Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Monday, October 30, 2017
It's October 30th, which means two things: tomorrow is Halloween and DC's superhero mashup film Justice League is set to hit theaters in just over two weeks on November 16th.
With those in mind, along with having a girlfriend who just happens to look amazing in a Catwoman outfit, I knew for sure that yours truly needed to pick up a Batman costume for this year's Halloween party, and that's where Halloween Costumes came to the rescue.
The sponsors of our recent giveaway contest were kind enough to hook me up with one of their deluxe Justice League Batman costumes—my personal choice out of their variety of Justice League and Batman costumes as I wanted to be as timely as possible to capitalize on the hype of the upcoming movie.
A wise man once said, “Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman. Then be Batman.” We think it might have been Voltaire…
Being Batman is hard work. It requires billions of dollars in your checking account, a giant mansion that’s built on top of a cave that can be used as a base of operations and many years of martial arts training. You also need a butler, an acrobat sidekick with the same passion for justice that you have and a really cool car.
Well, chances are pretty good that you’re not a socialite with a tragic backstory and a multi-billion dollar bankroll, so being Batman might not always be easy. The good news is that we can help you be Batman! Just wear this Deluxe Tactical Batman costume, which is based on the Justice League movie, and you’ll be halfway there to becoming the iconic DC hero.
This adult Batman costume comes with everything you need to start your transformation into Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. It comes with a full jumpsuit that has muscle padding in the chest and arms, along with printed armor detailing. Attached boot covers and gauntlets help complete the look, making you look like a fully outfitted superhero with a hefty bankroll! Of course, it also comes with a belt and cape, as well as a Batman mask to hide your secret identity from the likes of The Joker and his goons. The only thing you’ll need to “be Batman” is some deadly gadgets and a lifetime of martial arts training. You’d better start working on both of those details while you wait for the costume to arrive at your doorstep!
- Justice League Adult Deluxe Tactical Batman Costume
- 100% polyester
- Jumpsuit has printed details and hook and loop fasteners in back
- Jumpsuit has padded chest and shoulders sculpted to look like muscles
- Cape made of lightweight fabric
- Cape is fastened securely to shoulders with hook and loop fasteners
- Belt has printed details
- Latex mask has elastic band to hold it securely
- Officially licensed
- Jumpsuit has attached boot covers
If you've followed Fanboys Anonymous for a while, you know by now that not only am I a massive Batman fan (favorite superhero ever), I'm also an apologist for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as I think the movie was just a few elements short of being perfect (ie, recast Lex Luthor and watch the Ultimate Edition and you've got an amazing movie).
What you may not know is that I've dressed as Batman numerous times throughout my Halloween experience and I was even that kid that used to wear the Batman cape and cowl around the house despite it being April and way past when I should have kept suiting up. I was adorable, and I was the night. Trust me.
Anyway, this Justice League variation was certainly a hit with my buddies and a great means to capitalize on a couples costume and fandom at the same time.
If you're trying to sort out a last minute costume or you want to get a heads up on next year, or you just want to buy a Batman costume because you're excited for the movie—whatever the case may be—make sure you check out Halloween Costumes and browse their site to check out not just their Dark Knight selection, but all the other things available, since you can pretty much find anything you're looking for.
Also, remember to check back here for a review of Justice League when the film comes out, and if you have any good stories or want to show off your Halloween costume from this year, drop a comment below!
Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Saturday, October 21, 2017
Welcome to another edition of Fanboys Fix It, where instead of just complaining about what we don't like about something, we try to figure out how we can make it better.
With Spider-Man: Homecoming out on Blu-Ray, I had a chance to rewatch it for the first time since seeing it in theaters. Overall, I was a huge fan of the movie and there were only a couple of things that annoyed me, so on my rewatch, I was curious to see if those few errors were more or less annoying than before.
They were the same—shocking—but that prompted me to give a rewrite a crack to fix these problems in what is mostly a 90% perfect movie for what they were going for.
I love nearly everything about this film, from the inclusion of Damage Control, the references to Aaron Davis and multiple Shocker identities, having The Tinkerer and even down to the comedic tone.
So with that being the framework, keep in mind that my goal here is always to change as little as possible to make the movie as great as possible, so it isn't a complete rehaul of every idea, which is why you won't see a full-on fan fiction script below.
With that being said, what are the problems I do think are present with Spider-Man: Homecoming?
Core Problem #1: The Multitude of Michelle and Liz Problems
These are somewhat tied together with many facets to unpack...
MJ Instead of MG
First things first, no, Michelle is not Mary Jane. Don't try to be cutesy by calling her MJ. You can't just strip absolutely everything from a character, at the last second call them that character's nickname, and have that be okay. Didn't these people watch what happened with The Dark Knight Rises trying to pass off John Blake as Robin, which just pissed people off in all ways?
The representatives of Mary Jane Watson are pretty standard: she is a Caucasian girl roughly around Peter's age with red hair who is out of his league beautiful and eventually the love of his life. Sometimes, you can play around with the specifics like whether or not they grew up together, if she's sassier or sweeter, etc.
There was some backlash about the casting of Zendaya when it comes to her race. Admittedly, I wasn't a fan of it, as I didn't see the reason to necessarily change this (even though I'm all for doing that with certain characters, a la Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is infinitely better than the other incarnation and I prefer my Iris and Wally West to be black as well, and Tilda Swinton was a great Ancient One, and Heimdall is an improvement, and so on and so forth). My issue was more so that she doesn't have any of Mary Jane's traits because even though Zendaya is attractive, they downplay that entirely and make her a creepy SJW loner type with no friends who looks like she barely mustered up the energy to roll out of bed in the morning and throw on yesterday's sweats, rather than some bombshell that she could have easily pulled off. She's a completely different character in every possible way, so just let her be a different character.
Also, if you're going to go with the Michelle name, why is she Michelle Jones? Why isn't she Michele Gonzales? Michele is a character from the comics and a love interest that could have been explored that we haven't seen in the films yet, like Carlie Cooper. Or, perhaps, if you don't want to have her be a love interest, you could have made that character more of a lesser entity and still referenced previous material by casting a Middle Eastern girl and making her Indira Daimonji, who would make perfect sense being that type of friend to Peter in that circle of friends. For that matter, if you wanted to, you could have made that character Debra Whitman, too, but I get the attempt at diversity, so I'll bypass Whitman as she's typically just another white blonde girl and that should be reserved for Gwen Stacy.
So for now, let's just move forward with this in mind: Michelle Jones is not MJ in this script. Instead, she is Michele Gonzales, and there's nothing at all referencing Mary Jane Watson whatsoever.
Liz Isn't Liz
Liz is absolutely nothing like she's typically presented, either, and that extends once more to a difference in both appearance as well as characteristics.
As far as the race change goes, I'm okay with that. Spider-Man's series was really generic in how his love interests for the longest time were solely white girls, so hey, the way I see it, leave Mary Jane and Gwen alone and you can alter the rest if you want. If you want to make Betty Brant Asian, I'm all for it, although I also think it's dumb that we have Betty Brant and Glory Grant, but that's another whole issue.
Liz, to me, is almost always a bitchy type. She and Sally Avril and others are best utilized as a pain in the ass "popular cheerleader stereotype" kind of character. If you wanted to go with someone with the traits of Liz in this film, you could have swapped her name out for Indira or Debra, who are much more academic.
The Vulture's Daughter
This absolutely had to have been a Sony note, since we know for the longest time, they wanted Spider-Man 4 with Sam Raimi to be about Vulture and his daughter, who would have been either Black Cat or something called Vulturess.
Clearly, they wanted to do this very, very badly. We've seen this type of mentality by studios before with how they're getting their Venom spinoff film, or how for years, the Terminator franchise kept toying with the idea of turning John Connor into a Terminator only to go ahead and do that for Terminator Genisys, which was awful.
I don't absolutely 100% hate the idea of Vulture having a daughter that has ties to Peter Parker, but I hate how it was shoehorned in there. It didn't need to happen, and it even less so needed to be Liz Allen of all people.
Her name in the movie is actually Liz Toomes, making her even less of Liz Allen, and just a random ass character they created. Meanwhile, there actually IS a daughter for Vulture elsewhere, named Valeria Toomes....so if she doesn't act like Liz and isn't named Liz, why isn't she Valeria????
With that in mind, let's correct the problem in one of three ways:
Solution #1 = Valeria Toomes
Instead of Liz Allen being Liz Toomes, you just have Valeria Toomes and Michele Gonzales be these two girls.
Valeria is whatever you want her to be. She's popular, she's bitchy, she's nice, she's smart, it doesn't matter. She's there just to be an object of Peter's affection and a motivational tool for he and Vulture anyway in the film.
Once Vulture is sent to jail, Valeria and her mom move, just like what happens in this film.
Peter, the whole time, has been focused on Valeria and has been ignoring Michele, but hey, there are sequels to come, so maybe those two kids will totally hit it off now that Valeria is out of the way and we clearly don't have Gwen or MJ to step in.
Solution #2 = Merge Them
Vulture is the stepfather to Michele Gonzalez. There is no Valeria/Liz. She doesn't move when he's arrested. You explain her erratic behavior by having her grow up with a guy that is a criminal.
The end...but with more of an explanation with solution #3....
Solution #3 = Switcharoo
Liz Allen, played by someone who is closer to Tom Holland's age, and named Liz Allen instead of Liz Toomes, is a completely different character in the film. She's the super hot popular queen of the land that is actually really bitchy, but Peter is transfixed by her and doesn't see this. All the meanwhile, he's been ignoring this girl Michele Gonzales who is a little eccentric, but much nicer to him, and who might have a crush on Peter.
Instead of getting to go to the dance with Liz, Peter "settles" for going with Ned and Michele as a "group stag" type deal as friends.
This is when we get the reveal that Vulture is Michele's stepfather, which explains why she's so goddamn weird, and suddenly, the girl in the background of the film is now so much more important, which is a better reveal.
At the end of the movie, Toomes gets sent to prison, but he has a decent relationship with Peter who not only saved his life, but also Michele's, and he also kind of commends him for befriending her even though she's an oddball. She doesn't move. She stays in New York, but now she has a better support system in Ned and Peter.
Liz, on the other hand, continues being her bitchy self and the difference isn't in her character, but in how Peter views her character. It's a lesson in how these types of people in high school sometimes turn out to never change and you don't need to deal with them the rest of your life, which is a lesson very rarely taught in movies even though it's truthful (although in my school experience, we didn't really have stereotypical jocks and cheerleaders like that, so....)
Oh. Also, Michele in any incarnation has a brother, Vin, who can either be seen having issues with Peter when he comes to pick her up for the dance or there can just be a passing reference to her saying that Vin doesn't like Peter. No biggie, just fan service and continuity.
Core Problem #2: Normal School / Characters
This idea of Peter being in a gifted school makes sense to a certain degree, but it also flies in the face of a lot of what is tantamount to the Peter Parker story.
One of the most fundamental concepts of the Spider-Man franchise is that Peter is a guy that has horrible luck and is never given the credit he deserves. He struggles in every aspect, but he still manages to find a way to be optimistic for the future and spread some laughs.
The kid loses his parents, then loses his uncle due to a decision he makes, fights crime and gets called a menace, is always struggling for money, is always criticized for being a bad friend when he's the total opposite, etc. "Brilliant but lazy" despite that being as far away from the truth as possible, for instance.
Why is he in a school filled with his peers when he should be an outsider who isn't given the chance to succeed?
Peter should be in a regular high school with a regular Flash Thompson who is totally not Tony Revolori, but more of the ilk of, I don't know, every other incarnation of the character ever, where he's a bit of a meathead jock who picks on him but eventually grows to respect him, rather than some intellectual rival?
Nitpick: Flash should throw the party, not Liz/Valeria/Michele. Flash doesn't want Peter there, and only agrees to let him come if he can produce Spider-Man to make an appearance. When he doesn't, Flash calls him a loser and voila.
These teachers in the normal school should have more references to the comic book characters as well. Just browse the bible and you'll see tons of teachers he's had in various media and insert their names instead of making up even more random ones.
For that matter, include more of those side characters that you don't have to do much with, but just round out the supporting crew. Jason Ionello popping up made me go "hmmm wow", so let's see Sally Avril and Seymour O'Reilly and Kenny Kong and Robbie Robertson and whatnot all hanging out. Nobody gives a shit who Brian "Tiny" McKeever really is, but why not allude to him by having a real quick cameo of someone as a hall monitor and then credit them as the character? It doesn't take much! Maybe instead of Betty Brant being the girl working on the news program, it's Danika Hart, too, since that's more up her alley.
Also, what's up with this weird amalgamation of Edward "Ned" Leeds and Ganke Lee? If you're going to do that, give us some supplemental material that turns into the skid by naming him Edward Ganke Lee, aka Ned.
For that matter, Harry Osborn should have at least been a contact on Peter's phone as an Easter egg. You didn't need to make him a full character in this film, but he needs to be someone in Peter's life.
Miscellaneous Extra Flaws & Nitpicking
Basically, those big problems above are the things that would have saved this movie and made it better as a whole, but there are smaller things that could have been changed as well. I'm obviously not going to nitpick every little detail, but a few things that stand out to me are as follows:
- No Daily Bugle? –Like, at all??? Not even in the background?
- No Netflix References? – Marvel's film and television sides clearly have issues with each other, but it isn't hard at all to throw each other a bone. One line of dialogue will make fans go crazy if you have Peter nervously say something about "the devil guy in Hell's Kitchen" or how he's not some public persona like Luke Cage. They live in the same city. Reference something.
- Karen – The voice of the suit, nicknamed Karen, should be a reference to something in the comics, perhaps Madame Web instead.
- Avengers Tower – If this is being sold, it better be a conversion into the Baxter Building. If not, I'm going to be pissed.
- Washington Monument – This whole set piece felt like a contrived way to have a "save people" action scene at that point in the movie. It's out of place and it seems weird that more people can't connect the dots to Peter being Spider-Man. The decathlon should be closer to New York, perhaps upstate, to make it more convenient and easier and realistic.
- Timeline – Lots of confusion about when this film takes place. To avoid that, just say "present day" and "The Battle of New York" instead of giving out specific years.
- Spidey Sense - Um...where are you?
Well, there you have it—some insight into how I would have changed things in hindsight if I was magically given me the ability to do so. I might go back and edit this when the film comes out on Blu-Ray and I get a chance to watch it again (if I even want to rewatch it, that is) and either find out that my opinions have changed for the better or for the worse. Maybe I'll add things, maybe I'll tweak the current things, or maybe I'll see that I missed some details that justify the nitpicks and I'll remove them, but we'll have to see about that.
What do you think of the changes that I would have made?
Do they make the movie better or worse?
What changes would you make?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
Posted by
Fanboys Anonymous
- Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Halloween is coming up and if you're looking to dress up as a superhero, WWE superstar or anything else from pop culture, you definitely need to check out HalloweenCostumes.com
Smark Out Moment and Fanboys Anonymous are teaming up with Halloween Costumes for another contest where you can win a gift card that you can apply to anything the site has to offer, just by showing your support for our websites!
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Six winners will be chosen at random based on the Gleam competition module above. The first winner will receive $50 credit for HalloweenCostumes.com toward anything available on the site of their choosing, while five runner-ups will receive $10 in credit.
Halloween Costumes Gift Card Giveaway
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Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Sunday, October 1, 2017
Welcome to the latest edition of Making the Grade—a review format segment here on Fanboys Anonymous where we break down the five major components of something and give it a score based on the standard report card lineup: A, B, C, D, and F for a total failure.
The next report card is for the premiere episode of the television series Marvel's Inhumans, entitled "Behold...The Inhumans" and "Those Who Would Destroy Us"
WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW
STORY: C
Inherently, the Inhumans have always been one of the exemplary things that I'm not the biggest fan of in comics. They're kind of up their own ass, in a way. Everything reminds me of the fantasy genre, where there's tons of reliance upon a caste system, it's all very regal and traditional, and part of the kitsch value is that you're supposed to find it fun that there's a teleporting dog and a guy with hooves.
I don't.
I've always considered the Inhumans to be a poor man's Mutants, and since Marvel doesn't have the rights to the X-Men franchise, this is their "next best thing" so to speak.
I don't fault them for trying to go this route, and I probably would have tried a very similar thing if I were given the keys to the kingdom, but just because it's Marvel and the majority of what they do is amazing doesn't mean everything is a home run, and this is just boring and cheesy.
As far as this individual pilot goes, the first few minutes of it were really bad with exposition and much of what followed ended up being the same.
I also got no sense that this is in the same universe of the films, nor even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Netflix shows. I guess they just don't give a shit, which is a shame. It isn't like the movies aren't doing a bang-up job of keeping continuity. They're even figuring out ways to do things like retroactively say Peter Parker was the kid in Iron Man 2 while this feels like it's more on par with Legion and what I'm assuming The Gifted will be (which I'm not looking forward to, by the way).
In theory, the idea of a brother becoming treasonous and overthrowing his king to usurp the throne and all that stuff is fine on paper, but it's not the best story for my personal tastes, and all the surrounding material just feels like hokum.
CHARACTERS/ACTING: D
Acting is a simple judgment: they're all pretty bad. That isn't just the main cast, but the extras and supporting roles as well. Everything just feels like the worst examples of CW acting.
Character-wise, we have such bland people in this first episode that I can't even explain much about what their traits are.
Crystal is dumb and hot, I guess? Karnak is the smart guy? Lockjaw is a fucking dog. Louise is the human counterpart and definitely nothing more than a writer's tool they realized they needed for future episodes to have the royal family connect to regular people. Medusa is...uh....something. Gorgon is just the tough guy.
Oddly, Black Bolt is the hero with the most character to him, in my mind, and he's a mute who doesn't even change his facial expressions.
Maximus is definitely the driving force and at least his #2 is hot.
Random note: what's with the rock wall dude who reminds me of Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple?
VISUALS (FX, MAKEUP, COSTUMES, SETS): D
Wow does this look fake. It's not the worst thing ever, so I can't give it an F, but it's pretty damn bad.
Attilan is so clearly CGI that it's like the transitioning shots of Gotham, which I've always hated.
Medusa's hair??? Did the same people work on that as the people that did the green screen effects for that one shot in The Defenders with the elevator?
Then there's Lockjaw...
Yeah, this is a fail, especially since they were supposed to be making this an IMAX gorgeous looking thing.
MUSIC & SOUND: C
To be honest, I didn't notice anything other than their use of "Paint It Black", which was interesting, but not as good as how Westworld did it.
TONE & ATMOSPHERE: C
ACTION: Why was everything so slow and choreographed? That was laughable. None of it had me on the edge of my seat. None of it was innovative or even standard for television action.
COMEDY: I didn't laugh once. Not even a chuckle or a smirk.
ROMANCE: So Medusa loves Black Bolt "because" and, well, I guess that's it.
FINAL GRADE: D
I thought there were problems with Iron Man 2. I think Thor: The Dark World is probably the weakest of the Marvel films (check my running ranking here). I was wrong in my prediction that Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man would be problematic, thankfully, as those movies are very fun. I didn't love Agent Carter and there are problems with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that bug me. The Netflix shows have been letting me down (particularly Iron Fist and The Defenders).
However, this is Marvel's first flop. This is genuinely BAD with few, if any redeeming qualities. I hate rooting against something, but I hope this doesn't last past its 8 episode breakdown, as I don't think it deserves to even go past that point just for an experiment.
I've had my fill of the Inhumans in general, but this was an opportunity to make me change my mind and be so good that it would convince me that we needed even more, and instead, it did the opposite. Now, I'm worried that The Runaways and Cloak and Dagger are going to be just as bad and just as unconnected.
I'm not sure which is a worse reasoning for how bad this is: that they might not have put any effort into it because they didn't care and they're resting on the laurels of the MCU's success, thinking they can just hit the snooze button and people will love it, or if they genuinely tried their hardest and it still came out this bad.
If it's the former, well, the critical response proves them wrong. If it's the latter, please don't hire any of these producers, writers and directors to work on anything else in the MCU ever again.
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF MARVEL'S INHUMANS?
LEAVE YOUR REPORT CARD IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
