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)

Iron Man 2

                On May 7, 2010 the second installment of the Iron Man trilogy was released. This movie was simply called, Iron Man 2. This was the third installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This movie grossed over $623.9 million worldwide at the box office.

                Iron Man 2 takes place 6 months after the events of the first Iron Man. Tony Stark is considered a superstar and uses his suit for peaceful means while refusing to give over the technology to the government. Stark also realizes that the arc reactor that is keeping him alive is also poisoning him. He becomes reckless because he knows he will die soon because of this poisoning but he decides to not tell anyone. Meanwhile, Ivan Vanko is secretly making a suit similar to Starks.

                Vanko attacks Stark in the middle of a race but Stark manages to defeat him. Starks rival, Justin Hammer, breaks Vanko out of jail and tells him to build a line of suits that will defeat Stark. Stark gets into a fight with his friend Rhodes when Stark gets drunk at his birthday party. Rhodes takes one of Stark’s earlier suits for the U.S. Air Force. Stark meets with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s director Nick Fury who tells Stark that his father knew Vanko’s father and that his father invented a new element. Stark puts this new element into is arc reactor so that he is no longer being poisoned by it.

                Hammer reveals his armored drones at an expo for weapons. These drones were led by Rhodes who didn’t know that Hammer was the bad guy. Stark shows up to try and warn Rhodes but Vanko takes over control of the drones and of Rhodes armor. Vanko gets in his own suit of armor while Rhodes gets control of his armor back. Rhodes and Stark work together to defeat Vanko and his drones. Vanko commits suicide by blowing up his suit.

                After the big fight scene happens, Marvel throws in some small references to old and future movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As Fury talks to Stark there is news footage on of the Hulk going on a rampage. Fury tells Stark that he will only be used a consultant for S.H.I.E.L.D. Also after the credits a S.H.I.E.L.D. agents reports the discovery of a large hammer at the bottom of a crate in New Mexico. This is a reference to the movie Thor which Marvel creates after Iron Man.

                Iron Man 2 wasn’t quite as good as the first one but was still very good. Robert Downey Jr. does an amazing job playing Tony Stark in this movie as well. The fighting sequences in this movie were as good if not better than the first one. The fact that there are more than just 2 suits going at it makes the fights more action packed and exciting.  I liked how in this movie Rhodes played a bigger part. I really like his character and was happy that he got his own suit. Even with all of this, Iron Man 2 wasn’t as good as the first one in my opinion.

(Word Count: 520)

Iron Man

                In 2008 the first installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe came out. This movie was Iron Man. It starred Robert Downey Jr playing as Tony Stark. It was produced by Marvel Studios and was based on the Marvel Comics. This movie was the first in three Iron Man movies that were made.

                Tony Stark was a genius who inherited Stark Industries from his father. This company created weapons that were very deadly and sold to the United States military. Tony is in Afghanistan showing off his new Jericho missile when he gets captured by a terrorist group known as the Ten Rings. He has to have an electromagnet put into his chest to keep shrapnel from hitting his heart. The leader of the terrorist group promises to let Tony Stark go if he builds a Jericho missile for them.  However Tony doesn’t trust him and decides to build himself a suit of armor.

                Before he does build himself the suit of armor he creates an electric generator called an arc reactor. He uses this reactor to power his electromagnet and to power his suit. He uses his suit to fight his way out and fly away but ends up crashing in a desert.  He gets rescued and when he gets home he decides to build an improved version of his suit and his arc reactor.

                Tony Stark uses his armor to attack the Ten Rings. While he is flying home he is attacked by 2 jets. He calls Rhodes, the soldier who rescued him, and reveals his identity in an attempt to stop the attack. While this is happening the Ten Rings are gathering the pieces from Tony’s original suit.

                The Ten Rings meet with Stane, Stark’s company manager, and he creates a new suit using these pieces. However Stane needs an arc reactor so he breaks into Tony’s home and takes the reactor out of his chest. Tony manages to crawl to his original reactor and plug that one in. Stane and Tony fight in their suits but since Tony is using his old reactor his suit isn’t at 100%. However Tony manages to defeat Stane by getting him on top of the Stark Industries building and telling his assistant to overload the arc reactor that is there. A massive electrical surge knocks Stane into the reactor which kills him. The next day Tony announces to the world that he is Iron Man.

                Iron Man is one of my favorite movies that I have ever seen. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark very well. Tony Stark is portrayed as a cocky, rich guy and Robert Downey Jr. does that very well. However he also shows that Tony Stark goes through a very emotional journey. The rest of the movie was done great as well. The fighting sequences were really cool and the CGI was done very well. All in all this was a great movie and excellent start to a really good trilogy.

(Word Count: 496)