We’re back! Another day, and another conversation on a set of films.
1992- this likely final film from ray Liotta also stars Tyrese Gibson and Scott Eastwood, and is set during the LA Riots and an opportunistic group of men who decide to have a heist while the world burns. There’s a surprising amount of depth here. Gibson is the lead, and he’s a gang member fresh back out on the streets, trying to lead a slightly different path than before, and protect his son, when he ends up colliding with the scene chewing Ray Liotta, who is also trying to protect his son. Fathers and sons. Someone gets crushed by a forklift. Things happen, and it all builds to an exciting conclusion. It certainly won’t win an Oscar, but the movie is far more competently made than a lot of Republic films, or movies designed to die on Tubi. The audio description, narrated by William Michael Redman, really held the tension, the action, and had some solid character descriptions. i went in expecting nothing, and got a fine one time watch.
Fresh, Grade: B-, Audio Description: B+
Random Hearts- A randomly selected romance that just turned 25 in 2024, to boost the impending Valentine’s content. Harrison Ford plays a cop who finds out his wife died in a plane crash, and her name wasn’t on the roster, because she was on a Mr and Mrs ticket, so she was pretending to be the wife of another man. That man, was the husband of Kristen Scott Thomas’s character, and she is running for Representative for New Hampshire. Needless to say, this complicates things, as these two are oddly pulled together. There’s also a subplot with Ford investigating someone that has no point being in the movie. The romance might have worked with a better screenplay, but it feels forced, and awkward, and these two Oscar nominees can’t save it. Also in the supporting cast, Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins, in a typical character actor supporting role. The audio description tonally matches the depressing mood of the film, and comes in handy in every important sequence. It follows the old school way of doing things where “A Man” and “A Woman” are doing things, but right away I recognized Harrison Ford’s voice, so I knew who the man was. considering there are two couples, with two men and women, i might have done the beginning a bit different, adding more descriptors to help distinguish. overall, though, a really solid track on a mediocre film.
Rotten, Grade: C, Audio Description: B+
La Chimera- Hulu is doing the lords work by continuing to pick up interesting films with no audio description. kidding, obviously. I decided to dive into the Josh O’Connor led drama, figuring it would have more English in it, but I guess Josh is more bilingual than I gave him credit for. After exhausting my patience with other Oscar bait International films, I think I proved my point on why films like this need audio description, so I bowed out early and didn’t finish. I think I did 15-20 minutes, and heard maybe 3 lines of English.
Final Thoughts- We gotta keep expanding audio description to a broader range of titles.
