More Contagion and science talk at newscientist here, mentions that Soderberg maintains "exhilarating pace," even while covering potentially very boring statistics chatter, and that Soderberg's decision to speed up the pace of bacteria incubation and vaccine development (both much longer in real life) were great choices for the film. Also ends up sea gulls and geese in real life are pooping resistant bacteria, more here; re the geese, scientists have figured out pattern not uniform, rather pertains only to geese living in water near large-scale swine farms. Maybe Contagion will provide our society an easily accessible framework for talking about these unexpected convergences, so we can do something about it. Sidney Lumet, in Making Movies, mentioned that he opened Dog Day Afternoon by covertly filming real people on a hot day in NYC and then seamlessly moved on to Pacino, what a beautiful way to capture verisimilitude.

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I also enjoyed Contagion. I was worried it was going to be like that Dustin Hoffman movie from the 90s but it played closer to Traffic, in both style and substance. I really admire how this story was stitched together. Soderberg's transitions were great, the acting was terrific. I would be content to watch Marion Cotillard stare at drying paint so take my enthusiasm for this film with a big grain of that fancy sea salt from Whole Foods.

Funny you mention transitions because I was struck by that, too. I remember that Hoffman project (Outbreak). That's when he or his handlers were trying to make him an action star (I know, right). He did that movie then another thing called Sphere. Cotillard is awesome. There are certain actors like her, Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Matt Damon, who I really have to be careful about when I watch a movie so my affection for them doesn't cloud my judgment of the story. That would actually be an interesting post, wouldn't it?

Mmm... Marion. I miss Paris. I should move there. Baguettes and brunettes...

but how adept is a filmmaker/ producer at curating the experts? how is this different from Larry King talking to 8 or 12 experts on a panel, only to be greeted by 12 different versions of attention-starved megaphones? it takes a special type of filmmaker (not better or worse) like Tony Gilroy and David Simon to really pull off consultant-based screenplays. Even the good ones, like Michael Mann, fall under the spell of consultants so eager to impress, that they end up with tales that were more outlandish than a screenwriter would ever come up with. I'm talking specifically about Miami Vice, which is like a military advisor's wet dream, in which the good guys simply triumph by having the "right" tactics and better technology, and the bad guys all behave exactly like the fire range instructors think they should. all I'm saying is, in the last 10 years we've seen the consultants do nothing but encourage lazy storytelling by expertly telling the filmmakers that every outlandish circumstance "could happen." umberto eco laughed about the Americans' fetish with realism three decades ago - that they love using it to justify their own suspension of disbelief, hence hyper real places like disney land and the wax museum.

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