Thread by @speechboy71

Ok so along with my good friend @mahler3 I’m rewatching Contagion ... so prepare for some live tweeting. For those who want to follow along it’s on HBO

There are so many great subtle touches in this film about how the virus is spread ... the bowl of nuts for example that Paltrow is eating out of in the hotel bar

Feels a bit too spot on

I’d forgotten there’s a subtle dig on the Lions at the CDC headquarters. Tough but fair

Is Jude Law ... Donald Trump or Alex Berenson? I say the latter

The moment where the sick kid touches the door handle, leaving the virus behind, is completely harrowing especially when you think about where we were in the beginning of this pandemic and afraid to touch anything

On an unrelated note Kate Winslet should be in every movie. There should just be a Kate Winslet network.

Oh god I remember back in March when everyone was saying don’t touch your face ... and Kate Winslet just used that line about how everyone touches their face thousands of times a day. I had forgotten how focused I was on touching my face

Everyone is in this movie. Even Bryan Cranston gets a tiny role

The way this movie starts out with the schools closing and people being told to stay home if they feel sick ... just too close to home

The phenomenon of a public official giving a coherent public presentation about a pandemic ... is weird to see

Forsythia in Contagion is ... hydroxychloroquine in 2020

My mother weighs in

And Kate Winslet getting sick is every health care worker getting sick with COVID ... this movie was so insanely spot on even if the nature of the virus is completely different

And Matt Damon not being allowed to bury his wife and son ...

The kidnapping of Marion Cotillard is probably the only thing in this movie that doesn’t completely work. It feels a bit out of place with the rest of the movie

“Congress is figuring out how to work online” ... so the movie didn’t get everything right

The shots of people in supermarkets stocking up on food ... Of course the roadblocks and shutdowns didn’t happen because we don’t live in a country that prone to organization

Interestingly the movie makes a big point about Americans resorting to violence to get supplies. Thankfully that didn’t happen around COVID

Even when she’s being buried in a mass grave, Kate Winslet remains as fetching as ever

Sanjay Gupta is in Contagion!!!

Yup they run out of PPE and body bags

https://twitter.com/mahler3/status/1328904403420635137

The shots of empty offices, gyms, theaters and airports ... again, completely spot on.

One obvious difference between this movie and COVID, thankfully, is the mortality rate in Contagion is 25 percent.

In the movie, there’s basically a societal breakdown, which clearly didn’t happen in the US.

Of course, if we had a mortality rate of 25-30% things might have been different ...

I wonder if we’ll see vaccination centers like those in the film?

U2’s. “All I Want Is You” is a beautiful song ... and it’s a lovely way to end the film before the big reveal

Really a fantastic movie. The pandemics are different in many ways and so too are the reactions to it, but Contagion got so many of the smaller parts about what it would be like to live through a pandemic