Shower Beer Vol XXXI: 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) Haul Out the Holly - (Netflix) Lacey Chabert is a genius, and will be able to retire on a tropical island somewhere for realizing that being an actor and not taking yourself too seriously can be very lucrative. She’s done probably close to a dozen of these low rent Christmas movies, and they just somehow work. This iteration made it’s way to Netflix, and the wife and I were in for a trash watch while we ate dinner. This didn’t disappoint. The characters are pretty one note for the most part, but the story has some good laughs and the feel of this neighborhood that gets psychotic over it’s Christmas celebration was giving me Christmas With the Kranks Lite vibes. I was half expecting a tongue and cheek cameo from Al from Home Improvement as a “we couldn’t get Tim Allen, but we came close” moment. As far as shitty algorithm holiday movies go, this one did it’s job well.

2) Starship Troopers - (Pluto TV) I know I am so late to the party here. I remember vividly seeing the trailer for this movie in theaters and it freaking me out with the gore and design of the bug creatures. Years later I know it as a cult classic that has lived off a legacy of being so over the top and ridiculous, and still has fans unaware of it it’s in on the joke or not. I can say it has some absolutely incredible deaths and one liners that need to be given proper credit. I think at this time Denise Richards was just starting to realize that she can’t act, but our other leads hadn’t gotten the memo yet. A young Neil Patrick Harris makes for a fun inclusion, and Jake Busey feels like he was literally born for a role like this. I might have to check out the sequels, but I’m hoping they don’t go the Sharknado route and realize that they’re not actually good films.

3) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - (Max) Finally finished the trilogy for maybe the third time in my life. All extended editions because I’m a sick fuck. I always remembered Return of the King being my least favorite, and while I definitely didn’t dislike it, that did hold true. I wrote in my Letterboxd review that there is a direct correlation for me with how much Gollum is in these movies, and how much I dislike them. Here we get way too much of him, and the dynamic with him and Sam is just super annoying. The Eragon arc is pretty interesting, and really ties his throughline together in a cool way letting us know why he’s been so brooding this whole time. Pippen and that bitch king who can’t stop whining after his favorite son died get a bit grating, but there’s some nice resolution there with his comeuppance. I think this trilogy deserves a lot of credit visually for taking swings with effects that were probably a decade ahead of their time. It sucks Peter Jackson couldn’t quite recapture this magic again with the Hobbit trilogy. Might have to give those a rewatch now.

4) The Santa Clause - (Disney +) Probably a once a year watch for me around the holidays. The way Scott Calvin roasts the shit out of Neil at every turn has never not made me laugh. Charlie is a nutter psychopath and every time I watch this movie I find myself blaming him more and more for being an idiot and just wreckless with the shit he says that gets his dad in trouble. Bernard the head elf should’ve banned him from the North Pole since he can’t keep his mouth shut. Snitches get stitches. The operation they’re running up there isn’t something you start talking about at recess in between dodgeball games. It’s serious, and we have the whole fate of Christmas at stake Charlie.

5) Deadpool & Wolverine - (Disney +) As a massive MCU fan I obviously saw this in theaters the Thursday it came out, and have been pumped for it to finally come to Disney +. I oddly felt the runtime more the second time around. It really bogs down in the second act, and honestly I don’t find Cassandra Nova that interesting, at least in the way they utilize her here. Outside of the void they probably could’ve done a lot with her as it pertains to Charles Xavier and the other mutants, but here she is just used a tool to get us from setpiece to setpiece. The cameos are something I just fucking eat up so I can’t even pretend like I don’t love the fan service, and the fact that they are actually utilized in pretty significant ways with the plot is awesome. I know Deadpool isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s right down my alley.

6) Krampus - (Max) When I discovered this movie a few years ago I knew instantly that it would probably make my every Christmas season movie rotation. I can’t say I’ve totally held true to that, but it’s one of my favorite movies of the past few years and comedy/horror is a genre that I live for. The cast here is awesome, and I can’t believe I didn’t know about this movie for so long. The genre bending it takes is really unique, and the characters are so hateable so watching horrible things happen to them is absolutely fantastic. I know there are a lot of other iterations of Krampus in live action that I’m eager to check out so I’ll report back.

7) How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) - (Max) Rony Seikaly and I saw this was on Peacock and did a commentary track over it if you’d like to check it out. An absolute classic, and a special I remember watching almost every year as a kid. The theme song is obviously a total banger, and Max is an absolute scene stealer. There are some serious issues happening in Whoville, and I’m not entirely sure that the Grinch is in the wrong here. It did make me want to whip up a piping hot plate of roast beast.

8) A Charlie Brown Christmas - (Apple TV +) Speaking of animated Christmas classics, we have the Peanuts gang taking a page out of the Muppets playbook and throwing a Christmas play with Charlie Brown as the Director. The iconic Christmas tree makes it’s appearance way later in the special than I remember, but the message is as poignant as ever. Seikaly and I also did a commentary track on this special so give it a poke. I hope Apple TV does something with the Peanuts IP because I have a big time nostalgia feel for them. Snoopy isn’t in this very much, but it is one of the frist ever series with the gang so they probably didn’t know what they had in him yet.

9) Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13! - (Digital rental) I’m in the midst of my third rewatch of DBZ, and as I entered the Android saga I wanted to check out some of the movies from the series that happen around the same time. History of Trunks was in a previous squad blog we wrote, and it’s maybe my favorite Dragon Ball Z movie. Super Android 13 however….is not. The premise is really stupid in that it’s just more androids who for some reason weren’t activated when Dr. Gero showed up, or when he went back to his lab to activate 16, 17, and 18. Here we also have no real good fight before the big baddie, which always makes or breaks the DBZ movies. Worst of all, the movie takes the lowest hanging fruit possible as a resolve to the final fight (SPOILERS AHEAD) as Goku uses a spirit bomb to destroy the antagonist. That’s a well this series has gone to so many times it’s kind of unbelievable.

10) All I Want For Christmas - (Paramount +) My favorite Christmas movie of all time. Yes I said it. If you have not checked it out I highly recommend it. It’s basically the parent trap, but told through the lens of two siblings trying to cope with their first Christmas as a family after their parents divorce. A young Ethan Embry and Thora Birch give absolutely unbelievable performances, and it’s hard to not only laugh, but get emotional when watching this one. Leslie Nielsen also has a small role, and Kevin Nealon is a total scene stealer as the inept Tony, the new love interest in the children’s mother’s life. The past few years it’s been hard to find this on streaming anywhere, so tip of the cap to Paramount for grabbing it.

-JH