Wildcat- for my awards consideration, I did manage to squeeze in Ethan Hawke directing his daughter Maya in a loose biopic of Flanders O’Connor. Maya Hawke has really started to bloom as an actress, and it’s interesting to see her take on a historical figure in this really big swing from Hawke. it certainly doesn’t follow traditional biopic tropes, but instead sees O’Connor moving home to live with her southern belle of a mother (Laura Linney), who has very interesting and offensive thoughts about pretty much anyone who isn’t her. oscilloscope didn’t submit a profile for my awards consideration, so I actually had to seek this out, and it was worth it for Hawke’s performance (as she landed on my list of the Best Actresses of 2024), but I also couldn’t find this with audio description, which made it hard to embrace the film as a whole. Laura Linney had two largely thankless roles in 2024, as she played somewhat unlikable, or down right despicable, in Suncoast and Wildcat respectively. She was good in both, but I’m not sure anyone wanted to notice. there are a lot of stylistic choices that Ethan Hawke makes behind the director’s chair that prevents me from being able to give this a grade without audio description, however, I liked it enough that I can’t imagine I wouldn’t recommend it to sighted readers.
no Grade Given due To Lack Of Audio Description
Unstoppable- the film that got a tiny awards profile, because it seems like Jennifer Lopez is going to orbit the Oscar conversation until they nominate her. She’s already in the 2025 race with kiss Of the Spider Woman, and if goodwill is in her favor, who knows. this was part of my Amazon package in November, but it didn’t have audio description. not sure of when the embargo lifted, I waited two months, and suddenly this is on a streaming service, with audio description. If it hit theatres, it made no impact. The film is based on the true story of Anthony robles (Jharell Jerome), a determined young wrestler who battles the odds with a prosthetic leg. We see him working hard in high school to get picked up by a good school with a wrestling program, and when that doesn’t happen, he goes after a walk-on spot at Arizona State University, under a coach (Don Cheadle), who doesn’t believe he can make the cut. Obviously, that is where the story ends. it’s a depressing film, and I don’t know why they would make this. No, of course, it’s an inspirational sports drama, so you can predict Anthony’s progression, otherwise the movie would end. He does have to battle a home life, with an abusive stepfather (Bobby Cannavale) and a supportive mother (Lopez) who will give you a speech on predatory loans in the third act for no reason other than they cast her, and she has nothing else to do. The actual Anthony robles stood in for Jerome in the wrestling scenes, so it feels even more impactful, though Jerome gives yet another solid performance on his resume. Cannavale, Lopez, and Cheadle are all reliably good in their roles. Amazon had a tall order trying to campaign two sports dramas during awards season, and their other one, the Fire Inside, is the better film, and got more awards recognition as a result. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch this. it just isn’t an awards movie. It plays a lot more like one of the inspirational sports dramas Disney used to put out on a regular basis, and I’m pretty sure no one had a campaign for invincible, Million Dollar Arm, or McFarland USA. If you liked any of those films, and remember they existed, you will like unstoppable. I was happy to watch the film a second time to get the audio description, and it didn’t necessarily change my mind, nor did I feel like the track was exceptional. it mostly balances the family drama with the sports scenes. This is a perfectly fine film, but I think Amazon would have been better served separating it from its Oscar pack, and instead giving it a high profile wide theatrical release, or use it as a big streaming feature. instead, it fell into January where I think it got lost in the noise of the season, and some huge Christmas movies still legging out at the box office.
Fresh: Final Grade: B, Audio Description: B
Black Box Diaries- My least favorite of the nominated documentaries at the Oscars this year, though also the only one with audio description. I enjoyed several docs that didn’t even make the shortlist, but notably daughters deserved to make the cut. i would have swapped these two. However, that doesn’t mean black Box Diaries is bad. It is still a compelling story of a woman facing harassment and sexism in Japan, but it feels like a documentary that somehow is a step behind the peak of our “me too” movement. So, while the world is on fire, and we’re trying to put forth documentaries about reimagining prison, or even something like Will and HArper that puts transgenderism center stage at a time when it is being obliterated by our administration, it is hard not to think that there could have been different nominees. that being said, it is a very strong doc, oddly with Irish audio description. I’m sure it is UK audio description, but it sounds like an Irish narrator, for a film that is about this machismo culture in Japan that makes it OK to harass women, and systematically structure a court system designed to keep women from being able to file a claim. The audio description, for a documentary, was fine. It isn’t a talking head documentary, it really just follows primarily one woman on her journey, and there’s some translating of subtitles. This was on Paramount Plus with audio description, so you can get the full experience. I’d still recommend it, there were just a ton of excellent documentaries last year.
Fresh: Final Grade: A-, Audio Description: B+
