Shower Beer Vol XXXVIII: 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) Guy’s Grocery Games S19 - (Max) My favorite show to watch while I gorge myself, GGG as it’s true fans refer to it is starting to get a little stale if I’m being honest, but still is an easy watch. This season we saw a tournament where judges competed with their siblings, and I was disappointed with the lack of arguing amongst them. Clearly it was polished up for tv purposed. There was also a tournament where people featured on Guy’s other show, Diners Drive Ins and Dives competed with their families. He brings in the DDD peeps pretty frequently, but this time having a tourney themed around it was an interesting idea. On a more somber note, I believe this is the last season with Carl Ruiz as he sadly passed away shortly after filming. He’s like Guy’s boy and one of the funnier judges on the show so it’ll be tough on everyone to continue without him.

2) COPS S1E1-3 Broward County, FL - (Prime Video) Your boy found a new guilty pleasure watch…. COPS. Yes I am starting from the beginning because you know I’m a stickler for canon. The concept of this show is so fucking simple it hurts, and it’s insanely watchable while on the treadmill. The inaugural episodes follow the police force in Broward County, FL, or as it appears on the show, the meth capital of the world. Some really fun moments from the first three eps is a drug sting set up with a hilarious “trojan horse” idea where they make a pickup truck look like part of a landscaping company, and when they have a bust the driver honks and a ton of cops jump out of the back. Another great moment is the repetitive excuses of people getting caught driving around looking to buy meth, and the very common “I was just looking for the ocean” line told frequently to the officers. We also have a crack dealer who claims he’s in medical school, two neighbors who call the police because they keep sweeping dirt and debris onto each others property, and an episode where the police go to a local high school to give the kids some advice, only to arrest one of them in a drug deal later in the episode. Lastly just to show you how inflation has hit us all very hard, full service prostitution in 1989 when this was filmed was going for $20 a pop in Broward County.

3) Under Siege 2: Dark Territory - (Digital Rental) The first Under Siege is really fun and Tommy Lee Jones as the villain is so watchable. The sequel here does what I love, when a movie tries to take it’s original premise and has a “hold my beer” approach to make it even more ridiculous. Here we have what I believe is one of Katherine Heigle’s first roles, and same for Morris Chestnut who plays a pretty ridiculous caricature. There’s not quite enough action in this one as Segal barely beats the shit out of anyone and uses his brain way too much. The villain’s plot in this is fucking ruthless, and some of his actions are a bit much even for me. Still had a good time with it, and there are some explosions that are pretty badass.

4) The Life List - (Netflix) One of Netflix’s better originals from the past few years. Connie Britton crushes it, and this one will hit you right in the feels. I’d describe it as a straight up drama even though I was expecting a bit of comedy for some reason, but that’s probably my own projection. The premise is a mid 20’s woman loses her mom to cancer, and is left with a series of tapes from her mom giving her a list of things she’d like her to accomplish in life. The movie has some very relatable stuff, especially if you come from a broken family and it’s fairly well acted even though it doesn’t feature many recognizable names. Definitely a solid recommend from me.

5) Love Hurts - (Digital rental) Saw the trailers for this earlier in the year and I’m a big Ke Huy Quan guy so I had interest almost immediately. The comedy action movie has had a bit of a resurgence in the past few years, but unfortunately this one offers nothing new and the villains are so boring. Marshawn Lynch is pretty watchable and has some funny lines, but the whole thing isn’t funny enough to justify it’s unoriginality. I guess if you’ve never seen an action film with the “I swore off this life and said I’d never go back” premise this might really work for you, but unfortunately for me it did not.

6) Scoob! - (Max) I can’t even tell you why I randomly thought of this movie outside of the fact that I’m a big Scooby-Doo fan and hadn’t seen it when it came out. The animation style is really great, and the voice cast on paper seems really out of place, but somehow works. Mark Wahlberg as Blue Falcon does have way too big of a role in this movie, but the mystery gang gets enough screen time in the end, and the Scooby and Shaggy dynamic is really well focused on. Jason Isaacs as Dick Dastardly is so great, and I could watch an entire movie with just him. As a 37 year old man I am not ashamed to admit I was laughing my fucking ass off at this, especially in the second act when Dastardly really takes center stage. If you had any interest at all when this came out and just hadn’t gotten around to it yet like me I highly recommend.

7) Not Just A Goof - (Disney +) Looking at our Broscars nominations list for the podcast where we put together our awards lists for the end of the year, the documentaries are already getting stacked and it’s only mid April. This film was an easy addition to the list, but I will admit I have a massive inherent bias as A Goofy Movie is legitimately one of my favorite films of all time. Here we get the see the rag tag group of creators tasked with making A Goofy Movie a time that Disney animation was focusing more on big budget movies like the Lion King, and how with a limited set of resources and a shoe string budget they overcame obstacles and crafted one of the most beautifully written animated movies of all time. You get to reconnect with the voice cast, and see the behind the scenes of recording the iconic soundtrack as well. My favorite little ten seconds of the whole doc though is a snippet from the recording session where the voice actor who played bigfoot had to do an absurd series of groans and growls which out of context is fucking hilarious.

8) A Goofy Movie - (Disney +) I won’t say much here as I’m going to give an impassioned speech about this movie soon on the podcast as we count down our top 100 movies list. Suffice it to say this film was described in the above documentary as “A John Hughes movie centered around Goofy and his son Max” and I think that is such a perfect description. If you’ve never seen A Goofy Movie I’m sure you assume what we all would about it; that it’s an absurd movie with Goofy acting like an idiot and slapstick comedy in abundance. You could not be more wrong, and if you give this film a chance I think it will become one of your favorite movies.

9) Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County S1 - (Paramount Plus) There’s drama in Laguna Beach. I’ve seen this show all the way through at least three times, and it’s still so fucking fun. I have fond memories of watching this weekly in high school as it was one of the first iterations of these type of fly on the wall reality shows with no game concept or competition in sight, just clearly staged drama. Here it focuses on a group of high schoolers in Laguna Beach, CA who are obviously dealing with some real serious fucking problems. Stephen and Kristin’s on again off again relationship is the core of the story here, and how can you not get swept up in what happens in Cabo on spring break!! Oh shit nevermind I just remembered that what happens in Cabo stays in Cabo.

10) We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story - (Digital rental) One of my favorite animated movies as a kid because I loved anything Dinosaurs, this movie definitely holds up and Professor Screw Eye is as scary as ever. His circus is so dark and twisted I’m a little shocked the MPAA didn’t tell the Directors to chill the fuck out or they would slap them with a PG13 rating. I had no idea that John Goodman was a voice in this (isn’t he in everything?) and the concept is so interesting it could’ve spawned an entire franchise if it came out at the right time. If you’ve never heard of this movie it’s a blast, and has some really interesting animation.

-JH