From my movie review in Taki's Magazine:
Ever since Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow started her website Goop.com to let people know about all the expensive stuff she owns, many have wanted to see her portray, say, a corpse who gets the top of her skull sawed off by coroners trying to figure out what brain-rotting disease killed her. And Gwyneth, I’m happy to say, is terrific as Patient Zero in Contagion, which is being marketed as a vast thriller about a global viral epidemic. I definitely got my money’s worth from the Paltrow head-hacking scene.
The first half, in which several of Contagion’s eight Oscar nominees (Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, John Hawkes, and Elliott Gould) drop dead from a new southeast Chinese germ transmitted merely by contact, is almost as creepy as promised. You’ll want to watch Contagion through a couple of eyeholes in a large upside-down plastic garbage bag.
Read the whole thing there.
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24 comments:
I'm sorry, I cannot see this movie. I, like everyone else, died from the swine flu. Or the bird flu. I forget which one killed us all, and definitely did NOT fizzle out.
Great review. FWIW, I haven't gotten anything out of any of the Soderbergh movies I've seen. They're fancy, they're proficient, they're clever, they're oddball -- but I've never been able to connect with them on any basic level.
The Soderbergh movie is yet another brief in favor of untrammeled state power. Federal bureaucrats would save us all, if only there weren't those pesky 50 different state laws to contend with.
Read Benjamin Ginsberg's "Fatal Embrace" to understand where this guy is coming from, and where he's going.
Clicking on links is fun. Fr'instance, the first sentence's Goop.com brought me to Gwenyth's account of a recent trip --
Hello lovely readers! I’m just back from a delightfully laborious Labor Day weekend in Venice, Italy, where I was in attendance for the premiere of the excellent film, Contagion.
Also, recipes.
Does Matt Damon die in it? That would make it worthwhile.
So with Contagion and Seven there are now TWO movies with Paltrow's detached head as a key plot point? I smell a Phd thesis about universal resentment of tall skinny blondes.
Unless Janet Leigh died in the shower or Ray Liotta had his brain exposed in movies other than the ones I know, Gwyneth may now be unique.
They were going to make it about HIV, but Gwyneth doesn't do porn.
Remake of RED DAWN: Yellow Peril Movie. China, I mean North Korea(ROTFLMAO), invades the US.
CONTAGION: Yellow Fever Movie.
I doubt if Hollywood would make a movie where the virus originates from a medical lab in Tel Aviv.
I must say though... RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is just about most politically incorrect movie since... Tim Burton's remake of POTA.
There are two ways to make a movie like this. Really seriously/soberly or really silly-ly(RESIDENT EVIL may not be much, but it's pretty fun as a B-horror-sci-fi-action thriller).
It seems like Soderbug went for both. The movie is both hysterical and sensationalistic AND arty and thoughtful. I suppose we can't blame him. Moviemaking is expensive, and you gotta give the audience what they want.
INCEPTION suffers from the same problem. Brilliant idea but turned into an action-thriller.
I haven't seen LIMEY, which a lot of people liked. Soderbergh can be politically incorrect: he has black villains in OUT OF SIGHT. He can be proficient and professional, but the only time he was an artist was with CHE, which is also the only movie by him that I respect. Oddly enough, it's a movie about a man I loathe.
Though CHE did somewhat 'sacralize' the revolutionary, it was one of the most thoughtful political movies in a long time. Given the Che cachet among the hip young and boomer crowd, Soderbergh could have cashed in big by making it in the style of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, BATTLE OF ALGIERS,(or INDIANA JONES). It took a lot of courage to make a movie that, instead, focused on the day to day operations of the revolution.
His approach was observation--almost like an anthropology of a revolution--than celebration.
Though Soderbergh seemed to sympathize with Che on many issues, the heavy dose of realism and an air of meditativeness didn't allow for Che-as-pop-hero-rock-star-icon that's been such a rage among liberals.
On the one hand, Soderbergh may have been saying Che Guevara was the real thing. He was not an arm chair radical who said one thing but then opted for something else--like so many leftists and communist leaders. Che was pure; he didn't just talk the talk but walked hte walk and died fighting for his convictions. (Same reason why Osama had a fan base even among moderate Muslims in the Middle East. Osama gave up his high position and privilege to fight the 'pure' and 'radical' fight. Of course, Obama is the complete opposite of Osama. He wil wheel and deal with anyone to get his way.)
On the other hand, the movie had an almost deconstructive and demythifying aspect, as if to say revolutions are not what they are cracked up to be. If we look behind the myth, revolutions are grimy, ugly, and dreary affairs. There was very little music, heroic posturing, etc. In PLATOON, Willem Dafoe died in slow-mo like a crucificed saint. In CHE, people got wounded and suffered or just dropped dead.
Though some said CHE was boring, I think Soderbergh was saying revolutions are indeed often boring. It is after all, a kind of war. Between battles, what is there to do? Just waiting for the next battle.
So with Contagion and Seven there are now TWO movies with Paltrow's detached head as a key plot point? I smell a Phd thesis about universal resentment of tall skinny blondes.
She's (supposedly) Jewish, so I think there's a better chance of a Phd thesis about anti-Semitism in the movies.
"Ever since Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow started her website Goop.com to let people know about all the expensive stuff she owns..."
No, Gwyneth started her website to let people know what a regular*, down-to-earth** girl she is in spite of all the expensive stuff she owns.
*bakes and eats her own bran muffins
**once got dirt under her fingernails planting some basil
While Paltrow seems pretentious at times, some of the ideas on her site are decent and I think result from a genuine enthusiasm for the subject matter. Goop works as an unedited, not market tested personal statement of a reasonably smart person living a certain lifestyle. It might be one of the more genuine documents of that type of lifestyle. The emphasis on tangible things, travel destinations, and such may have more personal relevance to readers than the weightier issues discussed on isteve.
He should note that Allen’s delightful Midnight in Paris cost about three times as much as his many more forgettable flicks.
Steve, on the basis of your review I saw "Midnight in Paris." I think calling it "delightful" is a stretch. Perhaps "diverting," but instantly forgettable. Lots of pretty travelogue scenery of Paris (out of gratitude for the French not considering him a pervert, I guess), but he did nothing with all the famous personages. Just having Hemingway doing bad-Hemingway didn't work for me. But perhaps you meant delightful only compared to his other recent work.
BTW, Woody based "Midnight in on an early story he wrote, "A Twenties Memory." I forget which writer said you know you're a hack when you look at your old stuff for inspiration.
"She's (supposedly) Jewish, so I think there's a better chance of a Phd thesis about anti-Semitism in the movies."
Is Jewish like Hispanic now? Everyone qualifies?
BTW Steve, is your longtime poster Albertosaurus no longer in our midst, or is he busy doing those Dos Equis commercials?
If it's the former, God rest his soul. I miss his posts.
So, what is the message of this movie? That globalism will kill or destroy some peoples, but the rest of humanity will not only adapt eventually to the new order but be more resilient and stronger?
Is Jewish like Hispanic now? Everyone qualifies?
I think it's always worked that way. The one-drop-rule and all that.
How does someone like Soderbergh even feel about globalism? As one of those cosmopolitan liberals, he must be for it.
But as a leftist, he may also see it as neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism. In a sense, he seems to be saying a new form of Western-dominated imperialism developed after WWII in CHE.
Also, as a director who got attention as an 'independent' or 'art' director, he probably has dual feelings about Hollywood. It made him a lot of money and brought him lots of fame. Thanks to Hollywood, the entire world knows about him and his movies. On the other hand, as a leftist he may be disgusted by Hollywood mogul-ism and Hollywood's brand of global 'cultural imperialism'. So, like so many Hollywood leftists, Soderbergh is both an agent and critic of American global capitalism.
One nation really sticks out though... China. Once, China has been the darling of American liberals. In the early 70s, many liberals thought China was a kind of utopia of selflessness. Poor maybe but virtuous. But then, the horrible truth about Mao came out. Then, with Deng's reforms--as with Gorbachev's in the Soviet Union--, there was the hope of communism merging with capitalism(or creative leftist use of market reforms without abandoning core leftist principles; communism gaining a human face.) But how disillusioning for Western leftists to find out that the things the Chinese care about most are money(and more money)and nationalist pride. It's turned into a kind of a fascist state. And it is the ONLY nation on Earth that has a real chance of overtaking America and giving the lie to that 'diversity is our strength'.
Didn't know the Allen movie was based on A Twenties Memory. Might have to watch it now, though I didn't think Allen did anything any good since Crimes and Misdemeaners. But ATM is a very amusing story. Can't remember if it's in Getting Even or Without Feathers, which are both funny and worth reading.
But how disillusioning for Western leftists to find out that the things the Chinese care about most are money(and more money)and nationalist pride. It's turned into a kind of a fascist state. And it is the ONLY nation on Earth that has a real chance of overtaking America and giving the lie to that 'diversity is our strength'.
The globalists have been trying to play a chess game by co-opting leading Chinese to act as their pawns there. The co-opted parties can get rich, but they will be furthering a policy designed to undermine the emergence of a kind of economic structure that might stand as an alternative to the US structure. For the globalists have well worked out how they can win at any game in which globalization replicates the US structure. If they're successful, it will give globalists control of their credit system, natural monopolies and hence real estate.
This was why Clinton was so eager to get an agreement - some agreement, any agreement - with China: The intention was to "infect" it with US-oriented dependency.
Steve, that was very funny, especially the Paltrow part in the beginning.
Can't remember if it's in Getting Even or Without Feathers, which are both funny and worth reading.
It's in "Getting Even," p. 68. When I say the movie is based on it, I mean only loosely. The original story doesn't have the time travel element and is much funnier than the movie.
Infinitely more nauseating than Goop.com is the absolutely wretched series, "Spain - on the Road Again" series, wherein Ms. Paltrow pretentiously eats & drinks her way through Spain with hideously ugly men like Mario Batali and Michael Stipes.
http://www.spainontheroadagain.com/
"Contagion is a weirdly lazy movie. For instance, Soderbergh flashes on-screen the population of each new fever spot Contagion depicts - Hong Kong: 2.1 million; San Francisco: 3.1 million—but rather than look them up on Wikipedia, several of these numbers are simply made up."
I can't comment on Hong Kong, but a population of 3.1 million for San Francisco is a realistic assessment of the population of SF and the closer- in parts of the Bay Area (southern Marin County, Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, South SF, Daly City etc.) on the one hand, and the more remote areas (San Jose, Santa Cruz, Fremont, San Benito County ("Vertigo", Mission San Juan Bautista), Santa Rosa, Napa, Solano County, and so on, on the other.
SF and the close-in areas are relatively compact. In the early 60s, when my wife and I lived in Berkeley/Oakland - literally straddling the border - we would occasionally drive to SF in the evening for a late dinner. In the early 90s, the last time we lived in SF, on weekends we could catch a Golden Gate Transit bus near our apartment, ride directly to the GG National Recreation Area in Marin County for a for a 2 or 3 hour hike and be back home for lunch.
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