Contagion is what happens when the wrong pig meets up with the wrong bat.
Sitting at a bar, you reach into the bowl of peanuts, a waiter picks up an empty glass, the school nurse takes a young boy’s temperature…all these and more seemingly innocent and every day occurrences are caught on camera and through the genius of editing, the lens lingers ever so slightly longer than normal. And there you have it; the path of a rapid, virulent, super bug virus as it swiftly travels along the road paved with human touch. We don’t realize how much of what we do, and what we touch affects other people until something like this heretofore undiscovered and unnamed virus begins its deadly trip around the world.
The movie moves forward while flashback snippets in the form of video surveillance camera footage step backward and show us just how Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) became patient zero and set off an outbreak of MEV-1 and a pandemic nightmare. The portentous device of posting the day and date timeline on the screen brings the horror of how quickly a virus can multiply and spread exponentially, decimating the huge populations of such cities like, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and more.
Director Steven Soderberg brings his genius of fast-moving, everything-happening-at-once style he used so effectively in Traffic to this his latest work. There’s no grandstanding, no spiritual or religious overtones to wring out your emotions. No, this film plays it straight and factual. We are terrified, horrified and shaken, but not because we’ve been exposed to (no pun intended) to half-dead zombies stumbling across the screen. Instead, the camera pans through a deserted airport, sweeps over trash littered streets and lines of desperate citizens standing in line for government hand-outs of food.
The real heroes in this movie are intelligent government employees and level-headed scientists. Matt Damon gives a fine performance as the cuckolded husband of Beth, his best moment is at the hospital when he fails to comprehend the fact that his wife is dead. Kate Winslet delivers a solid performance as the field agent who gets sent out to Minnesota to head up government disaster containment.
By far in my opinion, Jude Law was the outstanding star in the movie. It was hard to believe that the scuzzy guy with the bad complexion and rotten teeth was really Jude Law. Playing a disgruntled left winged blogger, he incites the masses with his inflammatory, accusatory diatribes against the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies. Conspiracy theories are full blown!
This movie is certainly worth the price of admission. It’s a brilliantly directed film dealing with a terrifyingly grim subject, and one that the audience quickly realizes is all to close to reality. With SARS, H1N1, AIDS and ebola and ecoli outbreaks in our recent past, this movie resurrects the fear of contagion and births new concerns about biological warfare…and well it should.
SARS Virus
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
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It was Hysterical – It was Historical!
Posted in From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, tagged Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, John C Reilly, Kate Winslet, Oskar Kokoschka, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen on October 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Roman Polanski
Two nights, two movies back to back !
It was HYSTERICAL – CARNAGE (spoiler alert)
With the title CARNAGE, you don’t exactly expect to howl throughout the movie. However, that’s what happened as the audience roared, laughed, snickered and giggled all the way through to the credits. Roman Polanski‘s latest film is a not- quite-dark adaptation of a darkly humorous play. Actually, instead of the black farce is was meant to be, I found it to be more light gray.
Fifteen minutes into the movie, I thought I was watching a comedic version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? . I’m not sure it was meant to be quite that funny but it was. I wondered if it was hysterical because the characters were more like caricatures? Maybe, but for that matter, Martha and George caricatures. No one laughed out loud watching Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton turn a social evening into a knock-down, drag-out verbal battle waged throughout the night.
Shot in the style of a Woody Allen film, four people are figuratively locked in the Brooklyn living room of Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) Longstreet, the parents of Ethan. Presumably an amiable meeting is to take place between Nancy and Alan, the parents of Zachary who attacked Ethan and disfigured him by knocking out some teeth. These graphic descriptive accusations are sharp retorts from the horrified Penelope. She is just so shocked by the parenting skills or lack thereof of Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan (Christoph Waltz). Nancy and Alan just want to avoid a lawsuit and get the hell out of there! NOT an easy task ! Although they make it out the door a couple of times and even get as far as the elevator, they cannot leave. They are repeatedly pulled back into the web of guilt woven relentlessly by Penelope.
Jodie Foster was well-cast as the uptight, self-righteous, know-it-all Bohemian mother hen. She is so brittle, you’re sure she will crack and crumble the next time she tightly wraps her arms around herself. She was believable as Penelope up to a point. However, by the end of the movie, Jodie is shrieking like a banshee with her face contorted like an appopletic lunatic. I blame Mr. Polanski for this over-the-top performance. A shame, because prior to this melt-down, Penelope and her shoulds were amusing.
Kate Wynslet delivered a superb performance as the resigned wife of a rude, self-involved attorney a la Betty Draper (Mad Men), right up to the blonde French twist hair-do. The audience roared when the prim and properly groomed Nancy tosses her cookies onto the coffee table and all over Penny’s precious Oskar Kokoschka book – OH the horror of it all!!
The films best lines were all Alan’s, with his omnipresent cell phone. After the 15th annoying ring, I lost count. A rude, crude misogynist, bored with his wife, his life and certainly this ridiculous charade of meeting. The cobbler doesn’t do much to assuage his ennui, but the single malt scotch is right on.
Michael morphs from Mr. Nice Guy into a blustering insensitive boor who openly admits to freeing or murdering (depends on who’s speaking) his daughter’s hamster. I felt the transition was not clear or obvious, again this is the work of the director.
And the hamster lived happily ever after!
I was going to comment on It was Historical – A Dangerous Method but this post is already long and it’s after midnight, so check back in a day or two!
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