Shower Beer Vol XXXVII: 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) A Simple Favor - (Netflix) I had no idea there was a sequel to this coming out, and honestly I have no idea how it’s going to work story wise, but I’m interested. This movie found it’s way onto my top 100 list, and after a rewatch I will admit it has moved down the list a bit, but it’s still insanely watchable and has some nice twists and turns. For me it’s not a tough list to top, but it is by far Paul Feig’s best movie. Anna Kendrick is kind of annoying in her usual aw schucksy doodles character trope, but around her Blake Lively and Henry Goulding do more than enough to pick up the slack. I didn’t think Blake Lively could act until this film so tip of the cap to her.

2) Escape From New York - (Plex) Saw this on a few lists of the best action movies of all time and wanted to give it a poke. I love Kurt Russell, and if Metal Gear Solid Snake is based on this character that’s pretty fucking cool. I don’t get how this is an action movie though. There is one fight scene that’s incredibly poorly shot, and the only set piece is at the very end of the movie. I’ll get burned at the stake for saying this, but John Carpenter is a really overrated filmmaker. The first Halloween is of course iconic, but aside from the last half of The Thing he hasn’t made anything worth a shit in my opinion. I look forward to fighting off the hordes of Carpenter stans.

3) This is 40 - (Netflix) Essentially a plotless movie with Paul Rudd and Judd Apatow’s family just riffing, This is 40 works better than it should, but not as well as it could. It has no fucking business being as long as it is, and you could easily shave 25 mins off this thing. I say that having zero experience editing anything and with no idea how script supervising works. Most of the characters outside of our leads are caricatures, and Jason Segel is really miscast here. It definitely has it’s moments though, and Rudd and Leslie Mann are really great on screen together. I think a lot of people don’t realize it’s a sequel to Knocked Up because it really doesn’t reference those characters at all outside of a photo of them shown on the wall of the families house.

4) Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives S2 - (Max) I love to watch this show while on the treadmill as motivation because I want to eat almost everything on it. I ran my way through season two this past week, and some of the highlights included a University of Michigan women’s hockey player who ate 21 burgers at a diner in Ann Arbor. We also had a place called Seaside Eats in Rhode Island where people arrive by boat and of course they serve banging seafood. Lastly Guy visited a place in San Francisco that does not understand how to make onion rings. The batter was clumped all over these things, and the onions come out basically raw. Don’t get me wrong I’d still eat 20 of them and hate myself afterwards, but they are far from the best that Guy has encountered in the first two seasons.

5) The Rock - (Hulu) Speaking of action movies, this one fucks. I’m a Michael Bay apologist, and this is so unabashedly him early in his career I respect the hell out of it. Sean Connery RIP is chewing the scenery every chance he gets, and Nic Cage will not be outdone. Him playing a molecular biologist is so great and just reaffirms that he doesn’t read the script the script reads him. Ed Harris is surprisingly good in this, and I don’t say that because I’m surprised Ed Harris can act, but because I’m surprised his character actually is written as well as he is. There’s a ton of great character actors that show up in this that you’ll recognize from other stuff which is always fun. This might end up being a once a year watch for me.

6) A Family Affair - (Netflix) The trailer for this had me laughing…not with it, but at it. I hate Joey King with a fiery passion, but Efron and Nicole Kidman had me at hello. This movie had no business being as good as it was. Just when I was expecting it to veer into really cliche territory, or have a character make a really predictable decision, it did the opposite. The heart of the love story is actually pretty poignant, and even though Efron is really punching above his weight acting alongside Kidman it elevates him. I love the conceit of a movie star basically hating his existence in his job, but also acknowledging that it’s given them a lot of opportunities. The laughs are not a mile a minute, but that works to the benefit of the film. Give this thing a shot and I think you’ll be surprised.

7) The Flood (2023) - (Hulu) Commentary on this movie coming soon I think as Bryan Banner and I have an itch that only really shitty disaster movies can scratch. The Flood has some really ambitious CGI, and I have to give the Director credit for putting this thing together because on paper it should not work. Granted it is paint by numbers in terms of the characters, but it knows that and it leans into it. There’s plenty of blood and action, and the accents are fucking incredible. Think like a bagged cereal version of Hurricane Heist with CGI alligators in place of giant hurricanes with faces in them. If you don’t have at least a little fun with this one there is a part of you that’s dead inside.

8) Vengeance - (Peacock) Huge surprise here. I like BJ Novak, and seeing he starred in and Directed this I was intrigued. One of the most creative movies I’ve seen the past few years, and one of the funnier movies of the past half decade. Boyd Holbrook is incredible, and he’s quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. Ashton Kutcher gives a pretty inspired performance and for me it’s always fun to see him in things. The setting of West Texas is put to screen perfectly, and even though they go for some low hanging fruit there when it comes to gags they’re all pretty accurate based on my experience. I don’t think you’ll quite be able to predict where this goes which ends up being a lot of the fun of the ride. Also it really made me want to go to Whataburger.

9) Den of Thieves: Pantera - (Netflix) The first one was a pretty dark heist movie, and stuck with me for some reason. Knowing the sequel had a lot of narrative threads to play with from the first I was curious to see where this would go. I still think that for some reason Gerard Butler’s Nick character in these is so fucking depressing, but I can’t look away when he’s on screen. As was my main issue with the first one this movie is about 20 mins too long, and I know I’m a bit of a dumbass, but the story does get a bit convoluted towards the end of the first act when they try to explain the heist and all the players involved. O’shea Jackson Jr. has basically one speed, but this movie knows that and doesn’t ask him to do anything he’s not capable of doing. I did get the itch to rob a bank after watching this, but don’t worry I think until some of the classified ads I put out to assemble a crew get answered I’ll be able to chill out.

10) The Electric State - (Netflix) I worship at the altar of the Russo Bros after what they’ve pulled off in the MCU, and their choices post Endgame have been interesting. I like The Gray Man quite a bit, and this movie is getting some unfair hate in my opinion. It’s not going ot be one of the better movies of 2025, but the IP it’s based on has a pretty interesting concept and a ton of world building is done here. The problem to me is the exposition given in the first 15 min of the movie is what the actual movie should have been. Poor Chris Pratt is definitely typecast at this point in his career, but if he’s ok with that there’s a lot of money still to be made. The melodramatic stuff doesn’t work as well as it needs to, but it’s not cringe inducing and in the third act when it really needs to pull in the audience it does a serviceable job. There are some really fun set pieces with humans fighting robots, and the final action scene is especially fun. If you’re a fan of Mr. Peanut too you’ll be fist pumping the whole time.

-JH