AVClub: The most telling, period-defining moment in Carol, Todd Haynes’ superb adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price Of Salt (originally published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan), gets no particular emphasis and could easily be missed. It occurs not long after young aspiring photographer Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) and middle-aged housewife Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) meet at the department store where Therese works, exchanging a few torrid glances but no overt declarations of romantic interest. Carol leaves her gloves on the counter—perhaps intentionally—and subsequently finds an excuse to bring Therese to her house, providing her with a grand tour. At this point, the two women haven’t so much as touched one another, much less voiced their attraction; both are models of Eisenhower-era propriety. Carol has removed her shoes, however, and when she hears her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), walk in the door, she immediately scrambles to put them back on, before he can see her with Therese in her stocking feet. Again, nothing is made of this—it’s shown at a distance, uncommented upon, mundane. But like the man, riding the elevator with his wife, who removes his hat when a pretty girl steps on (courtesy of Raymond Chandler, discussing visual storytelling in a letter to his agent), it speaks volumes all the same.
MTV
Delta Air Lines is having an apocalyptically bad day, as all flights have been grounded due to a power outage in all systems — but maybe if outages had only hit the carrier’s in-flight entertainment system, it might have been an improvement? Late last week, it came to light that Delta has been airing an edited version of last year’s lesbian film Carol in which not just sex, but all kissing was removed. The omission was discovered by women reporting on Twitter about their viewings on Delta flights, and the cuts were confirmed by the film’s screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, who offered United and American Airlines as examples of domestic carriers who chose to air the theatrical release.
Richard of PopCults.com "If there is one thing that can be said for certain about me it is that I am in no way a conventional person. I’m not so abnormal that I am unrelatable or alien; but a lot of my likes, hobbies and even everyday way I go about things in life is in no way the way a majority of people would do so in life. ... I guess that is why when I tried to come up with a list of romantic movies for couples to watch leading up to Valentine’s Day not one of the five films on the list would be classified as your typical romantic movie. In fact, four of them are rather out there and barely dances on the fringes of being romantic while the one that is the closest to your cookie-cutter romance film is more of a chance encounters kind of film than a true romance movie. Still, I believe that these films do convey the message of love and understanding and romance that any other conventional film would. They may not be your typical Sleepless in Seattle, Love Story, The Notebook or even Titanic, but the message is still clearly embedded in them about what the main attraction of the film is. So please enjoy, and do try to keep an open mind about them… I promise you – they will entertain you."
The A.V. Club
Thursday morning’s Oscar nominations were more notable for who they left out than the group of names included. The announcement was a list of the usual suspects: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Christian Bale, and Mark Ruffalo. Notably absent from the pool was any actor of color—the second year in a row that the Academy has elected an all-white group of nominees—and Todd Haynes’ Carol, the acclaimed 1950s lesbian drama starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Carol’s actors both reaped nods, but the film and its director were shut out of the top categories, despite that Carol was considered all but a lock for a Best Picture nod.
