Shower Beer Vol XXXIX: 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) Laguna Beach S2 - (Paramount Plus) You know that when there's drama in Laguna Beach I'm always there. Season one ends passing the torch to Kristin who will now be a senior, and without the weight of Stephen as her on again off agin boyfriend to drag her down. Stephen is present in the first few episodes of the season, and even as someone who's not a big fan of Kristin he comes across as pathetic. Like just go to college in San Francisco bro there's no need for you to be at these high school parties. We're introduced to Jason who really throws a wrench into the plans of our senior girls, and although there is very little in the way of rivalries for Kristin she still finds herself in a juicy amount of drama. They don't make shows like this anymore...oh wait yes they do. Still I love this shit.

2) Wolf Man (2025) - (Max) Leigh Whannell the Director has directed two of my favorite horror movies of all time in the original Saw, and the remake of the Invisible Man with Elizabeth Moss. I respect his foray back into the Universal monster-verse, but this movie feels like someone slapped the title Wolf Man on an A24 script and didn't know which of those two they wanted to fully commit to. I will say it is competently written, albeit the acting is spotty in some key moments, and the Wolf Man is used effectively as an allegory for a few different things depending on your interpretation of the movie. I'll also say that I did not want to end up writing any of that when I turned on a fucking Wolf Man movie. Give me the camp, give me the gore, and give me some crazy transformations. Sadly most of that is not present in the film.

3) The Floor S3 - (Hulu) Rob Lowe is back in season three of the game show that makes us all say "I think I could win this if I was on it." This season we havea. record being set (I won't say what it is for spoiler purposes) and we get a few contestants from other reality shows of the past, and a few former multi day Jeopardy champions that bring a level of cockiness to the floor we haven't previously seen. The strategy is flawed by several of the players this season, and it's fun to see how the show has learned to develop the personalities as it whittles down it's 100 contestants throughout each episode. This is an easy watch for the wife and I and I can say at this point I'm still not quite sick of it. They do need to chill with their aggressive production schedule though as I'm pretty sure we got two seasons in a span of six months.

4) The Hills S1 and S2 - (Paramount Plus) After watching season two of Laguna Beach you know I had to follow LC when she ventures off to LA to start her internship with Teen Vogue. We see Jason tag along and boy is this guy not cut out for the city. With his inability to say no to a party, and the way LA preys on people like that things inevitably go bad for him. Season one mainly focuses on introducing Lauren and Heidi to us in their new environs, and shows us how the LA lifestyle can chew you up and spit you out. Season one ends on a cliffhanger as it's revealed that Lauren turned down an internship opportunity in Paris to get a condo with Jason. Season two begins with the hilarious reveal that they broke up about two weeks after this. We get a bit of dating drama with Heidi and her new boyfriend Spencer who is the textbook definition of a douchebag. The characters are clearly playing roles given to them by producers, and I could not care less because it's entertaining as hell. My report on season three will be in our next squad blog so you can look forward to that.

5) Moana 2 - (Disney +) I watched this at 2am while getting up with my one month old daughter, and we were both locked in to the visuals. I love how Maui takes a bit of a backseat, but we get some new ancillary characters to help develop Moana's leadership skills and feel more of the love she has for her people on her island. The plot is a bit confusing to me and feels like it's essentially accomplishing the same thing that we covered in the first Moana, but the message is just as strong as ever and Moana is an easy character to root for. There are no bangers unfortunately on the soundtrack, and I'm not sure if this was a Lin Manuel Miranda joint, but it feels like it is missing his lyrical genius. They try to set up a third installment with a few things that happen in the last ten minutes, but I think I'm good calling it a night after Moana 2 for the sake of preserving the good will these movies have with fans.

6) Havoc - (Netflix) You want to talk about a Netflix algorithm film, well we got one right here. Tom Hardy makes some interesting career choices, and here he's a brutal ass kicker with what I can only assume is what people tell him is a convincing Brooklyn accent. The "cop who's made a few mistakes before" character is maybe one of the most played out in media today so that being the focal point of the narrative really does nothing for me. There are some interesting action set pieces, but for the most part it just feels like it wants to be Extraction and some of the visual choices produced an eye roll from me for being very try hard. If you shave twenty minutes off of this and make our main character a bit less cliche'd you might have something here, but that's basically reworking half of the movie.

7) One Piece E1-10 - (Hulu) Running through this as it's one of the most beloved anime's and I never really gave it a chance. I'll admit that Laufey is a bit goofy for me, but the concept of a pirate focused series spanning multiple sagas, and it being relatively grounded for the most part has me very excited. The first ten episodes we really just establish that Laufey had a mentor who hid some treasure, and hasn't been seen or heard from in years. His recruiting a crew, and the green haired pirate voiced by the guy who voices Piccolo are really badass and the action and violence don't pull any punches. Most of the villains so far are total goofballs, but the one they're currently dealing with is pretty nefarious as he is a butler turned psycho who has been setting up the heir to a fortune that he looks after and is attempting a coup. We will see if this guy can pull it off.

8) Ransom Canyon S1 - (Netflix) You want a trashy, soapy, contemporary western? Well here you go. Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly star here, and the rest of the actors in it are just hoping someone notices them. I honestly wish this was a bit trashier, but there's enough juice to make it worth the squeeze and the storyline is like Friday Night Lights, but with adults. Now having said that, there is a series of character arcs revolving around the high schoolers in the show, but it is by far the weakest part of the show and those characters best moments are how they fuck things up for the adults. This will make you want to pour a glass of whiskey and go buy a cowboy hat in hopes that someone from Austin Water and Power will come try to bribe you to sell your possessions to them.

9) Reign of Fire - (Digital rental) I don't know why I thought of this movie, but I remembered seeing the cast having Christian Bale, Matthew McConaghey, Gerard Butler, and centering around killing dragons and thinking it was a fever dream I had. It was not. While those three actors were in this just before they all really hit it big, I don't think this is a movie to be ashamed of, and in fact I actually think the storyline is way stronger than it needs to be for a dragon movie. The CGI is fucking incredible for the time it came out, and the dragon concept art you can tell has been copied heavily in Game of Thrones. The post apocalyptic angle of humanity versus dragons is something I had never seen before, and is a really cool element as the humans get to use modern weapons and technology to fight instead of just shooting boulders from catapults and

hopelessly shooting arrows at the dragons only to get absolutely wrecked. Give this one a chance and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

10) Nonnas - (Netflix) I'll always show up for a Vince Vaughn vehicle, and seeing this was centered around not only Italian food, but the familial aspect of it and opening a restaurant had me interested as it's a bit of a departure for him. While the movie has a lot of heart, Vaughn feels miscast and there are really no laughs to be had anywhere for an utter lack of trying on the films part. It is essentially plotless, which I wouldn't really mind except in this case it needs one to justify it's two hour runtime. It is not a bad film by any stretch, but it really just delivers the concept of sharing love through food, and doesn't have anything interesting to do with it. The Nonna's in the movie are pretty fun to watch and make the film respectable, but I was a little let down by this one.

-JH