Disney's/Marvel's L's Are Our GAINZZZ

Let's combine two threads into one to keep it lively. We'll talk about both the very poor reception Marvel's SJW fest "The Eternals" is getting, as well as yo' GAINZZZ.

(Actually you can talk about anything in my threads, but those are the topics I'm talking about.)

The Eternals has the worst Rotten Tomatoes score of any MCU film.

Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao's Eternals is set to open in theaters next weekend, but as noticed by Uproxx, it's going to be doing so as the lowest-rated entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Rotten Tomatoes. It's currently sitting at 63 percent "fresh," which is by no means terrible on RT's oddly complicated binary scale, but it does put it three points lower than the previous record-holder (Thor: The Dark World, which has 66 percent) and nine points lower than the actual worst MCU movie (Iron Man 2, sitting at 72 percent).

This article notes that most reviewers find the same faults with the film: "the plot is convoluted and storyline not strong enough."

It also notes that four different reviewers called the movie "dense."

Grace Randolph's review is a big red warning light for Disney. Grace Randolph is a comic book nerd, and an SJW who routinely claims that bad movies (like Captain Marvel, Charlies Angels, and Birds of Prey) are good, just because they are female-directed and "diverse."

She also squees at any suggestion that straight superheroes might be gay. She pushed the idea for years that Captain America and Bucky were gay for each other.

Marvel's The Eternals -- featuring a gay kiss, directed by a woman, being the most "diverse" movie they've made -- is essentially Grace Randolph bait.

And she does not like it. She says it does not feel like a Marvel movie, does not connect to the Marvel universe and does not advance the Marvel story, is filled with too many "main" characters (10 or more) and gives short shrift to all of them, is filled with exposition dumps about a convoluted mythology about the Marvel Universe's version of the Big Bang cosmology, and is overall "pointless."

She also says that the two end credit teases -- which sound lame to me -- are the best part of the movie. She notes that this is a very "chatty" movie with only three action scenes.

In a previous review, before she could talk about specifics, she gave it the backhanded compliment of being "pleasant," and hanging out between a 6 and 8 level, and never going to 11, where any real blockbuster must go at least once.

In this new review, she pronounces it "a screensaver" -- pretty and pleasant to look at, but inert, bland, "low-energy," "passive" and inconsequential.

"When you have a sex scene in your movie and it's boring, there's no point in having it."

After a long list of what's BAD in the movie, she lists four things that are GOOD: three of the ten characters.

And "LGBT Representation."

And "pretty" visuals and "Few but good action scenes."

So, that's the good. She really loves that LGBT Representation.

The term "worst" is being used in a lot of headlines of reviews.

"Eternals is the [franchise] juggernaut's worst film in ages."

Key quote:

Even with a bloated run time of more than two and a half hours, none of the 10 Eternals are fleshed out enough for us to truly invest in them.

...

"Eternals" isn’t as bad as "Thor: The Dark World" or "The Incredible Hulk," the consensus worst Marvel movies. But this is without a doubt the biggest MCU dud since those were released in 2013 and 2008, respectfully. Marvel is still trying to find its post-Avengers footing. It's fair to wonder if this was an anomaly or a sign the cinematic monolith is losing its way.

"Eternals" Review: One of Marvel's Worst Movies So Far.

So far.

Key quotes:

Just out of "Infinity Bore" -- sorry, Marvel's "Eternals."

Seriously, what a snooze. Fresh off of winning the Best Director Oscar for "Nomadland," Chloe Zhao has upchucked one of the MCU's worst movies in ages.

...

Angelina Jolie's Thena has the personality of a bar of soap and an accent that suggests her semester abroad in London was the best four months of her life.

All the characters are similarly bland. Richard Madden’s Ikaris is hot, can fly and has laser eyes. Gemma Chan's Sersi is able to change inanimate objects into other inanimate objects, but God forbid she alter her facial expression.

...

I lost count of how many times these 10 boring people casually found themselves in perfect triangular formation.

A BBC reviewer calls it "very disappointing."

After explaining each of the 10 main characters (10!) in repetitive droning detail -- which I assume he does to convey to you the repetitive droning presentation of the characters in the film -- he sums up all of SJW entertainment:

Still with me? Suffice it to say that the Eternals score highly in terms of gender, ethnic and sexual diversity, but lowly in terms of being memorable. They're a sketchily drawn and fundamentally drab bunch, so it can be tricky to remember which one is friendly with which. By rights, their super-soap opera should have had its own 20-part series on Disney+. In a film, the plot is so over-populated that one Eternal even announces, shortly before the climactic battle, that he doesn't want to be involved, and walks out, leaving us to wonder why exactly we've spent the last hour hanging out with him.

It's possible that some more magnetic actors might have helped, but for the first time, Marvel's sharp eye for casting has gone awry. As soon as Robert Downey Jr was seen as Iron Man and Chris Hemsworth as Thor, it became almost impossible to picture anyone else in the roles. The so-so cast of the Eternals doesn't present that challenge.

It is preposterous to feature ten main characters. I can only imagine they did so because they had so many Boxes to Check.

The very obnoxious leftist SJW actor Kumail Nanjani, who is one of the ten main characters, bragged at the premiere that this is "the first superhero movie that looks like the world."

Well, the world is overcrowded, convoluted, and frequently boring, too. So well done, Kumail.

I have hopes for the failure of this movie.

Now, on to GAINZZZ:

Frankly, I want to skip the GAINZZZ thread lately because I have none. I'm not eating clean and I'm only working out lightly and sporadically. I'm embarrassed to report that repeatedly.

But I know some of you like the GAINZZZ threads and that it helps you maintain interest in a regime, so I won't skip the thread this week. I'll just admit a month of general failure.

Some commenters have been telling me for a while that artificial sweeteners are bad. I didn't want to believe that, because... well, I like artificial sweeteners.

A couple of segments from Andrew Huberman's podcasts have spurred me to greatly reduce my consumption of artificial sweeteners.

He discusses here a 2020 study which found that if you consume artificial sweeteners at the same time you eat insulin-raising food (anything with protein, or especially carbs) your body will learn to link the calorie-free chemical sweetener with a need for insulin, and your body will wind up raising your insulin even when you just have the sweetener alone, without any actual calories.

In this podcast, he points out the emulsifiers, a key ingredient in chocolate and candy (including the low carb versions), can blunt the body's own appetite-suppression system. He says that the gut has neurons in it which detect things like fats and proteins (fatty acids and amino acids), and when they detect a certain level of them, they report to the body that the body is well-fed as far as protein and fat. The body sends out satiety hormones, and appetite therefore falls.

Emulsifiers like soy lecithin disrupt the neuron-sensing of the gut and make the gut semi-blind to the presence of fat and protein. So the body winds up unaware that it's well fed, and hormonal signaling of appetite continues.

I've cut down on these for a week now, though I haven't had more than a couple of really clean days.

He suggests a way to use that gut sensory system to reduce appetite: Supplement with amino acids (he suggests glutamine as the best for this purpose) and critical fatty acids (he suggests the key fatty acid of EPA or Omega-3s). If the body senses that you have adequate Omega-3s and glutamine, maybe it will blunt your appetite.

Now that I've sheepishly confessed my total lack of not just GAINZZZ but GAINZZZ-producing EFFORTZZZ, and also dropped some BODY HACKZZZ knowledge on you -- tell me about YO' GAINZZZ. I'd really like to hear about some.

Oh, and let me know about any MOVIEZZZ or BOOKZZZ or SHOWZZZ you've enjoyed, too.

Or PROJECTZZZ. I'm attempting the National November Novel Writing Thing. I've got my note books and index cards and sticky notes. I'm all set.

posted by Ace at 06:33 PM

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