Month: June 2017

Character Of The Month: July 2017: Vulture

Ben DeSanti

Hello, and welcome once again to the Blog Of Hell’s Kitchen. Today, we’ve got our newest edition of our Character Of The Month series, and today it’s on Vulture, for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Now, as always, this article will only go over the featured character’s history from the comics, and not what they’ve done in other film and television projects. So, let’s get to it.

Adrian Toomes, also known as The Vulture, began his life with his parents dying, as most comic book characters do. Generally that birthright goes to heroes, but do we really care at this point? At first, his brother, Marcus, took care of him, teachers found young Adrian to be very intelligent, and everything seemed like he’d be just alright. But that’s not entertaining to comic book readers, so Marcus became a paraplegic because of a motorcycle accident, so Adrian was forced to take care of Marcus.

Once he became an adult, he studied and became an electrical engineer, and founded the firm Bestman and Toomes Electronics. His friend and partner, Gregory Bestman, decided that he would take over running the actual company while Toomes would be running the mechanical work portion. Obviously, Bestman is stealing from Toomes, Toomes confronts him while using  his brand new jetpack wings. Bestman ends up exposing Toomes’ threats to the public, losing the part of the company that he had yet to have had stolen to Bestman. Toomes resorted to living on a farm after this, but continued to work on his weapons.

Toomes, obviously, is most well known as a member of the Sinister Six, but his solo career, which seems to be a big part of the character’s storyline in Spider-Man: Homecoming, was very successful. He originally robbed a string of jewelry stores, and even got to the point where he announced his next robbery at the Park Avenue Diamond Exchange. Everyone expects him to come in from the sky, but he does the smart thing, and comes through the floor like yet another Marvel villain. Only after he had stolen a decent amount of money, he was stopped by Spider-Man, and the rest is history.

Alright, thank you guys once again for reading. I probably could have worked in some of his Sinister Six history, but considering that I feel Spider-Man: Homecoming will focus mostly on his time as a solo act, or his time with Michael Chernus’ Tinkerer and Bokeem Woodbine’s Shocker, I think I can save some of that material if they ever make a Sinister Six movie in the MCU. Anyways, guys, thank you again for reading, and remember, have a nerdy day.

Featured News: June 2017

Ben DeSanti

Welcome once again to another edition of Featured News. Our top stories this month will cover the reaction worldwide to this month’s Wonder Woman, what’s been seen from director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther with its first trailer, and finally, the stepping was of the directors of a certain Star Wars project. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Like I said in the above paragraph, Wonder Woman opened to the United States, as well as China, all the way back on June 2nd. While most figured when it was said by critics that it was the best DCEU movie meant that it might just be half decent, and get about a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it became automatically one of the best films of the year. I do actually think that, after viewing Logan, Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2, and Wonder Woman at least four times each, that I will rank those three movies as so; 1) Logan, 2) Wonder Woman, and 3) Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2. The movie, as of June 25th, has grossed $598 million against a budget of $149 million, and has garnered a Rotten Tomatoes of 92%.

Secondly, the first trailer for the director of Fruitvale Station and Creed Ryan Coogler’s new film based around the King of Wakanda, Black Panther, debuted during the first quarter of Game 4 of the NBA Finals on June 9th to fanfare out the ass. It is by far one of the best trailers I have ever seen from just about any studio, let alone Marvel Studios, who is known for soliciting great trailers, mostly because all or most of footage of the movies those trailers are based around are great. The trailer showed off footage of Wakanda’s stunning skyline, Andy Serkis’s Klaue being interrogated by Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross, Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, and even more footage of the ever-valiant King Of Wakanda and the Black Panther. T’Challa. If you want more footage of Black Panther, there may not be another full trailer for SDCC 2017 because of how close the first came out to the event, but we may get lucky enough to see a few new clips.

And finally, you can’t bring up June 2017 to a Star Wars fan from now on without mentioning the absolute ridiculousness surrounding the Han Solo solo film. Lucasfilm, after five months on set and the beginning stages of post-production, has fired directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord due to their shooting style. Miller and Lord have believed they were shooting a comedy film, while Lucasfilm hired them to “add a slight comedic touch to this overall space fantasy”. But the question that statement begs is; why was this shit not ironed out right after Miller and Lord were hired? Either way, Ron Howard has since been hired to complete the film, and there’s no word yet on who will receive the final directing credit, or credits.

And that’s all for now, guys, thank you so much for reading. Please join me on Friday for my Character Of The Month for July on The Vulture, who will be the main villain in next week’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. And as always, thank you again for reading,  and remember, have a nerdy day.

CBMs Of Earth 2: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Franchise: Part 1; Spider-Man 4: The Mysterious Vulture

Ben DeSanti

Now, if you think this article is familiar, you’re absolutely right. This is the first installation of the “Spider- FINITY” series. But this last week, I was thinking, “This series and ‘CBMs Of Earth 2’ are pretty much the exact same thing, let’s just combine them!” So I did. Of course, I have changed the articles, quite a bit actually, because just re-serving you the same article is wrong. So, while I combine “CBMs Of Earth 2” and “Spider- FINITY”, I’m also taking the “Erase The Prequels!” series that I’ve already started and the articles I’m planning, and combining them with a bunch of other articles I was planning on making about what I would change in major nerd culture movies, and I’m calling it “What Would I Do” or “WWID”. Anyways, on to the changed article!

Release Date:

6/ 29/ 2012

If you don’t know the story of Raimi’s Spider-Man 4, let me catch you up. Spider-Man 4 was delayed, and then cancelled, because Sam Raimi felt that the studio wasn’t giving him enough time to be creative and other stuff my middle school art teacher said while crying about her cats and ex-husband. Instead of giving the fourth installment a May 5, 2011 release, let’s hand Raimi just under fourteen more months to figure some things out, with a date of June 29, 2012. Why I choose the 29th is because it’s the last Friday before The Amazing Spider-Man‘s actual release date of July 3, 2012.

Fun Fact: The Amazing Spider-Man was only released on a Tuesday (July 3, 2012) just do it would make an assload of money from bored people on the American Independence Day.

Cast:

  • Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man/Peter Parker
  • Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson
  • John Malkovich as Vulture/Adrian Toomes
  • Anne Hathaway as Vulturess/ Felicia Hardy (becomes Black Cat in End Credit Scene)
  • Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors
  • Rosemary Harris as May Parker
  • J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson
  • Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy
  • James Cromwell as Captain George Stacy
  • Bruce Campbell as Mysterio/ Quentin Beck

Changes:

Now, of course, Spider-Man 4 never happened in real life, and considering it’s hard to compare this film to something that never happened, let’s compare it to the fourth Spider-Man movie to release worldwide, The Amazing Spider-Man. And those are two completely different films. Gwen Stacy was the main love interest in TASM, and MJ was the main love interest. Besides that, everything is different, and it’s stupid to judge a fish for it’s tree climbing ability, or a shitty Spider-Man franchise for trying to be a quality Spider-Man franchise.

Also, in the case of Hathway, I do want her to become Black Cat by the film, as I said in the Cast section, because I do want her to eventually become her own franchise at some point, as part of the overarching universe.

Ramifications:

Hathway, doing this instead of The Dark Knight Rises, paves the way for Eva Green to submit a fantastic performance as Catwoman, which ends up changing the chemistry of the film in a Butterfly Effect type of way, which ends up in better reviews and a slightly larger box office draw, and The ends up being the first three films of the DCEU, succeeded by a Joe Manganiello as Superman and Jude Law as General Zod- led Man Of Steel, with Olivia Wilde as Lois Lane, leading to a BvS with Mark Strong as Lex Luthor. Okay, maybe not that far, but it will probably screw majorly with the events of all DC-based films.

And there you go, Raimi’s happy, I’m happy, and hopefully, you’re happier because you got a small glimpse into what could have been. As always thanks for reading, and remember to join be next week for my Character Of The Month for June 2017, which will be based on Doctor Poison, who will be a villain in Wonder Woman, played by Elena Anaya. Again, thanks for reading, and remember, have a nerdy day!

HDCU II; Superman: Last Son

Ben DeSanti

Hello, and welcome to the finally- arrived second edition of The HDCU, by far my favorite series on here to do, but each article takes a lot, the last one was about 1300 words, but hopefully I’m able to narrow down that monstrosity of the original 4000 words, to about 500- 600 for this one. Anyways, let’s get to it.

Reference Release Date: 5/ 3/ 2019

Director, Cast, and Credits Sequences Cast

  • Director: Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
  • Chris Pine (Star Trek) as Clark Kent/ Kal-El/ Superman (1st)
  • Ken Watanabe (Inception) as Dru-Zod/ General Zod (2nd)
  • Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as Lois Lane (1st)
  • Ryan Potter (Big Hero 6) as Chris Kent (1st)
  • Lea Seydoux (Spectre) as Diana Prince (1st)
  • Matthew Willig (Concussion) as Non (1st)
  • Malese Jow (The Flash) as Ursa (1st)
  • Courtney B. Vance (Law And Order: SVU) as Professor Silas Stone (1st)
  • Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) as Corporal Nathaniel Adam (1st)
  • Andie MacDowell (The 5th Quarter) as Martha Kent (1st)
    Mid- Credits:
  • A Stunt Actor Stand-In as Batman (1st)
  • Dominic West (Money Monster) as Harvey Dent (1st)
  • Mandy Patinkin (Criminal Minds) as Jim Gordon (1st)
  • After Credits:
  • Malese Jow as Ursa
  • David Tennant (Jessica Jones) as Concord Federal Guard/ Roscoe Dillon (2nd)

Plot Synopsis

Well, for my version of Superman, at the beginning of this movie, Superman hasn’t started his crime fighting career yet, somewhat like Man Of Steel, but my version has him training for an incoming threat. Now, he doesn’t know of any threat that’s currently incoming, as of yet. He’s got the Fortress of Solitude, he’s got Lois, he’s still got Martha, he’s got the costume, battle armor, everything. But one thing’s really kept him from fighting crime; his own family. Since he got to Metropolis about five years ago, he’s dated and married Lois, but about two years ago, Clark found another adolescent Kryptonian in the suburbs of Star City while reporting on the uptick of vigilantism in the city. Clark took the boy, Chris, back home with him and adopts him as his own son. Clark, Lois, and Chris live as a happy family, with an occasional visit to Martha’s farm back in Smallville. But, about 20 minutes in, another Kryptonian ship crashes right into the middle of Gotham, and Zod, Non, and Ursa hop out, and take the world hostage. They lock down all communication networks, and the Kent family go into hiding in Smallville. US Army Corporal Nathaniel Adam uses a scientist, Silas Stone, to capture the energy signature of Zod and the Kryptonians to find other Kryptonian spies around the world. They track both Chris and Clark down to the Kent farm, corner them, and Clark finally reveals his powers to the military. Stone eventually steps in and is able to negotiate with Clark. Clark agrees to work with another metahuman in the Army’s employ in exchange for the Army providing Lois, Chris, and Martha with protection. Clark flies back to the Fortress Of Solitude off screen to grab him metal Kryptonian battle armor and meets Adam and Stone back at a military base, where he meets Wonder Woman. They spend up until the last 20 minutes of the movie training and forming a battle plan. Before the final battle, Zod finds Chris in Smallville, and has Non take him. Martha and Lois try to fight back, but Non ends up killing Martha and knocking Lois unconscious. Clark finds out, attends Martha’s funeral, and returns to the Fortress Of Solitude to retrieve his classic blue-and-red costume, which he wears during the final battle. The battle goes in the way of Zod beating Clark and Wonder Woman, but eventually, Chris breaks free and starts fighting against Clark’s wishes. The fight goes well for the good guys, and then Chris accidentally punches a whole through Zod’s chest, and as Zod dies, he reveals he is Chris’s father, and he sent him to Earth as an unknowing scout for his gang. Zod dies, Non and Ursa surrender and are taken away, and Chris, Wonder Woman, and Clark are left in shock.

Mid Credits Synopsis

The basis for this scene is simply Commissioner Gordon, Batman, and Harvey Dent talking about the damage caused by the Kryptonian ship crash in Gotham.

End Credits Synopsis

The basis for this scene is simply Roscoe Dillon from the previous Flash film pretending to be a security guard in a women’s prison, and he recruits Ursa to his and Vandal Savage’s plan.

And as always, thanks for reading. Next week will be CBMs Of Earth 2: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Franchise: Part 1: Spider-Man 4. Alright, once again, thank you for reading, and remember, have a nerdy day.

Wonder Woman Review

Ben DeSanti

(SPOILERS: Major spoilers for Wonder Woman, as well as potential spoilers for Justice League and the yet-to-be-dated Wonder Woman 2)

Hello, and welcome once again to my latest Review. This week, I’ll be covering Wonder Woman, which is directed by Patty Jenkins (Monster), and stars Gal Gadot (Fast Five, Keeping Up With The Joneses), Chris Pine (Star Trek, Horrible Bosses 2), and David Thewlis (Harry Porter series, Fargo Season 3). The movie hit theaters in the United States June 2nd, one week ago at the time of posting this article. And without any further ado, let’s get into this article.

Honestly, and not to be a stereotypical comic book movie fan that only pays attention to the titular character, I really do think that Wonder Woman was my favorite character out of everyone in the movie. Sure, Ares was a fascinating villain with great writing that was forwarded exponentially by David Thewlis’ incredible talent, and Steve Trevor was a fantastic foil for Wonder Woman that helped to prove that both parts of the leading couple in a superhero film can be badass and not has one of them be weak-willed.  I think she was the absolutely the most well- done DC Films lead character ever since Christian Bale put his Batman cowl on one last time for 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises.

Personally, I think my favorite scene in the entire movie was that of Wonder Woman’s march across No Man’s Land. No Man’s Land, for those of you who don’t know war terminology, is a uninhabited area on a battlefield where almost no one goes out of fear of being blown the fuck away. Wonder Woman straight up marched through the entire battlefield like the baddest motherfucker everyone, so much of a motherfucker that Samuel L. Jackson would be proud. I call the “No Man’s Land” sequence my favorite scene out of any movie I’ve seen in 2017.

After everything I liked from this movie, from David Thewlis’ spectacular preformance from the brilliance of the costume design team being able to mix the bright colors of Wonder Woman lore with the overall dreariness of World War I Germany, I think Wonder Woman deserves a score of 4.2 out of 5 stars.

Alright, as always, thank you all for reading this article. Please join me next week as I debut the newest article in my HDCU series, which is based around Superman: Last Son Of Krypton and Man Of Steel. Again, thank you so much for reading, and remember, have a nerdy day.

Wonder Woman Theories

Ben DeSanti

Hello, once again, faithful readers, and welcome back to another edition of Film Theories. If you happened to notice the title, yes, we are doing this edition on Wonder Woman. In case you didn’t know, Wonder Woman is the fourth installment of the DC Extended Universe, and it will in fact be debuting today, June 2nd, to theaters in the United States. Again I say, hopefully it’s just as good as I thought the rest of the DCEU was, and not as good as most people think they’ve been. And exactly how good I think it’ll be, let’s talk about right now.

My first theory involves what I think the deal is with the modern shots of footage I’ve seen the past trailers of Wonder Woman. Now, if you have yet to notice what I am talking about from these trailers, that is completely fine, I’m just kind of crazy. In both of the domestic trailers, there are shorts of Diana, or Wonder Woman to the layman, walking around in a glass building. Now, based on architecture, I can easily say that the scene is definitely from current times, as in at least the 21st century. I’m thinking that the current day scenes of the film will work as a major plot device for the film. It is possible that she is telling the story to a very, very old Steve Trevor with a dementia who is living in a nursing home, but if that were to be true, and Steve Trevor is, at the youngest, 30, when he appears in Wonder Woman, he would have to be at least 113 years old if the current times scenes are in 2000. Which is way too fucking old for Chris Pine. So I’m thinking that she’s either telling her story to; a) Bruce Wayne, after the battle with Doomsday, or b) Steve Trevor’s grandson or great-grandson, who has been said to be another character Chris Pine will play for a short period during the movie, presumably the end of the movie. I think I support the idea of Bruce Wayne being revealed as listening to the story at the end of the movie, so that’s what I’ll be going with.

Personally, I think Danny Huston’s character, General Erich Ludendorff, is actually not the not-so-good general, and is truly yet another Greek mythological figure. Who do I think he’s inhabited by? Well, that’s simple, random Internet browser. He is in fact controlled by Prometheus, the Titan who created humanity and stole fire from the Greek Gods and Mount Olympus. My working theory is that Zeus took away all of his powers and cursed him to an eternity stuck on Earth for stealing the fire from Mount Olympus. He’s kind of got a Vandal Savage-type thing going on, and he’s slowly gotten up his power over the thousands of years he’s been stuck on Earth. Or, perhaps, he is actually just Vandal Savage, but that’s unlikely because DC probably wouldn’t want to cross this movie with TV’s Legends Of Tomorrow so soon into the life of both projects.

I feel like either one or both of the character’s played by Saïd Taghmaoui and Ewen Bremner, named Sameer and Charlie, respectively, will be killed in the final conflict of the film by Ares. I just feel like this makes enough sense as a theory, just in the sense of lack of screen time of the trailers. They’ve been portrayed very seldom in all of the trailers, and that’s weird, because both actors are pretty great, and I need more of them. But if they were to be killed in a conflict with the major villain, it would be amazing. But it would be sort of pointless to include these mortal humans in a battle between a Greek God and Wonder Woman. But again, it would be noble to see both of the characters go out like this.

Okay, and that’s all for now. Thanks for reading once again. Please join me next Friday for my Wonder Woman review. As always, thank you once again for reading, and remember, have a nerdy day.