Movie News: Variety (and other sites) are reporting that Warner Bros. Has officially shot up every red flag when it comes to the upcoming release of Clint Eastwood’s Juror No. 2, which stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and JK Simmons. This is very likely his final film, and as an Oscar winning director, most expected Juror No. 2 to be an Oscar bait release, as it is releasing during Oscar season. Variety reports essentially the opposite is true. WB is not planning an awards campaign for the film, and is essentially sending it to die in 50 theatres, with no plans to expand, or potentially even report box office gross. It is disappointing for fans of Collette, who were thinking this could lead to a second Oscar nomination for her, but it is very indicative for a studio that felt comfortable backing Joker Folie Aux Deux, that this is a dumpster fire of Cry Macho proportions. Likely, if I had to guess, the only reason this is going theatrical is because of a contractual obligation Eastwood likely has to prevent his film from being streaming only. He probably didn’t like what happened with Cry macho, and put a theatrical commitment in his contract. He wouldn’t be the first, and this wouldn’t be the first film buried with a minimum screen count as a result.
TV Shows Watched: Before- S1E1 (Apple Plus) with audio description, Territory: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, Hysteria: S1E8 (Peacock) with audio description, The Legend Of Vox Machina: S3E6 (Amazon) with audio description, George and Mandy: S1E2 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, Grotesquery (S1E9 (Hulu) with audio description, Love Is Blind: S7E12 (Netflix) with audio description, 911: S7E7 (Hulu) with audio description, Bad Monkey: S1E9 (Apple plus) with audio description, Abbott Elementary: S4E3 (Hulu) with audio description, and and Saturday Night Live: S50E3 (Peacock) with audio description.
Podcasts: None
YouTube: Perry nimarovv (FYC: Best Supporting Actor predictions)
Movies: Canary Black (Amazon) with audio description, Trap (MAX) with audio description, and Patrice: The Movie (Hulu) with audio description
I do have a wealth of shows, so not every one will get touched today. Before I talk about the shows, I’d like to say, in case anyone who reads me worked on Patrice: The Movie happens to read me, your AD track is FUBAR. It has these weird overlay issues where it will start a sentence, stop, and then restart and finish the sentence. As a made up example, “There is a box, There is a box behind her that contains flowers”. “The”Patrice walks toward, Patrice walks toward the front door.” It happened maybe five or six times, which really made me question if this was quality checked. But, since this is an important documentary about disabilities, I’d rather someone just fix it.
Now that we have that behind us…
before- Billy Crystal’s unhinged new show on Apple Plus certainly is a swing for him as an actor. Don’t let his presence fool you. This is definitely not a comedy. He plays a man struggling with his own sanity amidst the recent suicide of his wife, when a young seemingly mute boy comes into his life, and is acting very strange. We find out that he used to work with kids, and perhaps he can reach this kid, but there’s so much here that questions what even is reality, that it becomes an impresssive feat for audio describers. I’m not even 100% sure after the first episode that everything lined up and made sense, but for a psychological thriller, often the time lapses and gaps are purposeful, and with a series you won’t find out if it all works until the end. Nevertheless, I’m very intrigued. Also, the audio description here on some of the stuff, especially when the darkness is taking over the walls, or the swimming pool sequence, were done well.
Territory- Australian Yellowstone is long and boring, and I prefer Yellowstone. I know not everything is exactly the same, but it feels very similar in many ways, and even though I love William Michael Redman, his narration isn’t enough to get me through 4 more episodes. I think some people will love this. It is possible, that given the landscape, it is a beautiful show to look at. But, sadly, that doesn’t help me. I think it is slow, and I just prefer the real thing.
Hysteria- Sad to have wrapped this.While every choice wasn’t one I would have made, I oddly enjoyed this series at the end. Strong performances from all, including bruce Campbell, who should not legally be allowed to be billed as a guest star since he is in the whole show. If anything, his character is the most compelling, as he is trying to navigate the insanity from all these different cult-ish subsets. Liz Gutman wrote a strong script for this, which was well narrated. I do recommend this program, though it may feel uneven.
George and Mandy- what an odd choice for a second episode. for a show already struggling to be comedic in its multi-cam format, the second episode opens with Georgie at his father’s grave. And then, the episode really doesn’t pick up from there. It is tied with Ghosts as the highest watched live program on Thursday in the most important demo, but I’m getting short-lived Joey vibes so hard from this.
Love Is Blind- I’m glad I dipped into some reality shows. This was the wedding episode. I don’t need the cast reunion that drops on Wednesday. No one really does. this is a weird premise, and I’m done with the series, but at least I appreciated some terrific narration all the way through. Seriously, far better than i expected. From the superb cast intros at the beginning, all the way through, I got more than I expected. I still could have gotten more, but I didn’t start at Season 1. Just because I didn’t have a great grasp on the format or the room, that’s on me for jumping in on season 7 to some extent. But where it mattered, this delivered.
Saturday Night Live- The Ariana Grande episode. Yes, if we want pass through description to Peacock, we have to wait a minute. Honestly, it is less weird to be behind on SNL than it is Last Week Tonight, which also adds audio description long after the fact. Actually, even longer than this. I wasn’t jumping up and down over this, as Ariana wasn’t given as many great sketches as Nate was the previous week, but some really good stuff. The opener was fun. But, what’s important is how contextually sketches that would have maybe kinda worked before without audio description, were given much more life. The “My Best Friends house” segment, for example, would have been weird. without the AD, we would have heard the news report that changes the context, but totally missed out on all the visual cues. Same with the scene where Ariana is the mother, and they have someone essentially body slam a dummy double of her. The audio description actually let us know what it was for the joke, and how Ariana comes out fro behind a couch after. Those cues are purely visual, and one of the things I’ve been missing from SNL since losing my vision, that I’m happy to be getting now through audio description. the opening credits with the cast names was better this week, though perhaps the overall balance of the audio description versus the episode is still a bit too favored in the audio description’s direction. but, even if it never balanced, I’m eternally grateful NBC has done this. Now, I just need someone to remind ABC that American Idol still lacks audio description, quite bafflingly, as it rolls into season 23? 24? Turns out Kelly was right. Some people do wait a lifetime.