by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — Happy Friday. At the 2020 Oscars, Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman to win Best Director and have her film, Nomadland, win Best Picture. Both were momentous achievements and one’s I lauded afterwards.

Then, as many directors do (and should), she took a truckload of money from Disney to make a new Marvel movie.

Zhao’s entry in the long list of “comic book films with far too talented directors” is called the Eternals and it’s in theatres now. It’s a box office smash enjoying its second week at number one and introduced a new cast of superheroes to an eager fanbase.

The story follows a group of immortal warriors named the Eternals who’ve been protecting Earth from a mysterious, predatory species called deviants for the last 7,000 years. Not only does this movie introduce Marvel fans to the weird lore about their universe’s origins, but it also does a terrible job excusing our protagonists from ignoring war and slavery for thousands of years.

But, I get it. You can’t solve everything in one movie, we only have two and a half hours.

The new cast is brilliant, especially Gemma Chan, Brian Tyree Henry, Laura Ridloff, and Richard Madden. The plot is engaging with some of the coolest new superpowers in cinema to illustrate. And disabled kids got to see themselves in characters like Makkari who was deaf (and the fastest person in the universe).

Yet, for some reason, Eternals has a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest of any Marvel movie. Why is that?

Many, myself included, argue the low rating is due to the first *gasp!* kiss between two men on screen. It wasn’t a forced moment to push the gay agenda, it was a standard “kiss your spouse before going to war” cliché. The only difference was it was two men and held some legitimate chemistry, unlike every kiss between Tony Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The movie started out at around 65% on Rotten Tomatoes and that’s much closer to the truth. Eternals is a pretty basic Marvel movie: it has a great cast with some excellent cinematography but suffers from one (or two) fatal flaws. That flaw, in this case, is act three that makes a lot of sacrifices in the writing to save time. Did that earn it the lowest rating of any Marvel movie? Absolutely not.

Unrelated, here’s a non-exhaustive list of Marvel movies worse than the Eternals:

• The Incredible Hulk
• Iron Man 2
• Thor
• Iron Man 3
• Thor: the Dark World (the actual worst Marvel movie)
• Ant-Man
• Doctor Strange
• Captain Marvel

Turning from movies to music, Ari Lennox is quietly having a very good fall.

First, she released Pressure, which is the best single of her young career and one of the best releases of the season. Now, she followed up with PHO EP, a short collection of seven songs, and her biggest release since her debut album, Shae Butter Baby.

Ari Lennox is a true R&B singer from DC who represents the genre better than most women not named Summer Walker. The reason I say that is because the Grammys keep trying to shove popstars like Chloe and Halle and Lizzo into the category where they don’t belong simply because they’re Black.

The EP is short but has some of the best hits Ari’s released. The lead track, Yuengling, is the obvious stand-out. It has all the Lennox usual elements: smooth vocals, paired down beats with a prominent snare, and a vague story about hanging out and smoking weed with a hookup.

Stick around after the first song if you’re unfamiliar with Ari Lennox (and especially if you’re already a fan). Any of these tracks would be at home on her previous album, which is probably the reason this is simply an EP rather than a new album itself.

Ari extends her Shae Butter Baby sound with a fresh face. Listening to an Ari Lennox album transports you to a sepia-toned room filled with smoke, dim lighting, and vinyl records. Outside Yuengling, my favorite tracks include Backseat, Cold Outside, and Backwood.

Click here for the video.

Another somewhat unknown artist had a big release recently.

Taylor Swift just dropped a re-release of her second-best album Red last night with some important changes.

The first being the parenthetical (Taylor’s version) after every track to let us know her monstrous former contract-holder won’t receive any funding from the songs.

The second (and perhaps most obvious) change was an additional hour and six minutes of runtime. I haven’t listened to the entire work yet, but I can’t even imagine what Taylor had to say for an additional length of the original album that she wrote as a 21-year-old.

But that’s the fun thing about Swift’s new-old albums. She gets to revisit the iconic songs that made her career and add some much-needed context as an adult. What started as painful breakup songs from a young-adult are now charming reminders that everyone has a lot of growth coming their way no matter what age they are.

The thing about Red, however, is it contains Taylor’s best song and most savage breakups hit All Too Well. It’s a biting story about her tumultuous relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal and is the song Taylor’s most depressed fans politely hide from their Spotify Wrapped screenshots every year.

Well, this version is 10 fucking minutes long and includes some new digs at the Brokeback Mountain star about how he kept dating girls her age even though both of them kept getting older. No matter if you’re a longtime Swifty or discovering her discography as she recreates it, Red (Taylor’s version) is required listening.

Click here for video.

Meme of the Week

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