For those old enough to remember this movie; it was James L. Brooks best ever. James L. Brooks is one of the best comedy/drama writers and most responsible for the Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) arguably the best sitcom ever created.

I remember seeing this movie on Christmas Day 1987 at the Princeton Garden Theater and when the movie was over, I remember that I had just seen something unique and great and this movie inspired me to be a screenwriter. Broadcast news was something I had not really seen before; a movie that had great acting, great emotion and great humor all in one. The movie had several messages but the fundamental one was: how unfair the working world is and how insane is the TV world that honors the looks of a person over ability and intelligence. Brooks probably used the character Ted Baxter of the Mary Tyler Moore show as his inspiration for the William Hurt character who had no ability, intelligence or integrity but got the anchor job, very often just how real life works. The ultimate message of this great movie is that life is unfair and this story tried and succeeded to make this reality funny.

Holly Hunter was nominated for the Academy Award for best actress in 1987 and lost to Cher who won for “Moonstruck” which was yet another big mistake the Academy Awards has made. Albert Brooks has never been better or funnier in any other movie. James L Brooks tried to hit as high a note as Broadcast news in 1997 with the movie “As Good as it Gets”, almost as good. These 2 movies were by far his best ever.

If you have never seen Broadcast news from 1987 do yourself a favor and see this great movie.

Broadcast News IMDB

My first comments about this movie have to include my ongoing disgust will almost all period movies that seem to have the overwhelming need to show non-stop constant smoking . The movie Carol, which occurs in the 1950’s, has about as much smoking as I have ever seen in any movie. You have to wonder of the actors playing these roles are actually smoking a real cigarette or some kind of a fake one, because the cigarettes sure look like they are real and if they are, then you have to worry about the health of the actors playing these roles. In my opinion, even though people smoked much more in the early days before we all knew that smoking will kill you, it still is not necessary to show constant smoking at the level they show this in many movies made today. Its also obvious that the tobacco companies are lobbying producers to show smoking in their movies and give them money to do this because it influences people in the audience. This fact, is by far the most disgusting side of effect of this unnecessary ongoing problem in the movies ad its high time to move on and ban all smoking in movies. Will this ever happen? Probably not.  There is probably too much money involved.

As far as this movie Carol, the acting was very good with Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett but this movie was very boring for a good percentage of the time. The story was told in a very disjointed and overly complicated way and it seems that the only real point that was made was that in the 50’s a lesbian couple was considered perverted and abnormal and in the case of this story lesbianism or even a close friendship with another woman was grounds for a mother in a broken marriage to have her child taken from her. In my opinion this is not a strong enough reason to create a movie and the story and subject matter was not worthy of two hours of my time, regardless of the quality of the acting.

Mainly because of the slow moving and boring story of Carol, I cannot recommend this movie.

Carol IMDB