The Rewatchables - How ‘Contagion' Belatedly Became a Disturbing Rewatch, With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: March 8, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan reexamine Steven Soderbergh's 2011 thriller ‘Contagion,' starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, and Jude Law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, this is an unusual rewatchables. We are basically tossing away the categories for this one, and we're talking about a movie that came out nine years ago and is incredibly relevant right now for a bunch of different reasons and is one of those fascinating rewatches I've had. And we're taping this on a Friday. Chris Rants here, Sean Fennesse's here. The movie's called Contagion.

You might remember it. You might notice on the iTunes store. It is, I think, like the third or fourth rental pay-per-view thing right now. now, along with all the new movies that came out, it's had this bizarre, but not that bizarre resurgence. The New York Times wrote about it two days ago. Again, we're taping this on a Friday. And we were hesitant to do this because we didn't know if the coronavirus was going to get

worse or I'm sure it's probably not going to get better. I watched this last night. It was just kind of an unbelievable experience. I couldn't get over how uncanny it was almost predicting. how this was going to play out in 2020. Not as deadly, but the same kind of panic and the way it's shot. And it almost uses germs like the shark and jaws or something where it's like somebody touches a pole and a bus and it just lingers on the pole for an extra second.

It's all stuff we've been thinking about the last two weeks. What was your reaction when you rewatch this? The exact same one, which I think is why it's been booming and been so in the consciousness in the last few weeks and months. I mean, we're far from the first people to be talking about what it's like to rewatch this movie. I mean, there have been so many articles. Our old colleague, Cam Collins, wrote about it for Vanity Fair six weeks ago now and what the experience is like watching the film.

It's just eerie. It's eerie how prescient the first 20 minutes of the movie are and the sort of panic and that it induces. And also the kind of like fascination that you have to try to understand something that you don't, I don't understand science at all, but it's a movie that tries to make science legible to people, the same way that I feel like a lot of people are trying to understand what's happening in the world right now. I think the thing that was really wild rewatching this

was the details that I know that I did not notice in 2011. And the opening 30 minutes of this movie is essentially just... It's like watching a serial killer movie. It's like watching the transference of germs on door handles, on ATM cards, on iPad touchscreen. on railings and subway trains or in public transportation. And I think that I was aware of that in 11.

But I wasn't like, oh, yeah, I see what this is about. And now that has become obviously, like, the number one talking point that people are talking about now is like washing your hands and not touching your face, whether or not Pueurel is going to be taken off the shelves or it's being stockpiled and stuff like that. And that kind of germophobia, I think going back to this movie then,

it was really striking to see that. I mean, to call it prescient is almost like an understatement, you know? I also, it was inspired by the SARS and Ebola and H1N1 epidemics over the years, but I don't recall personally being fearful about those epidemics in the same way that coronavirus has kind of dominant. I just got back from a lunch and it dominated the lunch that I was at. I mean, it is like there is an on-the-surface anxiety about it. And the movie shows that that's what happened.

That's what can happen to people when you're inside of something like that. It's such an unusual thing. There's like this long history of movies that do this that try to make us aware of something that could happen if things go wrong. But I completely agree with what you said, Chris. I wasn't paying close enough attention the first time I watched it, I guess, was my takeaway.

I felt the same way. I only saw this movie once. I saw it because Soderberg did it and Damon was in it and all of these actors. I remember watching it being like, oh, that was scary and then never thinking about it again. But it wasn't watching it. I didn't feel any differently than when I watched like I-Robot or it was some sort of futuristic.

Yeah, futuristic. Here's the most appalling version of how this could go. And it was like, man, that would suck if something like that happened. But, I mean, it basically ends with an apocalypse, you know, and it felt like a science fiction movie almost. Even though it was based in realism. And I think, you know, rewatching this, it starts out, you hear somebody coughing. Black screen, and you hear the cough. Now, it's like hearing the music in Jaws or something.

The way where you are now, like just the way everybody's mindset is, like if, let's say you're at a quipper game tonight, the guy behind you was just coughing on your neck, you're just going to, in the old days, you'd be like, fuck this guy, I don't want to get sick. Now you'd be like, I'm leaving. I don't want to be near this person. Right. So just hearing that cough at the beginning, he was like, it just sets us tone. The first 20 minutes of this movie, watching it now in 2020, is about as disoriented. and uncomfortable as I've been watching a movie probably ever. Yeah, and I think we probably should be careful not to draw direct one-to-one comparisons

because obviously the way that the virus in this movie, which I guess is M-E-V-1 is what it's called, it is a lot more quick acting. Yeah, it's two days and it's like a coma and a fever. And you're like frothing at the mouth, right? And the beginning of the movie, which is done in this incredible montage style, where it's cutting frequently and fast and going around the world very quickly and moving from character to character to character. With great pounding music, too.

It's just everything about it. The score is amazing. It's really like, it's all of the things that Soderberg has done so well over the years, but really pitched in a very serious way. We just did an Ocean's 12 rewatchables, and that's almost the complete, like, intellectual inverse. You know, it's like the feeling in that movie, which is so breezy. This is, it never winks at you.

It takes it literally deadly seriously. And it's so funny to think about the fact that they used science very specifically to build the movie. You know, like, it's not, this isn't the China syndrome where it's like speculative fiction about what could happen in a nuclear disaster. It's clearly grounded in a reality. I'll tell you one of the scariest things about this movie now compared to 2011 for me. And I don't know if you guys have noticed this too, but the characters in the film, and I think that it's somewhat based on, I mean, It's very much rooted in, okay, so how would this work and how would the CDC react and how would the World Health Organization react and how would the military react? It still feels like a very 2011 version of global collaboration to combat something where I think one of the scary things about 2020 is like a feeling like that global kind of community and fraternity of, hey, science can step in here and help is kind of, it's a little bit shakier in 2020 than it was in 2011.

It is. It is. I feel like the relationships between countries. Yeah. And this is not really a political statement as much as just an observable kind of like the whole kind of power balance

of the world seems to be slightly tilted. And Soderberg, actually, that was something he wanted to get at in 2011. He said he wanted to convey the feeling that he gets all over the world that the fabric of society is stretched thin. You know, and I think it's only gotten stretched thinner. I think one of the other things about it

that while the countries may have been in a better state at that time in terms of their relationships, the fact that it's kind of a hail-man in the movie to discover a vaccine is it makes the film even scarier. You know, the idea that like basically a professor played by Elliot Gould has to disobey orders from the CDC to develop something. And then a brilliant scientist has to basically risk her own life, which is what Jennifer Ely's character does in the movie, by exposing herself after giving herself

what she thinks would be a successful vaccination to her sick father. You know, the stakes are incredibly high. And obviously, like, we're trying to figure out what's the best way to combat the coronavirus. Again, they're not the same thing necessarily. But it does make you worried the fact that there's clearly so much science that play in this movie. So they did the informant together in 2009, Soderberg and screenwriter Scott C. Burns. They started talking about a medical thriller. Scott Burns do side effects with him, too?

I don't think so. He just did the laundromat. Right. But I don't think, maybe he did. I'm not sure. So they started talking about a medical thriller based on pandemics like 2003 SARS, 2009, whatever that flu one was called. And there was also, this is the end of that decades. He had September 11th there. He had Hurricane Katrina. And just you could kind of take a bunch of things that had happened and say, what's the worst case scenario of this? What's the worst case scenario of this? That led them to write it. And they consulted with this doctor who's a professor at Columbia's Millman School of Public Health,

who basically helped create the virus for them, what it would look like. And he based it on some of the traits of the NEPA virus from Malaysia in the late 1990s, which spread from pigs to farmers. So they come up with like, all right, well, what if it's bats and pigs? And how fast would it spread and all this? And it's pretty crazy. how close they came to nine years later, how everybody's feeling right now.

Now, two weeks from now, this thing might be dying down and we're like, oh, man, remember when we freaked out about this? But I feel like... Yeah, this isn't the summer of the shark or something. No, no, no. I feel like this is going to get worse, not better. It's very hard to say. I mean, it's...

Part of the genius of the movie is the way that Soderberg carves out the origin from the beginning of the movie and then the first title card you see when you see Gwyneth Paltrow is day two and it's not day one. And you have to, you almost forget as you're watching the movie that you haven't seen day one

until you get to the end of the movie when they reveal the origins, which obviously is like that. That was smart how they did that. Very clever. Burns consulted with a guy named Larry Brilliant who had to help to eradicate smallpox to kind of figure out

what a pandemic event, worst case scenario would look like. He had seen one of his TED presentations, and this is Burns talking about it. He said he realized the point of view of people within that field wasn't if this is going to happen. It's when is this going to happen. And that's what made him really start thinking about movies like this. I think, I don't know about you guys, but I like to, there's a lot of things to be scared of day to day. I like to, the way I deal with is I just don't think about stuff.

I'm the same way. Sweep it under the rug and be like, yeah, it'll be fine. And then every once in a while, it's not fine. Well, in the background of this movie is the way in which something moves from the background to the foreground, right? Like, it's like in the beginning of the movie, Damon's Stepson is still at school. The stores are still open. You know, even by the time Lawrence Fishburn calls Sonal-Lathen, people are stocking up on stuff in stores, but there's not martial law. And she's not taking her fiance seriously. Yes, right.

Which is crazy because he's a doctor at the CDC. Yeah. Yeah, that would be the bat phone for me. I would be like, okay. Maybe not the literal bad phone. Not the literal bat phone. That would be bad. So, this movie has five Oscar winners and five nominees. The cast is incredible and Yeah, just John Hawks as like a janitor.

He's like the tenth man. Yeah. Damon, Paltrow, Winslet, Judee, Cotillard. Is that he said? Cotillard. Cotillard. I'm bad with French names. Fishburn. Tarantino's great at the next brando. Cranston, Hawks. son of Lathen.

It's a pretty good starting nine. And I think I remember that when it came out. Like loaded cast, this is just, it did well. It made, it was 60 million budget, made $135 million. Successful. No Oscar nominations or anything. Kind of one of those just well-done movies that came and went, you know? It's a movie that he has sort of repeated the formula a couple times.

Like we talked about the laundromat where it starts out and there's a recognizable star and you're just kind of like, okay, this is what this movie is about. And then it kind of goes into this almost short stories about a topic. So this movie kind of moves on from Matt Damon and his family to Winslet to Fishburn, to Cotillard, and then finally, Jennifer Reilly. Yeah, and it has the hallmarks of a very familiar movie strategy. It's very similar to like the towering inferno or airport, you know, these like big all-star cast 70s disaster movies. The difference is like those movies are kind of tacky and, like, like kind of silly at times.

This movie is so, it's played straight. It's more like all the president's men. Or, you know, Slerberg-Ospin cited, also cited Dave the Jackal. Do you ever see that? The assassin movie where it's basically just like, here is everything this guy does over the course of the leaks leading up to his attempted assassination of de Gaul,

and you're like, I'm just like locked in on this. And that's the same thing here. It's just like, this is about the pursuit of how would you stop this thing? With some digressions to Jude Law's character. So the two best decisions in this movie, or that what you just said. Because if you have like, Elliot Gould is played by,

I don't know, like a, like a Paul Rudd type person where it's like, he's playing it for laughs a little bit. It's like, ah, and he's the comic relief of contagion.

That's a disaster and that really hurts the film. You keep waiting for all of these actors to have their moment. To break anyway. With the exception of Jew law, nobody's really showy. Like,

Gould could literally be anyone in this movie. Like, he's just like, should I burn my samples? I don't know. And I'm going to look. And then next thing you know, he's out of the movie. I mean, it's pretty, they play it so straight.

And then the other big thing, the other big decision is keeping day one and putting it the tail end of the movie. Because I think the ending's great. And you also could have started the movie that way. And now, I don't know how you end it. You end it with that prom scene, basically. And just has the wrong feel. Because I think they're suspensive. Like, well, how did this start?

Yeah. Well, who was patient zero, basically? And then you realize they show it. It's kind of fascinating to look at this movie in the context of Silverberg's movie, the last 10 years or so of his career, because, you know, he can seem very promiscuous. Like, he's just going to jump into this genre, jump to that story, kind of try this out. But I do think if you look at all of his movies together, there's some real thematic concerns to come out.

And one of it is a real unease with the way in which, like, modern medicine and modern science has kind of like also introduced this world in which something like this could happen. But side effects is about the effect of mood altering, mood stabilizing drugs. That is a scatzy burns script, by the way. And then obviously informant is about big farming and like agribusiness. And this is this, as you find out at the end of the movie, the company that Gwyneth Paltrow's character works for

is plowing up jungles, knocking bats out of trees. And that's how this whole chain reaction starts. That's the thing that runs through all of his movies is that he is very suspicious of corporate culture and very suspicious of money. All of Soderberg's movies, even the fun heist movies. But Aaron Brockovich, traffic, the way big global corporations interact with government, it's a theme up and down all the movies. And this is probably the one where he plays at the most street. Yeah. Even Oceans 11, you're right, is like Terry Benedict is still the house.

Like those guys are still trying to take down the house. So if you're going to go through Soderberg's best movies, sex lies and videotape, out of sight, Aaron Brockovich, traffic, Ocean 11, Contagion. See, we might not have listed Contagion. No, no, but that's the thing I think now it's in there. Magic, Mike.

Like, whatever you want to do, I don't think Contagion would have made it for me. Because it was, again, it was one of those movies you saw once. It did the job. And then it wasn't like you were going to. and be like, oh, man, I'm going to sit down and watch that pandemic movie again. It was definitely, I only want to see this once movie. Chris and I talked a lot about the laundromat last year,

and the conversation has started around him where we just take Soderberg for granted now. Like, a lot of people didn't like that movie. It had a kind of a middling reception. I think we both thought it was great. This is my top ten. Top ten ever? No, just of last year. That and heat.

Right. But it seemed to be in keeping with a lot of his movies. I thought it was consistent. It did the same thing. A lot of movie stars, Antonio Vendaris, Gary Oldman, Merrill Street, all these famous people seem to be having fun, big ideas. But he's just so consistent. He never makes anything that is actively bad that the bar kind of gets lowered.

And I feel like Contagion suffered from that in some respects. Like this was kind of a down period for him. He's coming off like the Good German, Ocean's 13, Che, the girlfriend experience, The Informant. I like all of those movies, but they're not considered Hall of Fame, Soderberg movies by a general concern. This is the five and four years run, isn't it? And it's like contagion side effects, haywire.

Magic Mike. I don't feel like people like this movie that much, even though it did well in the box office. I wouldn't call it like a deeply like a more movie. It's hard to like. You look at the Oscars that year. It was a bad Oscars year. This is the first year at Grantland. But the artist won.

That's embarrassing. The descendants, extremely loud and incredibly close, got nominated for an Oscar. The Help, Hugo, mid-down. in Paris, Moneyball, the Tree of Life, and Warhorse. Now, if you read, did that, Contagin's better than half of those movies. And it's not even close. Interestingly enough, Soderberg was the original director of Moneyball. So that's like it's such a fascinating point in his career.

And not getting Moneyball really changed the way he also led to this. But Best Director, like Scorsese for Hugo and then Woody Allen for Midnight and Paris, do that over again. Those two aren't happening. I don't feel like. I mean, the other thing, too, is, well, it's a very important. a reminder that what is deemed a serious movie by the Oscars is very rarely serious. You know, like, this is actually quite a serious film about something with great performances and clear

style. Almost a little too serious. And also, you know, Soderberg does so much of this himself. He's in close collaboration with Burns. He shoots his own movies. He usually edits his own movies. Like, he's doing all of this. It's all his vision. There are stories about him shooting and then him and Matt Damon and the crew going to a bar after the day of shooting. And, over the course of two hours at the bar, Soderberg, cuts together the day's shooting that they had done. That is highly unorthodox. And was like, hey, Matt Damon, take a look at your day of shooting.

And he doesn't, we don't, nobody is like, what a genius isn't it incredible? Because people feel like they celebrated him 20 years ago for traffic, and Aaron Brockovich when he had that crazy. It was a double celebration. Because initially it was the sex-slized video type celebration. That's right. That was his big emergence. Then he goes into a little bit of a weird period where he makes some challenging movies.

Then he has this big comeback in the 90s. and then crescendoes in 2000 with traffic and Aaron Brockovich. And then it's just like, well, he's a genius and it's great, but we don't have to recognize him in the same way. There's a version of this movie where it's Tom Hanks and it's more, Tom Hanks runs the CDC and that's who this movie is about. And it's all about how he's relating to his family. And you can have that crisis phone call that Fishburn makes, but it's played much more for the man who stood between the world and total annihilation kind of thing. And instead he really just goes from micro to macro and goes from Mitch and Beth in Minnesota all the way out

so that you can see the whole thing. But at each point, he was always really insistent that we never saw anything that the character wouldn't see. So there was never, he was like, I made a rule like no president. No president shot, no president press conference, no helicopter shots to establish anything. It would only be like, this is realistically what a character would be seeing. and I think it winds up being really effective because of that.

If Michael Mann had directed it, I think Pacino is the L.A. Gould character. He's like, I've got a virus that's taken out half of America. I've got a stepdaughter who won't look at me. And he's doing the Vincent Hanna. And it's like, no, no, no, we don't need that for a contagion. I'm sorry if the samples got cooked.

I think the other thing we did that podcast with Tarantino with Tony Scott about the unstoppable. And Tarantino did the whole thing about, like when Tony Scott did a movie, it was going to have this distinctive Tony Scott. Like you could just show Tarantino the movie and he would know who the director is. Yeah, you'd show him the flame of it.

And just these little things, and he went and got super in a good way, film nerdy on us about these little tricks that Tarantino would do. I feel like this kind of movie is specifically a Soderberg kind of style where it's like it's moving. it's fast, it's got a pace,

it's being edited a certain way, it can go five countries in four minutes telling us how this virus spreads. Like, what other director could do that? He really is singular. I can't think of anyone else. And also in the middle of like, what is essentially like a blockbuster budgeted

globe-trotting movie, the little subversive choices that he makes, like the Kate Winslet scene, the scene with Kate Winslet and Matt Damon when she's asking him questions about his wife, and it's just this, like, long shot of Matt Damon not talking because he's processing like, well, maybe I didn't

know my wife that well, you know? And it's like any other director or movie would be like him saying, did I not know my wife that well? Instead, you're just like looking at this guy who's like, I've just been through the most unspeakable tragedy. I'm at the upper center of a global pandemic and now I'm considering the fact that

my wife might have been unfaithful to me in the last days of her life. And it's just like, that's just in one shot with no talking. And there's not that many directors who would be like, I'm going to let the, I'm going to let the actors and the story do the work. Also, kind of like chubby Matt Damon in this one. Look, every man. He's the every man.

Let his hair go. I think he had some milkshakes and a couple of cheeseburgers and just a different kind of feel for him. He's a stay-home dad in Minnesota. Yeah. He doesn't look like Jason Bourne. And two years later, he'll be the golden god in behind the candelabra. You know, it's like once again working with Soderberg, you know? Right.

It's funny, like the decision to make that one of the key characters in the movie but then also this wide swath, the not just deciding on the Captain Phillips version of the story where we see it all through one guy's eyes. Because conventionally, it's really, it would be the Matt Damon movie. It would be my wife died, and I'm on a race to keep my daughter safe from this virus.

But that would be the war of the world's version. Yeah, that's Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is now going to escape the virus and win. But letting us be in the room with Brian Cranston's character and Enrico Colentoni's character and watching the way that a government would respond, to this, watching the way that scientists respond to this, watching the way that the CDC scientists could be infected by it?

I mean, one of the most horrifying moments of the movie is when Kate Winslow wakes up coughing. And you're like, oh, my God. It's kind of dark, so you're not sure it's going to be her for a second? Yes. Yeah. I wonder another reason why this movie might have slipped through the consciousness a little bit was Walking Dead was that same year and was another apocalypse scenario? Were we apocalypse?

I think that was, you know, I'm not sure. I can't remember when 28 days later came out, but there was a lot of dystopian. Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, I don't know why it was like, it was definitely an error. There was like two Will Smith movies

that had the same thing. But it was almost being made in a kind of like, this is scary, but we've got it under control. So like Hunger Games isn't really going to happen. You know? Yeah. I would ask though, guys, though,

I think that one of the things that I was challenging in 2011 with this movie was the Jude Law character because it did feel kind of like this sort of cartoonish, caricature and now it's brilliant of blogging or bloggers and of conspiracy theorists and now he's Alex Jones

I mean he's almost way more like well reasoned than Alex Jones I mean like you know what he seems like a more grounded character he's if you smashed Alex Jones and Martin Schrelly together you know it's somebody who's essentially profiting off of people's sickness while also

sending bad faith messages via the media and inflaming everything and appealing to a certain brand of people who are going to be more freaked out. I think in 2011 I was like, so this guy is like selling homeopathic remedies that don't work and I was, and I didn't know back then that that is literally what a lot of these shows do is they're like get your vitamins, you know, like this special kind of vitamin to get the

fluoride out of your water or whatever. You know, it's like. Yeah, it feels Orwellian when you're watching it and then you realize the way that the media has changed so much over the last 10 years. I think I think a lot of people, You were a blogger once in a time, Chris. I think a lot of people took it personally. 2011, I was a blogger. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people were like,

this sucks that they think that, you know, Elliot Gould has that line that blogging is just graffiti with punctuation. Right. This is also during the year of Moneyball where Brad Pitt's like, don't go on the internet. Right. But think about it, though. Think of the context of 2011. This was the first kind of backlash to, wait a second.

Don't let the gawker type blogs. they can't win. Let's start discounting these guys a little bit. They're getting a little too much power here. And then there's a backlash to that from the actual people. Like, hey, fuck you. Don't marginalize what I do. Right.

And now you have that Jude Law character and those bloggers are like, that's bullshit. They're trying to make, you know. But I feel like he tied into that. In a way, the Alan Cromwoody character sort of presages more like 4chan, 8chan, like the power of conspiracy. The Reddit conspiracy board and all that stuff. I agree.

And the ability of you can tell you, like, you can't prove anything, then you can say anything. Exactly. But the thing is, in 2011, it was, he was the blogger. And this guy, they're trying to make bloggers look bad. And it's actually, you look back now, it's a pure conspiracy theorist thing. And it's kind of the early stages of where we were going with Sandy Hook and all that other stuff. It is, but it's also a little bit more nuanced than that, because the movie introduces his character sitting in the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle, pitching a story to an editor. about something that is real.

And then being afraid that the editor is going to steal the story and give it to a staff writer. He shows the Shinko Bus video. He's the first person who has this video. I think that's in China or in Hong Kong. And he's like, this is a huge thing. This is going to be something. It's going to reverberate around the world. Just you wait and see.

The editor is suspicious. Doesn't really trust him because he seems like an internet hack. And then he's proven to be right in the early stages. And what he does is he finds a way to capitalize on it in a very cynical and cold way. So how does that play on 2020? though, because he immediately puts that video on Twitter, right? I mean, in 2020, and it gets shared by a gazillion people, and then

he's playing off that and he's gone. And also, like, immediately, I think that the conspiracy theories started around coronavirus, and I think that they would start, I mean, it would just be accelerated. It would just be, it would be the second you heard about something, you'd be like, oh, it's a biological weapon gone rogue. Yeah, right. They're coming at us.

And you see government officials actually speculating about that in the movie because there's no way to know. Yeah. The CDC doctor has to say. That's one of the most chilling lines in the movie is where he's like, could somebody weaponize the bird flu? And he's like, they don't have to. Birds already did.

Exactly. Well, Scott Burns sent Damon the script and said, read this and then go wash your hands, was the note attached. Damon read it and was like, I just want to be in this. You mentioned Cliff Martinez before. He did this soundtrack. Soderberg gave him the note. I need a brisk pace with fear and hope and all these things.

and it's just got to make people unsettled. Mission accomplished. Really good. Not nominated for an Oscar. Yeah, modeled it off of the Marathon Man soundtrack and the French Connection soundtrack and also some of Tangerine Dream's 80s soundtracks. So there's 20...

A good guy for Michael Mann. Tangerine Dream. Now you're talking my language. Risky business, thief. There's 20 songs on the Contagent Soundtrack, which was for some reason released. For some reason, they decided to name, the songs.

Not what you want. You're going to read some of the titles? Yeah, I was going to. Okay. The birds are doing that. Oh, God. 100 doses. Bad day to be a racist monkey.

That's a line from the film. I'm sick. Handshake, bat and pig. It's just weird. Bat and pig. Bat and pig is song 19. I mean, they sound like they could be massive attack remixes.

For sure. Yeah. But. So that was strange. A couple other facts. Marrying. Cochard Cotillard

Marion Cotillard There you go Great Six months pregnant When she finished shooting Kate wins up filmed a roll In 10 days That's the genius

Of getting the all-star cast together Is it's just not that big of a commitment Obviously Soderberg has more clout than most filmmakers He's also super fast So he's like I mean he talks about how he's like If we're doing more than three takes of something I'm not really sure why

Do you think the all-star cast should happen more often Because it's what I grew up Well, it's not distracting in this movie. I think there are times when it is. There are times when it takes you out of it. So what's an example of when it took you out of it? Don't say like the Gary Marshall Valentine's Day and New Year's Day, like those kinds of movies. It's a great example, though, of a movie that you're like, I'm just looking at Julia Roberts.

I'm not looking at a character. They made a shitload of money those movies. They still work. I think the formula works. But those movies are not good, though. You know, like Contagent is so involving. It's part of the reason why we're watching it. It's a good strategy if you're trying to be like, I need to make a movie that makes money.

I'll just get 12 famous actors and just throw them in the movie. Would you say that it takes you out of it during like JFK? But JFK had other flaws. I thought the fact that there was so many people and it was actually good. I was thinking more like, Tarring Inferno, if you go back, like got nominated for Oscars. I know, but that's a crock shit. Fred Asthma is the best supporting actor. Isn't that one of like a legendary, like what the hell is happening?

That's a bad one though. I mean, that was just like a whole run though, which led to airplane parodying in 1980. Isn't that like a godfather snub year? Like, didn't somebody not get a godfather nom because of towering inferno or something? Yeah, it was like, yeah, Cazel. Yeah, John Cazale. Yeah. Lost out to, uh, yeah, tough one.

So the only thing about, like, there are examples of it right now that I find distracting. Like, Hobbs and Shaw is obviously centered around the rock and Jason Statham. But there are big stretches of the movie that feature Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds. And those are four of the nine biggest movie stars in the world right now. Yeah. And it's just distracting because you're just like, I'm just watching Kevin Hart on a plane. Why is Ryan Reynolds in this? Yes.

Traffic's an example of it actually working. Yeah. Well, there's like traffic seemed to be, and maybe an inspiration for this that we haven't really talked about, is like more like those Robert Altman movies where he would kind of, you know, Nashville similarly is centered in one place but is featuring basically 10 or 11 storylines at any given time. Sometimes they cross over. Sometimes they don't. And you're telling this kind of broad story with big themes. These movies are more like that. They're more sophisticated.

They're not about drawing attention to the famous person. Kate Winslet's one of those actors. You just put her in any movie. She's always going to be good. And you're never going to be like, am I watching Kate Winslet? I feel like audiences don't have that relationship to that kind of actor.

I think some, well, a good example of a criticism some people had of 1917 was that the celebrity, the movie stars in 1917 who would show up every 15 or 20 minutes actually took them out of the experience of watching the movie. Too famous.

Because it's like now Colin Firth just shows up. And you're like, hey, that's not what this movie is about. But one of the interesting parts about this movie, which I think we should talk about, is the Gwyneth Paltrow, the use of Gwyneth Paltrow. And her sequence, which at the time was it like a big joke. Because she makes that unforgettable face as she's dying. And that kind of became a meme. And I feel like they used it to sell the movie, if I recall.

Yeah, I think also the way in which they stage that is that she, she looks really scared of something that's kind of out in the middle distance. And it's like she's the sort of the lighthouse that sees something coming. You know, and I think that's why that's so terrifying. And she also was such a- It was the internet. And she was such a huge star at the time too. And they killed her in the first 15 minutes of the movie, which was just so terrifying.

Kind of a sneaky strong ear for her. She was also in the Avengers. Oh, country strong. Oh, yeah. It's on the rewatchable slate. It's going to be Liz Kelly's first and probably only appearance on the rewatchables because she'll melt to death at the end of it. Solo pod?

Solo LK pod? No, we're going to do Country Strong. It's the 10-year anniversary. It's the movie Liz Kelly's going to make her case that it was better than a star is born and a star is born swim in its wake. Maybe that's why she had to die in Contagent, you know. I was paying her penance. There was one other Gwyneth movie.

I thought that was like her last year before she like went back to being... She starts doing a lot of... She starts doing the goofers that year? I think it's before that. Oh, Country Strong was 2010. Oh, Iron Man 2. She did that whole thing. And then was an Avengers.

It was like she kind of resurfaced in the consciousness and that's it. I just have a couple more notes. There's a talented Mr. Ripley reunion in this movie. They never show the screen. Dickie, Marge, and Rish. Ripley all together again, but they're never in one scene, which is disappointing. Ripley and Marge married. The gang was back.

Yeah, you're right. Bats just freak me out. I actually feel like they're underrated as a horror movie slash make-me-unsettled device. Has there ever been a scene with a bat where you're not like, oh, no. Bats. Well, yeah, I mean, bat representation in film tends to be pretty monochromatic, pretty one-note. What are you talking about the Batman? Yeah, but like, even in Batman, he gets sworn by bats.

You know what I mean? Yeah, but they're protecting him. Chris, what did bats bring to the table, in your opinion? Well, I think that they serve a pretty useful role in the food chain in terms of, like, you know, God's own exterminators. So you'd keep bats? Yeah. Although this movie, it's a tough mark against bats. Big loser.

I'm not long on bats, let's put it that way. But I think that I'm not, I don't have the education to say we could just remove bats from the food chain and we'd be okay. Not a fan of bats. Okay. I also don't earn. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing kind of thing. Don't really understand what God was doing with the bat. Maybe if we stop bulldozing their jungles.

You know, kind of thing? Make these guys, they'll be blind. They're going to fly around. What do they go after? I mean, I think, I thought kind of like, you know, bugs and rodents, but I could be wrong. That's a really strong takeaway from contagion. Not a fan of bats. I mean, there is like a long, speculated history that they do spread disease in this way.

You know, that's not, that's been. connected to coronavirus and some of the science. It's very possible, and they do also exterminate stuff. Like I can't say, you know. The ending. We're just a couple of zoologists here. Just chatting up. You can volley this to me.

I may hit it out of the stadium. Just go ahead. Just going right out of Arthur Ashe with this one. The ending, they show the pigs who look terrible. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the chef in the restaurant is carving it up. Him wiping his hands. And then he wipes his hands.

It's like, hey, Gwyneth, night to meet you. It's chilling. It's just brutal. That is such a really well-done ending. A couple of things I didn't get. The doctor telling Matt Damon that Gwit Paltrow was dead is a really weird scene. And I thought that was the strangest scene in the movie. I didn't understand.

I think it's supposed to be. Because they consulted with an ER doctor and how they deliver this information. So it was intentionally awkward. I thought it was really realistic. I think if you've had any experience like that, you sometimes find that doctors are not good at sharing bad news. It's not Grey's Anatomy. Yeah.

Yeah. They're not here to hug you. Yes. And there's a reason that Damon's character at first doesn't pick up at all on what the doctor's saying. And it's like, so can I see her? Can I go talk to her? You know, and then he can't understand that she's just talking to her. He's like, did you take too much of that flu shit when she can't hold the coffee cup?

And then five minutes later, she's dead. Yeah. And I think that that's like a very purposeful thing. And also the fact that the doctors, you know, we think of doctors as the most educated and and intelligent people in our society. other than the people on this podcast. Right, of course. But this guy's like meningitis.

Maybe she got it from herpes. You know, like he doesn't know. He has no idea what could have possibly happened to this person, even though he spends all day, every day, figuring out what's wrong with people. The autopsy scene is so disturbing when they're just... That was the next thing I was going to bring up, the Gwyneth Poutros' skull, getting basically cut and open.

I know Craig had some issues with that one. The skull is tough. The scalp getting peeled over Poutreau's face. But think of the camera angle, where you get the flap, right down in front of the camera. Like if we changed, we did the least rewatchable scene. Yeah, that one's up there.

I think the thing that's more disturbing to me is those guys, the two medical examiners being like, uh, and then what does he say? Should I call someone? He says, call everyone. Take a sample? I want you to move away from the table. Should I call someone? Call everyone.

Because he's looking at a medical anomaly. He's looking at a potentially fatal virus that is, could spread across the world. She actually, she does her own stunt work. She did that. She's, yeah. They cut her open. She looks great. It's amazing what she can do.

Next question. Is this movie a virus movie or a don't commit adultery movie? Well, I think that there is like a lot of morality in it. You know, there's no mistaking the fact that there's some judgment made. Also, not a mistake that that that voice that you hear from John Neal when he calls Gwyneth Paltrow at the beginning of the movie is Steven Soderberg. Hey. Yeah, John Neal here.

You just had sex with me in a hotel and left without saying goodbye. Yeah, it ended up being delayed. so sorry I was panicking. Well, if I don't get to see you again, I just want to say it was nice to see you again. You know, that is very purposeful. And even if you were feeling forgiving of her, or if you're not like, yeah, like this,

if she just could have gone home, maybe this wouldn't have spread the way it did, which that's not the case. At the end of the movie, you find out that the company that she works for is essentially responsible for the desecration of the planet, which is leading to viruses like this. So it might be an environmental, whatever.

I think it's an environment. story. I think there's something there's something there about cheating, but ultimately I think that that's just a storytelling device to get the virus in a different city. Just get the virus in Minnesota and get it in Chicago and get it in Hong Kong, and then in London, and then

go to Philly. Anything else? Do we exhaust this movie? Oh, you don't want to do any, is there any categories you want to do? No, we can't do categories. I mean... If there's any last thoughts, let's hear him. No, I mean, there's like hypotheticals that I'd like to...

I was going to ask what you guys thought about the Fishburn calling Santa Lathan. If one in four are dying, that means three out of four living, right? So the odds are in her favor. I want you to get in your car and I want you to drive down here to Atlanta right now. You hear me, Albert? What are you talking about? I want you to get in your car and leave Chicago. I want you to drive here to Atlanta, drive by yourself.

You do it. You do it now. Don't tell anyone and don't stop. And stay away from other people. You understand? Keep your distance from other people now. Call me when you're on the road, I'll be. Because it's an interesting way that they play it out where it's like

everybody I've read interviews with who was involved in the movie cites that scene and they're like, and of course I would do that. You know? Right. Call a family member, alert them, and then risk. I mean, his character's arc basically ends with Brian Cranston telling him that there will be a hearing

and you will probably be connected. And the best part, and I thought the most interesting part is that she immediately gets called by someone else and it's put to the test and that friend of hers and it's very purposeful that Soderberg shows that woman with a child. You know what I mean? So you get this idea

of the stakes that go into if Sondylathan just says, I'm just going to drive South Atlanta and be like, yeah, you know, crazy road trip, I'll be back. See you soon. Stay safe. Well, this was a Kirby enthusiasm episode a few years earlier. Was it? Yeah, the one that Alonis

Morisset was out. Oh, that's right. When they'd heard there was a, Wanda told Larry and Cheryl there might be a terrorist attack that weekend. Don't tell anyone. And then Larry told Paul Reiser's wife. And then all of a sudden, everyone at L.A. knew. And people were mad that he didn't tell them, but he told somebody else. And that was probably like five, six years before this.

So it's really good. It's a Kirbyer enthusiasm, original. Larry David invented contagion. The only other person I wanted to single out is Jennifer Ely, whose character is basically the hero of the movie, Dr. Hextall. Yeah. She's really good.

Who's such a good actor and does not have really much of a public reputation. Did you see the story about how he found her? No. She was cut out of Michael Clayton, but he saw a version

of Michael Clayton with her in it and was like, she's great. I'm going to put her in contagion. So what happened to her? Well, she has this run. She's in the King's Speech, the Ides of March, Contagin, the Adjustment Bureau,

and Zero Dark 30, all within a three-year period, which is, you know, I mean, those are some of the biggest productions dramas of that time. And then it kind of goes sideways. She's in a Robocop movie that you and I saw together, actually, Chris. She's in the Forger. She's in 50 Shades of Grey.

Like, her career just kind of doesn't, she doesn't get the same projects for whatever reason. She's a really good actor. She was on a show called A Gifted Man in 2011 the same year. She's on Low Winter Sun, not ideal. Sometimes you just don't find the right Carla Gugino, our girl. Yeah. It's another one. Never totally found the right awesome movie,

but I'm still a huge fan. Me too. We can agree on that. Well, I remember when you had her in a podcast and then didn't introduce her of me. I'll never forget. You had Carly Gojino on a podcast and didn't introduce her. He walked right by my office.

And Chris was just like, should I just peek in and see if Bill wants to meet? No. No. He's kept going. I would never do that with Jennifer Ely with you, Bill. I would definitely bring Ely by. I appreciate that, John.

Thank you. Anything else before we go? I'm sorry about Carl Riggugino. I don't accept your apology. I think that this is the first movie that has redefined the rewatchables. People are literally rewatching this movie right now because of something that is in the world. When I got home yesterday, I was like, I'm going to watch Contagion. My wife was like, oh, I was thinking about that earlier.

Like, she was like, I thought, she had thought about it, but she was like, I just didn't want to do that to myself. Well, and then you're going to re-watch it, and you're like, I'm sure it'll bring up some similarities. And then within 20 minutes, you're just like stone face. It's powerful. Duck taping your sleeves. Yeah, I can't remember a movie being reinvented by something that happened well after the movie. Is there another example? I couldn't think of one.

I mean, you know, I mentioned to you guys when we were chatting about whether we should do it or not and trying to be thoughtful about how to do it, that, like, we did all the president's men. And you could talk about the idea of fake news and scandal in the world. White House, and that was a cool version of that conversation. We talked about the social network and some of the negative things surrounding Facebook in the last five years. There were reasons to talk about those movies, but they weren't the only reasons. Like, we wanted to have some fun with social network.

We wanted to talk about the score. We love those movies. This wasn't a movie that we loved and was on the long list. It was something that was pushed in front of us because of something that's going on. That's new. All right. Well, we'll be back with a regular rewatchful as next week. Stay safe out there.

Check out this movie. We highly encourage it. I don't know why one of the streaming services hasn't grabbed it, but I think you have to either rent it. It's on Cinemax, I think on demand. Yeah, you can rent it on Amazon and all those places. But for Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy, go see you next time.