Shower Beer Vol XXIII: 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) Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure - (Digital Rental) Not sure what’s so mystical about this, but as far as DB movies go it’s in my upper half thus far (there are only four so take that as you will). It’s cool getting introduced to Tien and Chiazou, and I’ll be honest I had no idea Chiazou was into chicks so to hear he had a wife in this was pretty mind blowing. I mean do you man whatever floats your boat, but when they introduced his missing wife as the main plot point I had to pause the movie and do some research to make sure this was canon. The villain in this is pretty formidable, but spends the entire third act acting like a little bitch an exclusively fighting children in one on one combat. I wish Tien would’ve not been so spineless, but this is the early stages of his character. He is a long way from the guy who took on final form Cell one on one with his tribeam.

2) Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel - (Tubi) I watched the OG Hell House LLC about six months ago, and after doing some research and seeing that it was conceived as a trilogy I knew I’d eventually get around to watching it’s sequels. This movie is found footage like the original, which I love, but doesn’t have as creative a way to embed the camera into the story at times which I usually wouldn’t mind, but it lends itself to some pretty bad acting performances as a result. The lore of the Abaddon Hotel is delved into a lot, as you might expect from the title, and that stuff works pretty well and is creepy as hell. The scares are effective, but few and far between, and the build up to a lot of the horror elements is just dragged out too much. I gave it a pretty rough rating on Letterboxd, but I’d prob watch it again with some of my friends who are horror hounds like me.

3) Bloodline Killer - (Digital Rental) Picture a Halloween ripoff, but with no score to be found, and Tyrese. The killer in this movie and their mask alone are what got me in the door. It’s a pretty interesting premise and even though I think we see too much of the baddie, it still manages to build some sense of impending fear. It’s like if you spent half of the Halloween movie following Michael Myers home when he cracks a beer after a long day and throws on the Cubs game. It would begin to lessen the pending doom you feel wondering when and where he will show up next. One other thing that started to bother me with this, and I try to not let this stuff get to me, are some really idiotic decisions made by the investigating police in the film. There’s one scene in particular with Tyrese that was just so ridiculous I almost passed out from rolling my eyes so far into the back of my head. It is really cool to see Shawnee Smith in something, and she’s had a good year with this and Saw X both coming out. Prob won’t end up in my top five horror movies of the year by the time it’s all said and done, but for now it is holding down a spot.

4) Dragon Ball: The Path to Power - (Digital Rental) The final Dragon Ball movie which has me a bit relieved as I know this show was made more for kids, and even though I’m immature as hell I’m not the target demo. The animation on this film is BY FAR the best of the four, and looks like it was made for a theatrical release. It is a reimagining of the Goku meeting the gang origin story so it’s not really canon to the show, but basically plays the same beats. Here Goku and friends are fighting my favorite Dragon Ball villain, the Red Ribbon Army. There is a bit of an homage to Dragon Ball Z and the Android 16 arc which is cool. The set pieces are inventive, and have Goku using Nimbus and his power pole in some really cool ways. Yamcha helps a bit on the periphery, but there’s no Krillin in this one. The one big drawback for me is the overtly sexual stuff with Bulma that I just get weirded out by. Aside from that, very fun flick and feels like a legit movie.

5) Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire - (Digital Rental) I’m a big Kong-head so I had this on my anticipated list for this year pretty early. I loved Godzilla vs. Kong, and even though this one delays itself in getting the band back together for quite awhile, there are some pretty sick action set pieces. I appreciate the way they try to get creative with the monsters Kong and Godzilla are fighting, and up the stakes with this entry. The human characters are hit and miss, but as always they are relegated to really just get us from one fight to the next which is their role. I’ll eat these things up every few years if they keep popping them out.

6) Waiting… - (Digital Rental) One of my favorite comedies of all time and I figured it was time to give it a rewatch. While it doesn’t hold up in some areas with a few problematic jokes, the cast is fucking incredible and the setting of following one night at a shitty restaurant and all it’s hijinks is genius and super relatable for a lot of people. For me this was really my first introduction to Ryan Reynolds as a comedic actor, and as we all know Van Vilder was soon after and really catapulted him. The sequel destroys a lot of the character development for a few key players in this one so I’d avoid it at all costs, but this has a ton of great laughs and the monologue by Mitch at the end is iconic.

7) Summer House S8 - (Peacock) Oh boy…my guilty pleasure show just went from six to midnight. Season eight of Summer House might be the first or second most explosive one yet. I won’t spoil it if you’re someone like me with no life who actually gets a kick out of this trash, but big shit goes down in the finale. Let me just say that I’m licking my chops thinking about the reunion show next week. One detractor I’ll say about this season is a few of the main players from previous seasons (looking at you Danielle) have become so predictable with their behavior and reactions to situations that I can pretty much already tell you what they’re going to do before an episode. We need some fresh blood next season Bravo!

8) MoviePass, MovieCrash - (Max) I remember always being so intrigued by the concept of MoviePass, and thinking probably the same thing many of you guys did when it first came out which is “how the hell can this company afford to have this service at such a ridiculously low price?”. If you don’t remember, MoviePass was a service where you’d pay a flat fee (initially $10/month) for unlimited trips to the movie theaters to see any film you’d like. The Max documentary follows the founders of MoviePass through it’s inception, and inevitable downfall about half a decade after it’s launch. I wish there was more digging into the debauchery and drama that took place within the company, but the stake holders interviewed for this film either weren’t aware of all the ins and outs of that stuff, or just didn’t want to divulge the juicy details. Still this is a pretty good cautionary tale for startups that fly too close to the sun, and I learned a few new things that I didn’t know about the company.

9) The Pagemaster - (Digital Rental) Holy shit this movie is amazing. It was a staple of my childhood, and I had the itch to go back and revisit it, and not only does it hold up, but I think it got even better. Culkin in his prime just after both Home Alone movies, and of course the legendary Christopher Lloyd. Also we get some great voice acting performances from Whoopi Goldberg and Sir Patrick Stewart. This is a mind blowing visual piece of cinema, and one of the most creative story ideas you will ever see. I’m tempted to go back and rewatch it again right now because it’s that awesome.

10) Dragon Ball Z: Cooler’s Revenge - (Digital Rental) I’m going through a rewatch of Dragon Ball Z the show, and just finished the Namek saga ending with the demise of Frieza so it was perfect timing to watch this as that’s where it fits in the canon. I love Cooler, and really the whole Cold family as antagonists in this show, and this movie gives us a bit of a glimpse into their empire. I wish it was an actual saga in the show instead of just this one off movie as I feel like there could have been some really cool stuff to dig into with Cooler and Frieza’s relationship and how they have been jockeying for power with their Dad throughout their lives, but we do get two movies with Cooler to whet our whistle. Piccolo is the unsung hero here which is a nice wrinkle, and Goku does avoid using the spirit bomb thank God.

-JH