Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2015

The Contenders:

The Big Short (winner)
Brooklyn
Carol
The Martian
Room

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2015

The Contenders:

Charlotte Rampling: 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan: Brooklyn
Cate Blanchett: Carol
Jennifer Lawrence: Joy
Brie Larson: Room (winner)

Brokeback Manhattan

Film: Carol
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Every year when the Oscar nominations are released, I find myself with a sudden influx of new films on the list to get through. I do my best initially to get through as many as I can, but by the end of the year, I find that I’m tired of hammering on the most recent year of film. This is why I still have films to watch from the past few years. It also means that I’m still in that phase of catch-up mode for 2015, which is why I moved Carol to the top of the queue recently. Since Best Actress performances are still where I’m the most lacking (although I have caught up tremendously on them and they lag behind Best Actor by about half a dozen now), watching the one that is both currently available and that I haven’t seen seemed like a good fit.

What I didn’t know going in was that Carol was directed by Todd Haynes. I tend to like the films of Haynes, so it made me far more interested in this from the outset. That it touches on themes similar to Far from Heaven, which I think may be his most accessible film and certainly one of his best is an additional benefit. Far from Heaven focuses mainly on interracial romance set in the 1950s but touches on a homosexual relationship as well. Carol ditches that main point and concentrates instead on a lesbian romance set in the same time period.