Image via Warner Bros.

It seems Matt Reeves’ new superhero drama The Batman can make a believer out of anyone – even real bats, the species that sparked the enduring storyline.

Though the three-hour flick has been met with a range of reviews, it’s a commercial success from all indications, so much so that live bats crashed the party at one unnamed movie theatre. In a viral video making the rounds on social media, the movie has been paused, ironically during a scene at Bruce Wayne’s Batcave. The lights have been turned on as the moviegoers marvel at the unexpected intruders to the DC franchise reboot. 

Naturally, the twenty-second clip has taken over the internet, sparking hilarious comments. Some joked that the video creator, @Jeremiah24_, was clearly at the 3D screening. Others claimed it was a Warner Bros. promotion ploy. There were even those that suggested that they’d swarmed in support of Pattinson’s portrayal of the Caped Crusader!

The Batman is out in cinemas now.

Film studio Lionsgate had a little fun toying with fans of The Batman, which hit theaters Friday, by releasing their own Nicolas Cage-starring parody trailer called The Matban: Uncaged.

As you might expect, the video features many clips of Cage from the film Kick-Ass as the unhinged vigilante Big Daddy, who is very much styled after and a parody of the Dark Knight, but in the more grounded, realistic universe of the 2010 film.

The trailer also featured a tongue-in-cheek clip of the newest actor to play Batman for real, Robert Pattinson, from the Lionsgate movie Twilight.

In addition, clips of the upcoming Lionsgate film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which stars a fictionalized version of Cage, was also woven into the trailer for good measure. (That film hits theaters April 22.)

It’s a fairly lighthearted nod to the comic book blockbuster currently dominating people’s weekend plans but does not mention The Batman by name, which makes us slightly confused as to why Lionsgate seemingly reversed course on publicizing the Matban parody trailer. The video is currently unlisted on YouTube.

“[H]oly nicolas it’s matban!” the studio wrote on Twitter early Friday morning while sharing the video, in a now-deleted tweet.

It’s been almost a decade since Kick-Ass 2 hit theaters back in 2013, making many fans wonder when a Kick-Ass 3 might be hitting cinema screens. Sadly, the latest update from original comic book creator Mark Millar, back in Nov. 2021, is that a third installment of the film franchise is not likely to occur at this point.

Photo by ledwell via Getty Images

TikTok runs on trends, and without a consistently fresh stock of dance crazes, sound memes, and wacky challenges, the entire business model of the video-sharing app goes stagnant. But the latest trend on the platform is one that, by design, is a bit of a head-scratcher. In fact, it’s a total troll.

Rumors have been widely circulating on TikTok that suggest that the latest trend involves users hosting brunch parties where at least one seat is reserved for an ostensibly fake skeleton. People sit, eat, and film, making sure to let viewers check out their skeletal friend, and post the resulting video.

Perhaps it sounds silly but, on a platform that has seen the Gorilla Glue girl, the Corn Cob challenge, and even the gag-inducing weirdness that was the Sleepy Chicken challenge, having a few skeletons over for mimosas isn’t exactly the weirdest trend to come down the road.

Only it isn’t happening.

Search “Skeleton Brunch” on TikTok and you won’t find any of the videos that one would expect. Users are left feeling like they missed the bus on this one because the trend is absolutely bogus.

A Twitter user going by Dr. Economy Stonks began posting photos claiming to show outraged articles warning parents of the dangerous new craze of “Skeleton Brunches” that are supposedly endangering TikTok users. Dr. Stonks’ post was probably intended as satire, as a quick Google search fails to bring up any of the articles shown. But that didn’t stop the post from snowballing its way across the internet.

Another user’s post included a DM claiming to be from former NYC mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, captioned “what the hell is going on”. In the screenshot, Giuliani appears to unintentionally invite the user to a “Skeleton Brunch”, only to quickly follow-up with “Wrong person. Ignore”, then blocking the user.

Soon, the trend began dividing social media between those who were in the know and those that don’t. Certain corners of Twitter laid out and went after the bait like April Fools had come an entire month early.

Twitter user @ProtonInspector even managed to bring (of course) Kanye’s name into the mix.

So, unfortunately, if you are looking for a nice video of epidermically challenged spooksters hovering over a few plates of eggs benedict, you’re just going to have to film your own and hope that the nice little bistro down the street will accommodate you. But, now that you’re in on the joke, you might try to pull your own online “gotcha” before the ‘trend’ goes the way of Noodle the Pug and the Bama Rush girls.

Good luck!

Image via TikTok

Sound clips are one of the most important features available on TikTok. Although the video-sharing app is by nature visual experience, a staggering amount of the trends, dance crazes, and challenges that feed the platform’s insatiable algorithm simply would not work without easy access to popular music and film clips.

TikTok is well aware of this and has a built-in clip function that allows users to save clips they want to reuse or feature as ‘favorite sounds’. So it should come as no surprise that more than a few users took to Twitter in dismay after they noticed that all of their fave clips had vanished.

If you’ve never used the favorites function on TikTok, it’s fairly easy to learn how. To save a sound clip, tap the circular icon that appears in the bottom-right corner of a post. Then just tap ‘Add to Favorites’. The clip should load into your favorites section for you to use and reuse as you wish. To access your favorites, just navigate to your profile and tap the bookmark icon. This should take you to your entire library of favorites including your favorite sounds.

That’s how it’s supposed to work anyway. A system glitch that seems to be affecting many users is causing their saved sounds to disappear. And, as yet, it remains to be seen whether or not the tracks are lost forever or if users are just being minorly inconvenienced.

This certainly isn’t the first time a glitch has affected a large number of users on the platform. Recently, users found that any emojis they used in their captions were converting back to their source code. In 2020, Screenrant reported on numerous instances of user likes and views disappearing.

So far, TikTok has not the issue on social media or via other media. Users who are experiencing the issue may just have to wait until TikTok takes care of the issue in house. However, there are a few things you can try to see if you can get your favorites to disappear.

First, just log out and then back into the app. If that doesn’t have any effect, try erasing the app’s cached data. Launch your phone’s settings and select Apps & Notifications. Tap See All Apps and select TikTok, followed by Storage & Cache. Tap on Clear Cache to erase the stored data. You can also try doing a hard reboot of your phone.

If none of these methods work, you may simply be in for a wait. When TikTok patches the issue up they should issue an update that will take care of the problem.

The Cardiff Giant. Hitler’s Diaries. The War of the Worlds. Even before the internet, the world was being fooled by manufactured hoaxes, but there’s no doubt that the lightning-fast speed of the internet combined with social media has made it so much easier to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. The latest bit of viral chicanery has some gullible TikTok users believing the all too unbelievable existence of a 399-year-old woman.

First of all, let’s get some actual facts on the table. No one in recorded history has ever lived to be 399 years old. The oldest known woman on Earth was Jeanne Chalmet, who passed away in 1997 at the age of 122. The oldest man was Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to the ripe old age of 116 before dying in 2013. The oldest person currently alive is Kane Tanaka, who recently celebrated her 119th birthday in January.

The video currently making the rounds on TikTok shows an extremely emaciated and frail person in a hospital bed. Many users, Deliberately or otherwise, have incorrectly identified the person as a woman of extraordinary age in the text in the video or in the caption. Neither, however, is true.

The person in the video is Luang Pho Ya, a Buddhist monk from Thailand. The original video, posted by his granddaughter, began to first gather views and then began to fuel wild speculation regarding the monk’s age. One video, which speculated that Luang was 163 years old, garnered 88 million views and several thousand comments. As the TikTok version of “Post Office” got further and further away from the initial post, Luang suddenly changed his gender and aged a further 300 years — which would have made Luang born around the same time as the Thirty Years’ War was fought in Europe and the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty was born, some 150 years before the USA became a country.

The speculation is nonsense, of course, but that hasn’t stopped multiple videos showing the monk from pulling down thousands and even hundreds of thousands of views across TikTok. There doesn’t seem to be any malice behind users sharing or reacting to the videos— just a great deal of credulity. It may seem odd that people are more willing to believe that a person is capable of believing a human is capable of living for four centuries, but a quick look into the history of hoaxes, internet or otherwise, shows that people are fairly willing to let themselves be fooled for the sake of an interesting story.

However, if one is looking for a feel-good story of human longevity, look no further than the actual oldest person alive, Kane Tanaka. Ms. Tanaka is a full decade older than Luang and, if all goes well, will be celebrating her 120th year birthday in January of 2023.

Ryan Reynolds is all set to provide further proof to Hollywood that he’s one of the film industry’s most bankable actors. In just over a week’s time, the Deadpool, Free Guy and Red Notice star will be joined by Zoe Saldana, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner and newcomer Walker Scobell in The Adam Project.

As if the subject matter, cinematography and music choice didn’t already make it painfully obvious, Netflix’s next big blockbuster is unabashedly a spin on Spielberg flicks circa 1980s sci-fi. Director Shawn Levy is clearly happy to revel in paying tribute to the legendary filmmaker at almost every turn, to the extent that we wouldn’t be surprised if a certain extraterrestrial made a guest appearance.

You can check out the frenetic trailer for yourselves above.

‘The Adam Project’ gets ’80s-style poster

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The Adam Project marks Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner’s first on-screen meeting in more than 18 years, with the pair collectively playing the part of Adam’s parents. Reynolds, on the other hand, plays a future version of his younger self (Scobell) who has returned to our present to combat a malicious force of technologically advanced aggressors.

What twists and turns will viewers find during the adventure? You’ll find out for yourselves when The Adam Project lands next week, March 11.

Image via TikTok

TikTok is nothing without its trends. Dance crazes, viral movie phrases, special FX, and trendy filters are what drive the video-sharing app’s business model and the latest is a far cry from learning how to moonwalk over the strains of the latest hot mashup. The online test sweeping the platform is a 38 question exam using sliding scale answers to show how the test-taker actually experiences the emotion of anger.

Unlike most of the quizzes and “tests” of dubious scientific provenance that occasionally trend on TikTok, the MAT actually has some real scientific pedigree. Developed from the research of Dr. Judith M. Siegel, currently a Professor Emerita of UCLA’s department of community health sciences, the MAT is designed to map out an individual’s anger management progress through a series of statements which the taker agrees or disagrees with on a sliding scale. Some of the statements include:

“At times, I feel angry for no specific reason.”

The test appears to be psychometrically valid. According to Dexerto, IDR labs, a provider of personality assessment tests that makes the test available to their online users, has said, “Analyses of Siegel’s work have found the test to have good psychometric properties in the form of high validity and test-retest reliability. Consequently, the test is frequently used for research purposes and in clinical settings, where it has been shown to be relevant, not just to a person’s anger, but to their physical health and stress responses as well.”

Depending on their answers, users receive a percentage score in a set of categories that include, Anger Arousal, Anger Spectrum, Hostile Outlook, External Anger, and Internal Anger, in order to receive a cumulative Total Score. These results are then compared to the national average score.

To take the test yourself, you have to visit the IDR website. Once there, answer each of the 38 questions by dragging the slider bar along the scale from “agree” to “disagree.” Once you’re finished, the site will show you your score on the results page, which you can then post to TikTok and compare with others.

Users should bear in mind that taking the quiz, while it may be enlightening, should not be taken for a legitimate diagnosis or assessment from a mental health professional. According to IDR’s disclaimer, “The results of our online multidimensional anger test are provided ‘as-is’, and should not be construed as providing professional or certified advice of any kind.”

Photo via @raphfellis/TikTok

HBO Max’s Euphoria is sparking endless TikTok trends, inspired by the show’s fashion, characters, and makeup. The latest trend to arise on the popular video sharing platform doesn’t feature edgy attire or makeup at all, however, instead focusing on creators’ natural eyes.

The Euphoria eye trend sounds like TikTok’s latest makeup craze, but no distracting cosmetics are involved; instead, it puts the focus on a user’s very own, unadulterated eyeball, zeroing in with intense clarity on their innate beauty.

The trend is taking over “for you” pages everywhere, as creators try their hands at the captivating new filter. Getting the right results is pretty simple, but does involve a bit of a process. Here’s how you can pull off the Euphoria eye trend for yourself.

How to do the Euphoria eye trend

Videos taking part in the Euphoria eye trend all use a relatively similar process. They also tend to align on music choice, with the majority leaning into a specific line from a remix of Bea Miller’s “feel something.” Most videos are right around 12 seconds long, with some stretching a few moments longer. All of them use the same set of lyrics from the song, however, starting as the music proclaims, “I just wanna feel something/I just wanna feel,” and gradually zooming in on a single eye as the lyrics proceed with “something really real so that I can really feel like a person again.” As the word “again” sounds, users close their eye and cut, before transitioning into a high-resolution shot of their eye.

Many comments on successful videos see viewers wondering at the shocking clarity of the reveal. Some people have struggled, in their attempts to replicate the Euphoria eye trend, to capture the same level of resolution. That’s likely because they’re doing it wrong.

To pull off the Euphoria eye trend, you’ll want to start with the sound. The audio being used for this trend can be found in many of the current uploads using #euphoria and #eye hashtags, or you can simply search for “feel something – bea miller – valen,” which is how the audio is labelled on TikTok.

Once you’ve tracked down the audio, click “use this sound” and you’ll be prepped to start filming. No filter is needed for the first part of the video, so your next step is simply to start filming. Using your front-facing camera, begin the process of zooming in on a single eye. Many people use their left eye, but that is by no means a necessity.

You’ll want to make sure you don’t dwell for too long, so keep the video short and sweet. Time it to the music, zooming in as Miller works her way through the beginning lines of the chorus, and close your eye as she says “again.”

At this point, it will be time to pause your video and employ your filter. Activate the Euphoria filter for the next part of the video, and flip your camera around. You’ll likely need a mirror — and user @jazzthornton_ recommends use of a good lamp — to ensure the best results. Use the mirror to ensure you get a good shot with your back camera, and shine a light onto your face for the most striking outcome.

From there, all you need to do start filming and open your eye. Importantly, you’ll need to switch eyes for the video’s final moments. Since you’re pivoting from your front-facing camera to your rear-facing camera, switching eyes will ensure that the video looks right.

As noted by Dexerto, it will probably take a few attempts before you manage to line everything up perfectly. Once you’ve done so, however, you should be left with a captivating video that shows off all your eye’s natural beauty.