Shower Beer Vol XXVI: 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) The Acolyte S1 - (Disney +) I know the opinions on this show are all over the map, and I’m really surprised how little I have to say about it. When it was first announced I was pumped as it would be the first live action Star Wars stuff we’ve gotten in the high republic era. I was even more excited when I heard it would essentially center around the first sith lord and apprentice. The show is just really poorly acted, and full of insanely dumb character choices. The action set pieces are one thing it really has going for it though, and it is almost reminiscent of the duel of the fates fight in The Phantom Menace when it’s at it’s peak. The finale had a tease that just feels annoying as I’m pretty sure it will never lead to anything. I’m not a huge stickler of Star Wars canon, but I know a lot of people online are mad that this retconned, or went against things that have already been established. That wasn’t too much of an issue for me, but I get the outrage to some degree.

2) In A Violent Nature - (VOD Rental) So the concept here is a ballsy one. It’s a slasher movie told entirely from the perspective of the killer. So think about it like a video game being played in the third person where you literally follow around the person murdering the teenagers. Even as they walk through the woods, or hang out waiting behind a shed. The narrative of the movie has to be kind of clunkily given to us through exposition that the killer hears from a distance, and my god is it delivered in a way that almost feels purposely cringe. I think the guts it takes to make a movie in this way is to be commended, but it really didn’t work for me. I was so fucking bored, especially during scenes where the character we’re following is just walking through the woods for literally 5-10 minutes. There are some pretty sick kills in the second act that don’t make it a complete failure, but overall it’s an experiment in film making that just didn’t bare out the proof of concept.

3) Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - (Max) Visually and in terms of sound one of the best movies of the year. George Miller has a flair for how to film an action set piece I’ll give him that. The world of Mad Max is really interesting, and this gives a lot of context to where we begin Fury Road. the performances are…interesting. Hemsworth is having the fucking time of his life, and there’s a really heavy burden put on him in this thing. I got a bit sick of him by the third act, but luckily that’s when Ana Taylor Joy finally got some dialogue! I think all these films are low risk low reward, meaning they’re never going to suck, but there’s certainly a ceiling in their enjoyment level as the action can only carry it so far. Definitely glad I watched it, but not quite as strong as Fury Road just because it felt a bit campy in parts.

4) Avengers: Infinity War - (Disney +) This movie is coming up on my list of top 100 movies of all time which we’re counting down on the pod so I won’t discuss it in too great of length here, suffice it to say I pick up on something new every time I watch this. It’s incredibly well crafted based on the amount of characters it has to juggle, and this time I particularly connected with Thor’s arc. His loss of Loki, Heimdall, and his people leads to him questioning everything he felt he was capable of at the end of Ragnarok when he had to deal with the truth that he might not be a naturally born leader. This arc comes full circle in Endgame, and his growth as a character is really well earned throughout these two movies. I still think that the Wanda and Vision arc is the core of this whole movie, which the very first time I saw it totally missed me. A 10/10, basically a perfect film don’t @ me.

5) A Quiet Place: Day One - (Theaters) I was really looking forward to this one. I’m a huge fan of this franchise, and the creatures have always intrigued the hell out of me. Their origin was something I thought we’d get some more details on here, but surprisingly we get less information on them than we do in any of the previous two films. Somehow, it really works. This has as strong an emotional narrative as the first movie, and there were people in my theater crying at the end of the film. While the character stuff is great, I don’t think the setting of NYC was utilized as creatively and effectively as it could’ve been. Imagine all the insanity with the loudest city in the country having been invaded by monsters who hunt based on sound. The sheer over saturation of noise, and how that would effect the attack, or could be utilized to the civilians advantage would’ve been interesting to see. We also don’t get as much of a feel of the scale of the invasion in this as I was hoping. The previous two films really only focus on a small town that gets attacked, and here I was wanting to know more about the motive or plan (or lack thereof) of the creatures in coming to Earth.

6) Dragon Ball Z: The Return of Cooler - (Crunchyroll) I had forgotten that Cooler is one of the few villains that gets multiple movies in the DBZ universe (I believe Broly being the other) and in my run through of all the films this was up next. I’m a little upset that his return comes directly after his first appearance as it feels super unjustified. The method with which they bring him back is pretty dumb, but the idea to have him attack New Namek instead of Earth was one I really liked. The Z fighters make some decent contributions compared to what they usually do, and Vegeta showing up and going Super Saiyan was the highlight of the movie for me. I wish the battle between Cooler and the two Super Saiyans was a bit longer because there were some sick moments. The whole Frieza family is really interesting to me, but that lore isn’t touched upon at all here. This feels like it really could’ve been an entire DBZ saga as opposed to just a 45 minute movie.

7) Before Sunrise - (Amazon Prime) This movie is pretty much iconic when it comes to romance movies and so I’ve been hearing about it for years. I know it’s part of a trilogy, and I’m sure I’ll get to the other two at some point. I’m not sure if I think Richard Linklater is a fucking genius, or the most pretentious Director that exists on planet Earth. On one hand something like Boyhood is pretty brilliant in it’s proof of concept, but he writes all his characters as these super douchey pseudo-intellectuals who are like “fuck society man I have a few analogies I’m going to spit out right now and that’ll tell you how to really live your life…also I’m broke.” This movie has an incredible second act, and the ending is my favorite part in how it both subverts the tropes of the genre, but also the visual homage to the night the two characters had together. I think I will say that this film is an overall win for me, but I have a feeling if I ever talked to Richard Linklater in a bar after one beer I’d be like “ok bro I’m gonna go sit over there now”.

8) Brats - (Hulu) I missed the craze of the Brat Pack by about a decade, but certainly know about their impact on Hollywood, and am a huge fan of John Hughes and a lot of the films that turned these actors into stars. This documentary is interesting, but not in the ways I thought going into it. The whole narrative is about the plight of being a young actor dubbed a member of the Brat Pack, and the negative affect it had on their public image, and subsequently their lives and careers. Most of the actors made it out alive with regards to still getting great roles, and at times it really comes across as the epitome of first world problems. It is surprising to me though how many of the actors in the doc don't really want to discuss that period of their lives, but have enough affinity for the creator to still do the interview. I think the documentary works much better when it approaches the story from the angle of how the Brat Pack influenced Hollywood, pop culture, and teens at the time as opposed to the woe is me someone wrote an article that wasn't very nice about me and now when I go out to a restaurant paparazzi want to take my photograph.

9) Blade - (VOD Rental) It's been probably about 20 years since I saw this and just got a jonesing for it. The film at the time fucking blew my mind. Blade is one of my favorite comic book characters, and to see him get an legitimate R rated adaptation on the big screen was wild to me. It does not hold up as well as I'd like, but there are still some really cool moments. The opening scene is one of my favorite in a comic book movie, and Kris Kristoffersen is incredible as Whistler. Stephen Dorff is pretty cringey as Deacon Frost, and Donal Logue gives one of the worst performances of his entire career, but it's fun to laugh at. There's an attempt at a twist at the end that feels like it was ripped out of a shitty anime movie that I also enjoyed for all the wrong reasons. If you go into this just wanting to see some great kills and an interesting take on vampires you will not be disappointed. I really want to go back and watch Blade II now because i remember thinking that was the best of the trilogy.

10) She’s All That (Paramount +) We did a movie commentary track on this for the podcast that was an absolute blast. Paul Walker, Freddie Prinze Jr., and a late 90's teen comedy...recipe for success. I'm also a huge fan of Not Another Teen Movie and this is obviously the main film that inspired it. All the tropes of high schoolers are perfectly on display, although I can't relate to a lot of them since I didn't grow up in Southern California and wasn't hiding from my dad that every single Ivy League school had accepted me and that was somehow a huge problem in life. The concept of a girl who's basically a super model, but people just don't realize it because she has glasses on is a stroke of absolute genius. I mean how would you even be able to tell what someone looks like with a clear lense covering their eyes? Check this out for both a stroll down memory lane, and to hear our drunken ramblings as we fawn over how awesome it is.

-JH