If there is any fun to be found in movies about global pandemics, Steven Soderberg was sure to leave it out of Contagion. Perhaps fun isn’t the right word. Maybe, thrills? It’s easy to see when comparing Contagion with, say, 28 Days Later or Blindness. Somehow, Danny Boyle’s world is terrifying in a way that is like a roller coaster. In José Saramago’s novel Blindness (and subsequently in the movie directed by Fernando Meirelles), the terrifying and contagious disease is Blindness. And while both of these stories are serious films, neither of them seemed to capture the dull horror that a true pandemic would be to the modern world.  Saramago was more interested in the poetic meaning of a world where society lost its eye site.  Boyle was interested in the excitement of such a situation.  Soderberg seemed to be interested in bumming me the hell out.

To paint the bleak picture of a world experiencing it’s first serious plague in nearly a hundred years, Soderberg was blessed with an ensemble cast of endless talent.  Kate Winslet, John Hawkes, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwenyth Paltrow, and Marion Cotillard are just a few.  Patient Zero is played by Paltrow, a cheating business exec returning home from a trip to China where she was either exposed to the disease, or was the source of it all.  An extremely contagious person hitting three or four international airports in a single day can spread a disease amazingly fast.  And what’s worse is how realistic it all is.

Kate Winslet works at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  Her boss Ellis Cheaver (Laurence Fishburne) sends her as a first responder to an outbreak area.  And there’s Jude Law who plays one of the villians, a blogger who is constantly reminded that his profession is not journalism.  He latched onto the outbreak early (his website is called Truth Serum Now), and begins pushing a holistic antedote to the disease.  He makes a fortune, by the way.  Soderberg spends music less time exploring the ideas of looting and emptying grocery stores.  Others have done that.  He seemed much more interested in examining, in depth, the reactions of people that would be looked to as leaders, should such a scenario occur.

There’s a clinical feel to the movie, and this isn’t a criticism.  It’s almost a scientific look at what seems like a very possible real life situation.  The support of this argument can be found in an extra found on the film’s Blu-ray called The Reality of Contagion.  Numerous members of the cast as well as real scientific advisers on the film discuss the terrifying real life facts about spreading disease.  While Soderberg keeps this clinical dynamic, the film stays in fine form.  He loses his way just a bit when the rhetoric starts flying about the morality of profiting off such events.  But these instances are few and far between.

I’ll be honest, the movie is grim.  There are far more mass graves than I would like to think about.  But it’s solid filmmaking, it explores some interesting ideas.  And you just can’t beat that cast.  Give Contagion a chance.  Just watch it with some hand sanitizer.

The Blu-ray is a little light on special features:

- The Reality of Contagion
- The Contagion Detectives
- Contagion: How a Virus Changes the World

Warner Brothers provided BFR with a free Blu-ray for this review.

It’s been thirteen years since Neo took the red pill and we all went down the rabbit hole to find out what exactly the Matrix was. Thirteen years ago, I was fourteen, and my strict religious mother wouldn’t let me watch movies that had been rated ‘R’. For the most part, I didn’t have a problem with this rule. But when The Matrix was all any of my friends were talking about, I made the conscious decision to watch it any way I could. My first attempt was thwarted by my similarly religious sister. She told my mom what I was watching before I even got to see Carrie-Anne Moss all poured in that leather at that S&M club.

Luckily, a friend with parents not so strict as mine let me watch it his house.  It was pretty much the greatest thing I had ever seen come through rural southeast Idaho.  I even bought the soundtrack and learned I love Prodigy, Rage Against the Machine, and Deftones.  I find often that when I return the favorite movies of my childhood, I’m terribly disappointed.  There was this hideous moment as a twenty year old when I rented Congo…  I still shutter when I think of it.  So when Warner Brothers sent me a free copy of The Matrix on Blu-ray, I was dubious and worried Keanu might not look good in HD.

Remember how the special effects in The Matrix were completely cutting edge?  We’d never seen the likes of that opening scene when Trinity jumps up, freezes in mid-air while the camera spins a dizzying 180 degrees to show 100 percent of her bad-assery.  That effect, I swear, still has the very same effect on me.  It is sick.  That’s all there is to it.  The completely enveloping atmosphere retains it’s appeal remarkably well.  For a film that heavily focuses on technology, it sure ages well.    The endless blues of the world outside of the Matrix, and the never ending greens inside it freeze the film in a sort of timelessness.  And despite a few references to the year 1999, the film still feels fresh.

As a grown-up, I cringed a few times at one-liners that passed me by as a youth.  And to be honest, the second and third films in the trilogy kind of made me forget how good the original is.  How much I liked looking at Trinity.  And how Mr. Smith still is pretty damn scary.  Despite TBS’s best efforts to wear out this film’s welcome, I found myself much more involved in the movie than I had originally planned.  I proudly reclaim my role as Matrix fanboy.

The Blu-ray is filled with some pretty kick ass extras including four different commentaries, a feature-length documentary, and 41 tracks of music from The Matrix.  Here’s a full list of special features:

- Written introcution by the Wachowski brothers
- Philosophers commentary: Dr. Cornel West and Ken Wilber
- Critics commentary: Todd McCarthy, John Powers and David Thomson
- Cast/Crew commentary by Carrie-Anne Moss, Zach Staenberg and John Gaeta
- Composer commentary by Don Davis, with Music-only track
- Feature-length documentary, The Matrix Revisited
- Behind The Matrix documentary Gallery: 7 featurettes
- Take the Red Pill documentary gallery: 2 Featurettes
- Follow the White Rabbit documentary gallery: 9 featurettes
- The Music Revisited: 41-track audio selection of nearly 3 hours of music
- Marilyn Manson Rock is Dead music video
- Theatrical trailers and TV spots

We’re attempting a podcast. My sister of The Bluestocking Society and I have joined the forces of our collective knowledge of film and literature to produce a 20-ish minute long, bi-monthly (or semi-monthly if you prefer) podcast where we discuss… film and literature. It is called Film/Lit.

We’ve produced the first episode which you can listen to at the Film/Lit site where there’s all sorts of other information about each episode.  Or should you rather use iTunes, subscribe or stream it here.  Feedback is appreciated since we’re kind of feeling our way around in the dark here.

Cheers!

Absolutely one of the best films of the year. Now with one of the best one sheets of the year as well.

The official list of films eligible for the 2011 Academy Awards has been released.

To be eligible for 84th Academy Awards consideration, feature films must open in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County by midnight, December 31, and begin a minimum run of seven consecutive days.

Under Academy rules, a feature-length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes and must have been exhibited theatrically on 35mm or 70mm film, or in a qualifying digital format.

Feature films that receive their first public exhibition or distribution in any manner other than as a theatrical motion picture release are not eligible for Academy Awards in any category.

As of this moment, I’ve seen 75 of the films in this list.  With the Oscars two months away (the telecast airs February 26th, 2012, with the nominees being announced January 24th, 2012), I should round that out to around 100.  Especially considering some of my most anticipated movies, like Shame, We Need to Talk About Kevin and A Dangerous Method, haven’t screened in my area yet.

How many have you seen?

ABDUCTION
THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU*
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
AFRICAN CATS*
ALBERT NOBBS
ALOIS NEBEL
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED
AMIGO
ANONYMOUS
ANOTHER EARTH*
ANOTHER HAPPY DAY*
ANSWERS TO NOTHING
APOLLO 18
ARRUGAS (WRINKLES)
THE ART OF GETTING BY*
ARTHUR
ARTHUR CHRISTMAS
THE ARTIST
@URFRENZ
ATLAS SHRUGGED PART 1
ATTACK THE BLOCK
BACK DOOR CHANNELS: THE PRICE OF PEACE
BAD TEACHER*
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES*
BEASTLY
BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE: THE TRAVELS OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST
BEAUTIFUL BOY*
THE BEAVER
BEGINNERS*
A BETTER LIFE
THE BIG BANG
BIG MOMMAS: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
THE BIG YEAR
BLACKTHORN
BLOODWORTH
THE BOY MIR – TEN YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN
BRIDESMAIDS*
BRIGHTON ROCK
BUCKY LARSON BORN TO BE A STAR
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER*
CARANCHO
CARNAGE
CARS 2
A CAT IN PARIS
CEDAR RAPIDS*
CERTIFIED COPY
THE CHANGE-UP
CHICO & RITA
CIRCUMSTANCE
COLOMBIANA*
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
THE CONQUEST
THE CONSPIRATOR
CONTAGION*
CORIOLANUS
COURAGEOUS
COWBOYS & ALIENS*
CRACKS
CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.*
DAM999
A DANGEROUS METHOD
THE DARKEST HOUR
DAYDREAM NATION
THE DEBT*
THE DESCENDANTS*
THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE*
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES
THE DILEMMA
DIRTY GIRL
DOLPHIN TALE
DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK*
DREAM HOUSE*
DRIVE*
DRIVE ANGRY
THE EAGLE
ELEKTRA LUXX
EVERYTHING MUST GO
EXPORTING RAYMOND
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE
FAST FIVE
50/50*
FINAL DESTINATION 5
FINDING KIND
THE FIRST GRADER
THE FLOWERS OF WAR
FLY AWAY
FOOTLOOSE
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS*
FRIGHT NIGHT*
THE FUTURE*
GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
GLEE THE 3D CONCERT MOVIE
GNOMEO & JULIET
A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY
THE GRACE CARD
THE GREATEST MIRACLE
THE GREEN HORNET
GREEN LANTERN*
THE GUARD*
HALL PASS*
THE HANGOVER PART II*
HANNA*
HAPPY FEET TWO
HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2*
HELL AND BACK AGAIN
THE HELP
HIGHER GROUND
HITLER’S GRAVE
HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL
HOP
HORRIBLE BOSSES*
HUGO
I AM NUMBER FOUR*
I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT
I MELT WITH YOU
THE IDES OF MARCH*
IMMORTALS*
IN DARKNESS
IN SEARCH OF GOD
IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY
IN TIME*
INSIDIOUS*
THE IRON LADY
J. EDGAR
JACK AND JILL
JANE EYRE*
JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN
JOSE AND PILAR
JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER
JUMPING THE BROOM
JUST GO WITH IT
JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER
KILL THE IRISHMAN
KUNG FU PANDA 2
THE LADY
LARRY CROWNE
THE LAST RIDE
LE HAVRE
LIFE, ABOVE ALL
LIKE CRAZY*
LIMITLESS*
THE LINCOLN LAWYER*
MACHINE GUN PREACHER
MARGARET
MARGIN CALL
MARS NEEDS MOMS
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE*
THE MECHANIC*
MEEK’S CUTOFF*
MEET MONICA VELOUR
MELANCHOLIA*
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS*
THE MILL & THE CROSS
MIRAL
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL
MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS
MONEYBALL
MONTE CARLO
MOZART’S SISTER
THE MUPPETS
THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
MYSTERIES OF LISBON
THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER
THE NAMES OF LOVE
NEW YEAR’S EVE
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
NORMAN
OF GODS AND MEN*
OLIVE
ONE DAY
OUR IDIOT BROTHER*
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3*
PARIAH
PASSIONE
PAUL*
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD
POTICHE 
PRIEST*
THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER
PROJECT NIM
PROM
PUNCTURE
PUSS IN BOOTS
RAMPART
RANGO*
REAL STEEL
REBIRTH
RED RIDING HOOD
RED STATE*
RESTLESS*
RIO
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES*
THE RITE*
THE ROOMMATE
THE RUM DIARY*
SALVATION BOULEVARD
SANCTUM*
SARAH’S KEY*
SCREAM 4
SEASON OF THE WITCH
SENNA
A SEPARATION
SHAME
SHARK NIGHT 3D
SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS
THE SITTER
THE SKIN I LIVE IN*
THE SMELL OF SUCCESS
THE SMURFS
SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN
SOMETHING BORROWED
A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN
SOUL SURFER
SOURCE CODE*
SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD IN 4D
STRAW DOGS*
SUBMARINE*
SUCKER PUNCH
SUPER
SUPER 8*
TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT
TAKE SHELTER*
TERRI*
THE THING
30 MINUTES OR LESS
THOR*
3*
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
TOWER HEIST
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
THE TREE OF LIFE*
TRUST*
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1
TYLER PERRY’S MADEA’S BIG HAPPY FAMILY
TYRANNOSAUR
UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES*
UNDEFEATED
UNKNOWN
A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS
VIVA RIVA!
W.E.
WAR HORSE
WARRIOR
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
THE WAY
WE BOUGHT A ZOO
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN*
WEEKEND
WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER?
THE WHISTLEBLOWER*
WHITE IRISH DRINKERS
WIN WIN
WINNIE THE POOH*
WOMEN ART REVOLUTION
THE WOMEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS*
YOUNG ADULT
YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE
YOUR HIGHNESS
ZOOKEEPER

The rich, of course, have endless amounts of time, and are very nearly immortal.   The poor only seem to be able to scrape together a few hours here and there.  They’re frequently close to time running out.  In this world, time is literally money.  Coffee, a tickets for the bus, rent, it’s all paid in hours, minutes and years.  With inflation increasing faster than wages, it seems inevitable that all the poor will die young, but pretty. Justin Timberlake plays the role of a man named Will.  Will is not one of the rich, and lives in a ghetto named Dayton (territories are strictly separated by wealth).  He lives with his mother (Olivia Wilde), with whom he celebrates her fiftieth birthday.  He dreams of taking her to a rumored district named New Greenwich, where no one ever rushes, ever has a hurried pace, since they literally have all the time in the world.

Will gets his chance when a sullen man named Henry (Matt Bomer) transfers over a century to him.  Henry is one hundred and five years old, and prefers this as a way out.  The opportunity comes too late, as Will’s mother’s clock runs out.  Alone, he travels to New Greenwich, becomes acquainted with one of the richest men in the world, and ends up kidnapping his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) as a hostage to avoid questioning from police concerning his sudden wealth of time.

At this point, Sylvia and Will become a couple on the run, stealing from the rich (which happens mostly to be from Sylvia’s father, played by Vincent Kartheiser), and giving to the poor–trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities, led by Cillian Murphy.  Dialogue becomes stagnant.  Endless conversations about time, wasting time, running out of time, stealing time, become as uninteresting as the not-so-subtle commentary on wealth distribution.  What’s most unclear, however, is what Niccol’s was aiming for.  As much as Gattaca’s pace had an firm understanding of its own pacing and purpose, In Time seems as lost.  Energy levels go in between extremes, and the lulls are little too long.  Stylistically, this future, be it distant or near, is contradictory in fashions and technology.  There’s a lot of dark sunglasses, black leather, muscle cars without any door handles.  Less may have been more in this sense.  There are a few shining moments, mostly provided by the cinematography of Roger Deakins, and performances, particularly by Mr. Kartheiser.  I’m sure there’s a clever anecdote about wasting my time here.  Just imagine I took the time to think of it.

2 out of 4 stars

At one point in Jeff Nichols’ remarkable latest film, Take Shelter, one friend says to another, “You’ve got a good life, Curtis. I think that’s the best compliment you can give a man. Take a look at his life and say, ‘That’s good.” Michael Shannon’s character is Curtis. It’s his best friend Dewitt, Shea Whigham, speaking. Curtis does have a good life. He’s happily married to Samantha, played by Jessica Chastain. He’s the loving father of a little girl, who happens to be deaf. He has a modest home, and friends. Curtis is not a stereotype, it begs to be mentioned. Nichols keeps such things far away from this film. However, it can generally be agreed, Curtis has a good life.

This point is carefully established, without it being too in-your-face. And it sets up the truly scary story that follows. The risk of losing it all seems terrifying to the audience as the simple and logical story unfolds. Curtis, who’s mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in her mid-thirties, all at once, begins having disturbing, life-like dreams that threaten to carry over into real life. In one dream, shadowy, dark figures surround the car he’s driving in with his daughter, Hannah. The figures break the windows and steal his daughter and he’s powerless to help himself or her. In another, similar figures attempt to invade his home, and while Curtis clutches Hannah, all the furniture in the room rises into the air and crashes down hard.

There is real horror in these dreams, both for the audience, and for Craig. His behavior becomes disorganized, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of turning his tornado shelter (Curtis’s family lives in northern Ohio), into something more substantial–as he’s sure something, an incredible storm perhaps, is coming. All he knows is its something bad. Very bad. Aware that he is not acting normally, he urgently seeks help from a family doctor first, then at a free mental health clinic. He even checks out materials on mental illness, and presents his therapist with an understandable self-diagnosis.

Despite his best efforts, Curtis’s life begins to unravel. And it’s frightening. If Curtis was crazier, if preached of the end of the world on the corner, or even showed signs of being rattled, the clever atmosphere of the film would not have reached such remarkable levels. Most unsettling is Curtis’s calm demeanor. His rational thinking (most of the time), and his strange duality in that he understandings he’s becomes deluded, but continues to build the shelter, as he can’t help but believe in his premonitions.

Shannon’s performance powers an all ready strong film. But here, he’s relentlessly brilliant. His haunted presence onscreen is truly unforgettable. Nichols, who also wrote the script, ends this film with a scene that unsettles by asking more questions instead of giving answers. It is a fitting end to such a heartbreaking and honest movie.

4 out of 4 stars