South Beach Tow

                Recently I have found a new TV show that I am hooked on. It is called South Beach Tow. I just cannot get enough of this show. It is so overly dramatic but at the same time it is funny. This show is on TruTV. It is produced by Jennifer Lopez’s production company, Nuyorican Productions. It is said that the idea for the TV show came from Simon Fields after he got his car towed.

                This show is based on the real Miami towing company, Tremont Towing. It features actors that reenact the day-to-day business of Tremont Towing. The events that happen in the show are real events that happened to Tremont but are reenacted in an overly dramatic way. Most of the show is centered on the cast towing vehicles and their interactions with the people who own the cars they are towing. Most of the people get very angry that they are getting towed and try to argue with the cast. Sometimes these confrontations will even go so far as turning to physical violence. Tremont Towing also has several bad interactions with a rival towing company called The Finest Towing. This towing company steals Tremont’s tows, injures their drivers, and put sugar in Tremont’s gas tanks.

                One of the reasons I like this show so much is because of how overly dramatic it is. Sometimes it gets so overly dramatic that it almost gets to the point where it’s dumb. However they do this very well and even though it could be considered dumb at some points it is still incredibly entertaining. Some of the show is hard to believe that it is based on real events. For example, one time Tremont is moving to a new tow yard and their building explodes. They are in the middle of an extermination process and someone throws a lit cigarette into it.

                My favorite characters on this show are Jerome (J-Money) and Bernice. I like these characters because everyone else on the show is kind of sketchy and doesn’t really seem to like each other. Everyone seems to get into fights with each other except for J-Money. He just sort of sits back and does his job. He seems to mostly stay out of the drama however he is still very funny. J-Money often tries to pick up girls when he is on the job. He is actually often successful at doing this but sometimes finds some crazy girls. One of the best things about J-Money is his laugh. His laugh is very distinct and easily recognizable.

                Bernice is not someone that you would want to mess with. She is built like a tank. She gets angry very easily and is able to knock anyone out. One time she got mad at someone for breaking her sunglasses and so she tilted the guy’s smart car on its side while he was in it. Another time someone backed their car into her. This caused her to fall off the second story of a parking garage. She falls to the ground and sprains her ankle but is still able to stop the person trying to get away. Bernice and J-Money are also the only people that seem to be fully committed to Tremont. Everyone else either has a secret side business or leaves Tremont at some point.

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Transformers

                Transformers was a movie that was directed by Michael Bay. It came out in 2007. It was based on the Transformers toy line made by Hasbro. This film was very successful, making over $700 million. Michael Bay went on to make three more Transformers movies. A fifth movie is set to come out in the summer of 2016.

                Transformers stars Shia LaBeouf who plays Sam Witwicky, a teenager who just happens to get caught up in a war between two groups of alien robots. Sam’s great grandfather accidently discovered Megatron who was frozen in a block of ice. Megatron was part of the Decepticons and came to Earth to try and find the AllSpark. He wanted to use this AllSpark to build an army by giving life to all the electronics of earth. The Autobots want to stop the Decepticons and destroy the AllSpark to save the humans.

                This movie was very good and was probably the best of the Transformer movies in my opinion. Seeing the robots transform for the first time was spectacular to watch. The idea that these robots can transform into anything they want is also very cool. All they have to do is scan the object and then they can transform into it.

                The fight scenes in this movie were incredible. Watching these giant robots fighting was a ton of fun to watch. I also liked how they would transform in the middle of the battle if they needed to. For example, one of the robots could turn into a jet. He would land to fight the battle and then take off before he could be hurt. He also would transform midair to attack other jets and then transform back.

                I also liked the comedic side of this movie. In one scene the giant robots were trying to hide from Sam’s parents. However trying to hide five or so giant robots in the backyard isn’t very easy at all and was funny to watch. I also like all the characters that were pretty much there just for comedic purposes. Sam’s best friend had nothing to do with the story and was only in a small part of the movie. Also Sam’s parents were very comedic and said many things that made me laugh.

(Word Count: 380)

The Incredibles

                One of my favorite movies from my childhood was, The Incredibles. This movie came out in 2004. It was written and directed by Brad Bird and released by Walt Disney Pictures. This movie was considered the best film of 2004 by many critics. It received two Academy Awards along with the very prestigious Hugo Award. This movie did incredibly well at the box office grossing around $631 million worldwide.

                The Incredibles is an animated comedy about a family of superheroes. This family has to hide their superpowers and try to live a normal life. However they get drawn into a fight with an evil villain because Mr. Incredible, the dad, just cannot stop from helping people. The whole family of superheroes has to join together and fight to stop the evil villain. Even the baby helps stop him.

                When I was a kid I loved this movie. It was one of the first superhero movies I ever saw. I thought that it was so cool seeing these people have these powers. I loved how all the different people in that movie had a different power. When they were all brought together it made the action sequences very cool.

                I also loved the comedic aspect of this movie. Everyone in this movie was funny in their own way. They were also still funny during intense action sequences. Even to this day I love when people do that in movies. I love when people are calm in scenes that are supposed to be very intense but they still somehow manage to make jokes. For some reason I have always thought that this was the best type of comedy.

                Ever since I watched The Incredibles for the first time, I have been waiting for a sequel. The movie came out 10 years and they still haven’t made a sequel! The movie ends on such a cliffhanger too. The family has gotten used to their normal lives when suddenly a new enemy shows up. This enemy announces that he is called the Underminer. The family then puts on their superhero outfits to get ready to face this new threat. They set up a sequel so well that I don’t understand why they haven’t made it yet. The movie was popular enough and made enough money that they would have no problem making a sequel. However I have heard that they are starting to work on the sequel and that it will come out soon. I just hope that it will be as incredible as the first one.

(Word Count: 425)

 

Iron Man 3

               Iron Man 3 came out in May of 2013. Iron Man 3 is the third movie and most likely final movie in the Iron Man movie. It was produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Disney. This film, like the other two, stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark aka Iron Man. It also stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Don Cheadle as Col. James Rhodes.

                In this movie, Tony Stark is investigating a terrorist organization led by the Mandarin. The Mandarin puts out videos of himself claiming to be responsible for many terrorist bombings. The Mandarin attacks Stark after Stark threatens him on television and gives the Mandarin his address. The Mandarin responds by destroying Stark’s home with helicopter gunships. Stark then hunts down the real Mandarin and kills him with the help of James Rhodes, who is now known as the Iron Patriot. Stark also gets help from his computer controlled Iron Man suits. Stark traps the Mandarin in an Iron Man suit that self-destructs and then orders the rest of his suits to self-destruct as well.

                This movie is a great example of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Because of the events that happened in the Avengers movie Tony Stark has posttraumatic stress. He has many flashbacks to the events and which makes things harder for him. This is something that movie makers don’t do very often. They rarely take events that happened in other movies and make them part of the story in their movie. This shows how complex the Marvel Cinematic Universe can be and how they can affect one another. How ever it is kind of weird that none of the other Avengers come and help Stark out in his hard times.

                The last fight scene of this movie was very engagingly fun to watch. I really liked how he called in his other Iron Man suits. With them all flying around it added a lot more action to the scene then just two people fighting. One thing I didn’t like about this movie is how Tony Stark was rarely in his suit. It felt like he was just walking around being himself instead of being Iron Man. An internet video shows that he was only in his suit for a total of 21 minutes. I didn’t like this because I wanted more Iron Man in my Iron Man movies. I came to see a movie called Iron Man not Tony Stark Walks Around.

(Word Count: 412)

People Like Grapes

             Many people ask me why my blog’s name is People Like Grapes. Many people don’t understand it or how it relates to movies. Occasionally someone will understand it and they will think that it is really funny. It actually has nothing to do with movies but it is a reference to someone who makes movies. It is a quote from a British gentleman named Gavin Free.

Gavin Free lived in Britain for the first 18 years of his life. He grew up there and went to high school there. After high school Gavin decided to not go to college and instead got a job at a grocery store. He got into the film industry because he knew someone who owned one of the two digital slow motion cameras in all of England. He became an apprentice for him and learned how to use the camera.

 This camera was wanted by filmmakers because they were cheaper to use than film slow motion cameras. Gavin was hired by these filmmakers because he was one of the few people who knew how to work these cameras. He worked on many big movies such as the second Sherlock Holmes movie.               Gavin Free also borrowed the camera from his friend and decided to make a YouTube show named the Slo-Mo Guys. He got his best friend, Dan Gruchy, to be on the show with him.  He later said that he only made the show in an attempt to get a visa to come America. He wanted to work for the internet company Rooster Teeth.  This is a company that makes comedy videos on the internet.

After a long process Gavin got his Visa and was allowed to come and work for Rooster Teeth.  At this point his YouTube show was already very popular. People were very excited for Gavin to start working. He is very funny and makes very funny videos. He is many people’s favorite person at Rooster Teeth. Many of the best videos Rooster Teeth has made had Gavin in it or he worked on it at some point.

Gavin often asks many dumb questions and says lots of dumb stuff. One of the more popular Gavin quotes is when he said, “People like grapes.” This has even been made into a shirt that Rooster Teeth sells. Many of Gavin’s quotes are turned into shirts that you can buy. Even though he says some dumb things, Gavin is still an inspiration to many people and is proof that hard work can get you to where you want.

(Word Count: 426)

47 Ronin

                  In December of 2013 a great movie was released. This movie was called 47 Ronin. This movie is about 47 samurai whose lord was killed. These 47 warriors go after the lord who is the reason that their lord died. 47 Ronin lost about $150 million which made it the second worst box office bomb ever. Despite this I thought that 47 Ronin was a really good movie.

                One thing that I loved about this movie was the fight scenes. The scene where two of the samurai try to escape from the sailors was very cool. It started out with them fighting each other with one of them trying to convince the other to join him. When he puts his other hand on the sword you know that he is going to join him and then they have to fight through an angry mob of people trying to stop them.

                Another cool scene in this movie was when a group of the samurai tries to get swords. I like this scene because it shows the demons that Kai trained with and shows that Kai has some secret power. This scene reveals more about Kai’s past. This scene also shows the bravery of the other samurai. Even though they saw all their friends getting killed they didn’t draw their swords. This also shows that the other samurai finally trust Kai. They had to just trust that they wouldn’t actually be hurt.

                The final fight scene in the movie was very cool. They start out as ninjas killing guards very sneakily. It is cool to watch the teamwork the samurais use to take out the guards without being discovered. When they are discovered it looks like they are outnumbered but still somehow manage to win. The final scene of the movie is kind of sad. The 47 Ronin are forced to commit suicide. They knew from the beginning that even if the won the battle they would be killed. I think this would be terrifying. No matter what happens you know that you are going to die. Even though they died, the Ronin died happily knowing they avenged their lord and they are also happy because they are able to commit suicide and not be hung. This shows how much loyalty they had to their lord and how much bravery that they had.

                The story of 47 Ronin is a very interesting story. When I found out it was based on a true story I was surprised. Of course the parts about the demons and the other unrealistic stuff were put into the movie to make it more exciting but the basic story really happened. There really was 47 Ronin that avenged the death of their lord in the 18^th century in Japan. I think it is incredible that real people could do something like this.

(Word Count: 476)

Bring it On: Fight to the Finish

                In 2009 a movie was released direct-to-video about cheerleaders in Malibu. This movie was called Bring it On: Fight to the Finish. I saw this movie when it was on MTV and I had nothing better to watch. This movie is the fifth movie in the Bring it On series.  In my opinion Bring it On: Fight to The Finish was not a very good movie.

                This movie is very cliché. It is another one of those movies where somebody leads a group that isn’t very good and tries to make them better. The group goes through many difficulties and many times they are close to quitting. However they push through and manage to beat the group that always wins. This group is usually full of people who are mean and that think they are better than everyone else. There are many movie that have plot lines that are very similar to this and Bring it On: Fight to the Finish follows this plot line almost exactly.

                The only good part of this movie was the dancing. Everyone in this movie are very good dancers. It’s also very cool to see them getting thrown up very high into the air and doing a lot of flips. However it is kind of hard to believe that a group that was so bad at the beginning of the movie is able to do these stunts by the end. The group had a hard time doing very simple moves but at the end they are doing very complicated and difficult stuff.

                The end of this movie was very predictable. Anyone that watches this movie expects the underdog group to win. The end is also very abrupt. It was a very short amount of time between them winning and the movie ending. They didn’t show anything that happened after or anything to wrap it all up. It almost felt like they just cut it off because they ran out of time.

(Word Count: 329)