat and mouse murder movie. Here wa have a film that doesn't take itself too seriously, and while it doesn't do as much with the concept as I'd like, it has really fun and ridiculous characters and every time it feels like it's about to slow down it picks things back up. I gave this an entire one star bump based on the last minute alone. I want to see Samara Weaving in more stuff so let's make that happen.

7) Werewolves Within - (Hulu) Any horror-comedy I'll give a chance to. Throw in the chick from the AT&T commercials who I've always found hilarious, and I was willing to give this one a shot. I was not disappointed. While the horror elements are a bit too sparse for me, the comedy is not, and the murder mystery element of this drives the story in some really fun places. The cinematography punches above it's weight, and whatever game this is based on I definitely. need to give a try. It makes me want to go up north and take the job as a sheriff in a small town where I assume my big city ways will produce instant results and make crime a thing of the past.

8) You'll Never Find Me - (Shudder) I'm an absolute stan for Shudder originals and have loved almost all of the ones that I've seen. When I saw the trailer for this it was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. I almost fell asleep during this, and cannot believe it has the audacity to roll out here with an hour forty minute runtime. There is no fucking plot here, and all it is are about five different monologues that play like they are audition pieces for third year actors at NYU. I don't use the word "pretentious" very much, but that's what this is. It's beneath Shudder to greenlight something like this, and I feel like after being so excited for this movie I need to get a CT scan. Don't get me wrong, I'll be first in line for the next Shudder original, but chalk this up to a loss.

9) Road House - (Amazon Prime) We're huge fans of the OG Road House on the pod as you probably could've guessed, but I was very open to this remake based on both the cast, and how it seemed to really be taking more inspiration from the original as opposed to tying to straight up copy + paste it. Gylenhaal is perfect in this role, and his Dalton takes some of the cooler aspects of Patrick Swayze's while reimagining him with an interesting modern take. I was a bit underwhelmed by Billy Magnussen as the villain, but he does have his moments. Connor McGregor needs to be nowhere near a movie set for the rest of his life. I'll tolerate him in this one instance, but keep him out of movies going forward please. Lastly the final set piece is incredibly well shot, and feels insanely visceral. I think I broke a rib at one point just from clutching so hard on one of the attacks.

10) Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV - (Max) The four part Max documentary that basically aims to ruin any fan of Nickelodeon in the 90's by telling the story of a man named Dan Schneider who created a lot of the dumbass shows we were obsessed with, but who also was a fucking lunatic who employed several child groomers and perverts abusing the young cast. While I don't necessarily think everything said in the series is unbiased, it's hard to deny how toxic the culture was and how exploited a lot of these child actors were. The ones interviewed are clearly very fucked up form their experiences, and have an axe to grind against the people who were in charge and either turned a blind eye, or helped perpetuate their abuse. There are some pretty big surprise interviews in this, and it will probably make you cringe to see a bunch of clips from the shows we used to think were hilarious and how badly they've aged.

-JH