The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Nostalgic Adventures
Rediscover the nostalgic magic of the '90s with our special Surprise Saturday episode featuring Katy! We take a delightful trip down memory lane as we chat about "Brink," the beloved Disney Channel Original Movie, all thanks to a fan suggestion from Katy's younger brother, Nick. Join us as we discuss the heartfelt story of Andrew "Brink" Brinker - a soul skater grappling with tough decisions to support his family while staying true to his values. From the unforgettable cast, including Eric von Detten and Sam Horrigan, to cherished memories of other Disney classics like "Luck of the Irish" and "Smart House," this episode is a nostalgic treat for Disney Channel fans. Katy shares her enduring love for "Brink," while I offer a fresh perspective as a first-time viewer, marveling at its fun, cheesy charm and familiar '90s TV faces.
But the fun doesn't stop there! We also explore the moral dilemmas faced by the characters, the film's comedic yet unrealistic moments, and sprinkle in our own personal skating stories for a relatable touch. And for a stark contrast, we introduce a new review segment featuring the intense drama "Raging Bull" with Robert De Niro, showcasing our range from feel-good '90s flicks to hard-hitting classics. Stay connected with us on social media for more nostalgic reviews, and tune in to hear Katy and me sign off on another memorable episode!
Hello everyone, welcome to a special Surprise Saturday episode. I say it's a special one for two reasons actually. I'm pretty sure this might be the first surprise saturday episode in a while that I'm actually joined by my good friend katie. Hi, katie, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good, I'm excited to be here on for a special saturday the other reason it's so special is because this episode is actually because of someone who sent us some fan mail. So if you want to send us some fan mail, movie suggestions, things like that, click the send us a text message in the show notes so you can be part of the show. But this person gave us three movies to choose from, two of which are, I guessney, original movies yes and the water boy and you know what.
Speaker 2:So this fan mail came in and nathan said hey, do you know anybody from lakeland? And I want to go ahead and give a shout out to who I assume and believe.
Speaker 2:Uh this fan is and that would be my wonderful, amazing younger brother, nicholas. So, nick, if you're listening, thank you for the suggestions. You definitely gave yourself away because Waterboy was a favorite growing up. We watched it all the time and I think I'm not sure which one of them is his favorite, but I think my favorite Disney Channel original movie was the one we're going to record today and review, which is Brink.
Speaker 1:That's right. And before we can get into it, and before we even do the synopsis, I want you guys to listen to way back 1998, the trailer for Brink. Take a listen.
Speaker 3:Tonight catch a Disney Channel original movie Brink. Oh yes, a massive come out wrap. Andy Brinker and his friends all have one thing on their mind Sweet To these guys. Life moves pretty fast. They're over the top and on the edge of everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, but these kids aren't just getting through life.
Speaker 3:Yes, they're taking it to the brink. A 900, that's two and a half rotations in the air. Brace yourself for disney channel's original movie brink tonight at 7, 30, 6, 30 central, followed by airborne part of zoog weekends can't you tell it's gonna be fun?
Speaker 1:can't you just tell by the just the sounds, the skating skater the good times. So let's get to the synopsis. Andrew Brink Brinker is a soul skater living one day at a time. After his dad gets laid off, brink must choose between sticking to his morals and sacrificing his friends to make money from his passion. A bunch of 90s kids, including eric von deaton, sam horingen, christina viddle and robin reicher I don't have no idea who any of these people are like eric von deaton, kind of looks familiar.
Speaker 2:I think the girl that plays gabby is in another, like she's's in Freaky Friday or some other movie that came out in the 90s. And the guy that's the bad guy in this, if you look up what he looks like now, he like looks the exact same. Like I imagine if he continued to do TV or movies, he continued to be a villain. He just has this like villain. Look to him. Well, I mean, I guess I have to get right into my review, which is that, yeah, he's, he's a good villain. You just the bad guy in this camera. What his name is, val. I think he's just like a jerk, such a jerk, and they did a great job making you really not like him. They didn't redeem him at the end or like give him some other backstory that made him troubled, and here's why he's just straight up mean or like give him some other backstory that made him troubled.
Speaker 1:And here's why he's just straight up mean yeah, and I was actually surprised because usually in Disney general movies they do try to redeem the bad guy in some way. I mean maybe not in all of them, cause you know you have luck of the Irish, which is one of my personal favorite Disney channel original movies, just because I like Irish accents and it was a cool, you know, it was a cool premise and true confessions. I don't know if you ever saw that one with Shia LaBeouf.
Speaker 2:One of my other favorites which is super creepy when you think about now, was smart house, yeah, which was like the house had all this AI. I mean literally this was a movie in the 90s describing things that we now consider normal. You know, like Alexa and the house like takes over and tries to fill the role of the like deceased mother and like it starts controlling the whole family and like going haywire. And I mean I say it's one of my favorites because I just remember it, but it was. It creeped me out. It was a scary disney channel movie and it's even more scary thinking that you know that could it could come true. Anyways, brink back to brink. I had seen this movie a zillion times, as did my brother nick. You had never seen it before, so I want to hear your reaction yeah, I had never seen it.
Speaker 1:I I've only seen like a handful of disney channel original movies, because majority of them they're kind of like hallmark movies. You know they're kind of the same storyline, kind of cheesy, cheesy, acting, not the greatest, but the storyline in this one it's nothing new, you know. But it wasn't bad. It wasn't a bad movie. I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. For what it was? Nostalgia, late 90s. I saw some people and I'm like, oh my gosh, I know who that is. So, case in point, walter jones, who plays the original black ranger and the original mighty morphin power rangers, was in this movie. He's like one of the sidekick guys of the oh yeah, he's the bad guy that turns good yeah, so he's in this.
Speaker 1:And then I used to watch a lot of disney channel like live action tv shows back in that time. So the dad from even stevens, which had shia labeouf in it, he's in it as well. So I was like, oh, I know that person, I know that person, I know that person. So that was kind of cool to relive the nostalgia of those days. But I mean, this movie isn't really anything special. It's. It's really not.
Speaker 2:I, I really don't know what else to say, blast me. So here let me just, you know, tell you the art that break is break. First of all, like you said, 90s classic. I mean there's no soul skater dude, it's totally reminiscent and they're all skaters.
Speaker 2:And I love the bad guy and the kid, the good kid. I loved his story. So he's conflicted because the reason he is a jerk to his friends is because he kind of hears that his family needs money so he's willing to give up all this stuff, hears that his family needs money so he's willing to like give up all this stuff, to like help his family earn money. Like it was one of those where you could see why he made that choice. He was such a good kid Like I love when you're good guys, just someone you really, really root for, and you just really felt bad for.
Speaker 2:One of my other favorite moments was the family, I, the family dynamic, like the mom and the, the way it was portrayed. There wasn't a doofus dad who's like not there, it wasn't like a mean mom, it. It was this beautiful picture of what I truly feel like so many kids could have probably identified with, like the sort of cute, playful not jerk, but cute, playful banter between the mom and dad, like that they were on the same team together supporting each other. He had a little sister and she's hilarious like all her lines are hilarious. She's like way too smart for age.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite quotes of the entire movie that scott has heard me say a thousand times and he finally now knows what it's from when she says skate better. That's, that's the line of the movie. He comes up and he's like I just don't know what to do. I need to get a higher score. And she just goes skate better and he acts like it's the most wise thing a person could say Like oh, that's it, but I loved the family and the dad. There's like a small sweet moment with the dad and the son and he kind of says afterwards says afterwards like did we just have a conversation? I loved that. Who was your favorite character?
Speaker 1:well, I'm. I'm gonna go back a little bit, because you said like this guy is an overall nice guy. You know he's doing stuff for his family, which I agree, I agree. But there's one part that I kind of lost all respect for, and it's when it's like the day of the trials and he fakes being sick and he's like I'm it's like Ferris Bueller kind of thing, I'm too sick to go, and one of his friends comes by to check on him to see if he's okay.
Speaker 1:He's like yeah, man, I don't think I can make it, I don't think I can make it to the tournament to be on their team, and they're like oh man, well, well, maybe we'll just go just to see. Like no, no, no, you can't go. You can't go, man, and like, okay, he's like no, you guys just need to practice more. Okay, he straight up lied to one of his best friends faces and he's been doing it like he lied to his friends and they're his friends, so like they even say like if you told us this at the beginning, we probably would have been more understanding. That's why I'm like right, okay, I understand he was doing it for his family, but he's like freaking, straight up lied to their faces and said I'm too sick to go, and then shows up and tells them don't go, because I don't want you to see me there it goes back to what's.
Speaker 2:It's such a relatable movie to me because, like, I think that's really true and I think it's a good life lesson that it's like hey, you might lie to your friends.
Speaker 1:Tell them that you're sick and say he pays the consequence of that.
Speaker 2:I think it is a good life lesson to see like, hey, in the end, like you might have to make something that will hurt them or might like they might think differently of you Cause you said never to get paid to skate. Now you are, but it's better off to not lie, okay. Other key favorite parts so Gabby's the one girl, right, it's a little friend group. There's the four guys Brinks, obviously the best, and he's got his best friend. That's funny. And then there's the girl, gabby. She's like the tomboy. One girl in the group Wants to be one of the guys and I'm telling you it wasn't until watching it now I would have never realized how horrible the stunt doubles are. She's supposed to be playing like a 16-year-old girl and it's like on all the skate scenes it is clearly like a muscular man with long hair, See I didn't pick up on that.
Speaker 1:You told me that before I watched it You're like hey, you should check out the Gabby character when she's skating. I didn't catch that. I mean, obviously it probably was a body double because they all needed stunt doubles. I seriously doubt all of them knew how to skate. So I didn't catch that. It was obviously a dude.
Speaker 2:Well, and you could tell the more I paid attention. So, like in the final, when you get to see almost everyone like all the people from the bad team, all people from good team you can tell who's a real skater, because they were making more intentional zoomed in shots, like I think Val, the bad guy actually is like must have some skating capability. But yeah, I loved gabby and I think the other iconic part that I I texted my brother so many times when I was watching this and part where gabby like eats it. So like the bad guy, he's just so bad, he puts gravel on the ground. It's like horrible throws gravel on the ground and then he like tells brink, like take the outside. Are you about to say?
Speaker 1:the fact that she just keeps rolling and rolling and rolling, like she rolled for, so like, like, five or six times she rolled and it's in slow motion.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so she, he Brink tries to tell her hey, take the outside. And she's like I don't believe you because you lied to me and she's just a little. You know, she's probably like me when I was in high school, like no boy's gonna tell me what to do, so she's kind of a jerk, doesn't listen, eats, it rolls forever. I mean I talked to my brother. I said she deserved enough because of that performance. I mean it's just the drama. It's the drama and the skating tricks were cool. It makes me I don't know if you've watched something like that where you're like I could do that and then I like can't try to do like a two inch high ramp out in my driveway, like I could picture myself in elementary school watching this movie and then putting my skates on and going out in the cul-de-sac and trying to jump a ramp.
Speaker 1:No, I always hated it when my friends wanted to have birthday parties at skating rinks, because I'm not good at balance at all and so I would always fall on my butt. And now that I'm a teacher, sometimes we'll have like big cast parties and I'll be invited to go because I'm the theater teacher and it's at a skating rink and it brings back all the PTSD. Oh no. And so, yeah, when I was watching this movie, obviously I wasn't like yeah, I could do that, because I know I can't. It's kind of hard to do any dislikes because it's it's a, it's a Disney channel original movie. So you can't really harp on like the bad acting because that just comes with the territory of a late 90s disney channel.
Speaker 2:But it was. It's not so bad taste, you have.
Speaker 1:It's like precious cute, like it's almost like adorable, because it is it's like lots, mostly teen actors well and, like I said, it's, the story isn't anything new it's so it's not like anything I can really harp against, because we've seen the storyline before and other movies that have been pretty good. This movie, like I said at the beginning, it's not a bad movie, but if you don't want to watch a Disney channel original movie, don't watch it, because that's exactly what it is, with the acting, with the cheesiness. I will say I believe the director of this movie was the executive producer of one of my favorite shows ever Smallville. So I thought that was kind of cool because it definitely had the feel of a Smallville episode because of the amount of the very moody music that he would play Like the.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. That cheesy overdramatic doesn't really fit the moment. Music. But speaking of music, though, it also reminded me of the day that I, that I used to play the Tony Hawk skating video games, oh yes, and so like the very skater music that that was kind of cool. I enjoyed that part of it because it brought me back to those days. So it was very much a nostalgic trip the whole time through.
Speaker 2:And as a Disney Channel movie it's short. It's short, sweet. My son enjoyed it. He thought some of the parts were funny. Ben's favorite part was when Brink puts the milkshake in Val's face and like I remember that being a really such an iconic scene was covered in chocolate milkshake. Did you really throw a vanilla milkshake in Val's face and he goes chocolate? Just his voice like I love you, just talk like this the whole time and I love it anyway.
Speaker 2:That's enough I could ramble on but for anyone listening that hasn't seen off like this, and I love it. Anyway, that's enough. I could ramble on, but for anyone listening that hasn't seen Brink, or if you grew up in the 90s, I really think you will enjoy it. No, it's not going to be an Oscar winning movie, but it's. It's a fun. Like you said, a fun nostalgic trip.
Speaker 1:So do we want to go ahead and rate this classic nostalgic trip.
Speaker 2:I go ahead and rate this classic nostalgic trip. I feels wrong to rate it the same scale as the, you know, best movies of all time. But in terms of a disney channel movie it's at the top for me. But in terms of movie I'm gonna have to probably give it like a four and a half in the case of disney channel original movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll give it a four I'd love to hear anyone listening that has watched them. I would love to hear, maybe in the comments or in fan mail, what your favorite Disney channel movies were.
Speaker 1:And again, thank you to we're assuming it's Nicholas, your brother, and so thank you for the suggestions. And, once again, if you want to reach out to us, just click that, or click it. Is it clicking, or do you just press it with your thumb? I don't know what to call it, but there's a send us a text link in the show notes. Click it, press it with your thumb. Whatever you want to do, so thank you for joining us on this surprise Saturday episode.
Speaker 1:Thank you, katie, for actually joining me too. The next thing you can listen to is our review Going back to our greatest movies of all time Raging Bull starring Robert De Niro.
Speaker 2:Like the complete opposite of a feel-good 90s movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, completely. Thanks for listening. Everybody, Follow us on our social media platforms. This is Nadia andie at the movies.
