Shawn's First Sunday and Cloverfield reviews

Shawn once again. Today is a big day for reviews. This is good though because I was already starting to fall way behind on my 2008 movie watching. After the earlier King review, I now present another one. After how that last one ended I'm sure the subject of this next review won't come as any surprise. That's right everyone, my long awaited, and yours too I'm sure, review of....


2008 Movie #5 - First Sunday

FUCK YEAH! ...wait a second what? That's right, the next review is for First Sunday. Don't worry (you're not I know), the review mentioned earlier will still be coming. I just want to save that one for after I'm done dealing with this one first.

So as mentioned in my previews for the January movies, I obviously don't think too highly of a lot of Ice Cube's film decisions. In fact, I feel the Are We...? movies, are two of the worst things to ever hit the screen in the last ever. I to this day believe that Are We Done Yet? was some sort of bet between two studio execs that one of them could fund a sequel to Are We There Yet and not only turn a profit, but at the same time make an even worse movie. Whoever was on the losing side of that bet must be depressed now, for several reasons.

With those feelings I didn't have a whole lot of hope for First Sunday (considering the movie's plot that may be a pun, I'm not entirely sure). Now comedies are probably the hardest genre of movies to review, and it's probably going to prove more and more frustrating for me to do as the year continues. It really comes down to whether it was funny or not. Nothing else usually matters. However in certain cases, there are comedies that may not be all that funny, but for some reason still manage to keep your interest and in the end you wind up not hating the movie, but not particularly liking it either. This is the section where you will find First Sunday, a comedy that actually turns out to be more of a drama than I expected.

The plot centers around Ice Cube and Tracey Morgan, who are both in desperate need of some quick money. Through a series of events that I'm really not in the mood to detail (hating plot summaries remember kids?) they decide one night to break into a local church to steal their donation money. One thing leads to another and soon enough they got themselves a hostage situation.

That's pretty much it plotwise. No real good laughs, and some unexpected sentimental stuff as the movie goes on. I'll admit I smiled at a couple of Tracey Morgan's lines but really, I've been a fan of his ever since his days on Saturday Night Live. Ice Cube on the other hand, every role he plays can barely be distinguished from each other now. He acts the exact same way in every single movie he's in. For some reason in my mind the man used to make decent movies but no matter how hard I think I can only remember Three Kings as a good one. I swear there were other ones but I could be very wrong.

As stated above, comedies are very hard to review, especially bland ones like this. I can't recommend it, but I can't say to avoid it either, like I have with my previous two reviews. I pretty much have nothing more to say about this one. Moving on to....

**/5

2008 Movie #6 - Cloverfield

It's no secret that I have been psyched about this movie forever, since way back when that first trailer hit before Transformers. I'm a huge fan of Lost so seeing J.J Abrahm's name certainly didn't hurt my excitement. I'll admit I was one of the many people obsessively checking websites and taking full part in the viral marketing. I couldn't wait for this movie. I've been doing everything in my power to make it to the first viewing knowing as little as possible, since spoilers have been on the internet for days now. It was very exciting when the lights went down and I knew that finally after like 8 months, I was about to watch Cloverfield.

...and what a piece of shit!! I can't believe it!! I mean what a waste! Nah just fuckin' with ya. It's incredible! I'm so happy that after all this time it not only wasn't disappointing, but completely lived up to all of my ridiculous expectations. This was an experience that has to be done theatrically. If you're thinking of waiting for the DVD, don't. See this beast in a theatre, it's the only way to do it right. Anyone who doesn't see this movie in theatres is a racist, there I said it.

I pretty much refuse to give away anything about this movie. It's best to go into knowing as little as possible. You all know exactly what you need to know. A monster attacks New York and the whole thing is caught on a video camera by the people who are caught up in the middle of it all. Of course there's a lot more to it than that and I think many people may be surprised/disappointed to learn that the human characters are the central focus of this story, not the creature. These are actually people you care about though, unlike almost every other horror movie in the world ever.

A lot of people are saying the whole hand held camera thing is too gimmicky and too Blair Witchy. At first I kind of thought so too but trust me it works. It really makes you feel like you're a part of everything and it really adds to the fear and tension of the whole situation. You start to imagine what it would be like if you were there in the midst of all this shit and it's quite something. Some others say the shaky camera gives them motion sickness. To them I simply say man up...pussy.

I mentioned fear and tension earlier and let me just say, this movie is indeed scary. It has a good mix of those sudden jump scares (almost all of which work well in this movie) and a lot of edge of your seat moments. In fact once the carnage starts almost the entire thing is an edge of your seat moment. It's a 90 minute ass raping of fear! (I want that quote on that poster)

As for the monster itself, I won't say anything about what it is but I will say that yes you do see it and yes it is badass. You don't want this motherfucker anywhere near your city because he is going to fuck all that shit up. The movie picks all the best moments to show you the monster and even when you're just seeing little pieces at a time, it works perfectly.

In short, I will definitely be seeing this movie at the very least one more time before it leaves my theatre. If this thing doesn't make at least 180 million dollars this weekend, I will eat a live duck.

*****/5