{"id":21701,"date":"2016-01-29T18:49:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T18:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/?p=21701"},"modified":"2016-01-29T18:49:25","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T18:49:25","slug":"movie-review-carol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/movie-review-carol\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE REVIEW: CAROL"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAROL<\/h1>\n

[Note: During this week leading up to the SAG Awards, I\u2019ve been reviewing a quartet of the top films of the year. (So, if you missed the previous three, you can always check the main page for them.) Any of the important ones that I don\u2019t get to this week, I\u2019ll review the week before the Oscars. And please don\u2019t miss my critique of the best<\/em> film of the year, by far,\u00a0The Revenant<\/em>, which you can still read here: itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/movie-review-the-revenant<\/a>.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"90\"<\/a>While I was watching Carol<\/em>, I thought I was semi-bored, but this is the only one besides The Revenant<\/em> so far that has stayed with me. I even researched it after. I can’t believe that that’s what lesbians had to go through back then! I guess I could have figured it, but I’m so used to these<\/em> open days that I forgot their struggle.<\/p>\n

The name of the original book the story is from is The Price of Salt<\/em>. I think that would have been a more effective title for the film, as well, although I have no idea what it means. (If you<\/em> do, please share it in the Comments section below.) To me, \u201cCarol<\/em>\u201d just sounds like it would be a dumb comedy. One where every time the main character would do something kooky, the other cast members would exasperatedly utter the catchphrase of the film, \u201cOh, Carol!\u201d Just sayin’.<\/p>\n

\"carol-official-trailer-2015-cate\"<\/a>The movie is good, but I really couldn’t understand what was going on most of the time. I need much more dialogue<\/i>; I’ve never been great at reading between the lines, especially of love stories.<\/p>\n

But, visually, Carol<\/em> is a stunning<\/em> film. It’s set in 1951, and the colors, sets, fashions, and all set appointments are just magnificent. Watching it, I could somewhat feel what the world looked like in those days. It reminded me of some of the photos in my parents’ cherished photo albums.<\/p>\n

Actually every optical nuance is perfection, down to the women’s jewelry and make-up. It seems that every tiny touch was given much thought. The cinematography was gorgeous, as well. Kudos to the entire production team for all of that.<\/p>\n

As for the acting, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, (the actress with the best name in Hollywood,) did admirable jobs.<\/p>\n

\"maxresdefault\"<\/a>Cate is great, but it’s funny– when it was over, I asked Mr. X, \u201cDoesn’t she always<\/em> look like she’s playing gay?\u201d She’s so<\/em> convincing that, if she weren’t married with children in real life, (which I know doesn’t always indicate a person’s true<\/em> sexuality,) I’d think she is a lesbian. (I read, in a few<\/em> places, actually, that she said that she’s had many sexual encounters with other women, so that may count. I really don’t know how that stuff goes.)<\/p>\n

\"carol2-xlarge\"<\/a>And I also don’t how these straight actresses can do same-sex love scenes. I was once offered the role of a girl who had had a lesbian relationship in college, and even though it was going to be portrayed as having happened a few years before the story of this film begins, I had to turn it down. I’m not that<\/em> good of an actress. I could play a killer more easily than I could a lesbian! (Not that I’m a killer, either, of course, but at least I wouldn’t have to kiss a girl<\/em>.) (Come to think of it, I couldn’t play a love scene with a male<\/em> I’m not attracted to, either! And that’s a very long list. I’d have no problem if it was Hugh Jackman or Simon Baker, though. They<\/em> may not be happy, but I<\/em> sure would be!)<\/p>\n

\"Rooney<\/a>

Rooney Mara.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Jean<\/a>

Jean Simmons.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Jean<\/a>

Jean Seberg.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Gene<\/a>

Gene Tierney.<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyway, let’s get back to Carol<\/em>. The entire time, I was struck by how much Rooney Mara looks like Jean Simmons, doesn’t she? Or Jean Seberg. Or Gene Tierney. Okay, so one of the \u201cGene\/Jeans.\u201d (And Gene Tierney is my favorite actress of all time, so that’s saying a lot, coming from me.) She has that old school face, eyes, voice, and delivery. I love old movies, so that performance was lovely to see. (Someone should write a movie about one of them, especially Jean Simmons, of whom Rooney is actually the image, just so she could play her! And remember, this e-zine is copyrighted, so you’d have to give me \u201cCreated By\u201d credit. Yay!)<\/p>\n

So, that’s it. This one is worth seeing. And if you think this old-timey love story is painful, stay away from Beasts of No Nation <\/em>and 99 Homes<\/em>. I could barely sit through those two because of the emotional scars those stories were leaving on me! [Note: If I can bare it, those will be two of the films I review the week before the Oscars.]<\/p>\n

As of now, I’m planning on live-tweeting the SAG Awards tomorrow night, (including the arrivals, of course!) I’m not promising<\/em> this time, but that is<\/em> the plan. So, if you don’t already follow me, @MajorCelebrity, now might be the time to do so. I’m sure there will be be some juicy dish to discuss.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAROL [Note: During this week leading up to the SAG Awards, I\u2019ve been reviewing a quartet of the top films of the year. (So, if you missed the previous three, you can always check the main page for them.) Any of the important ones that I don\u2019t get to this week, I\u2019ll review the week<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21701"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21713,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21701\/revisions\/21713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}