Thursday, April 29, 2021

'Contagion' vs. COVID-19 updates last year's most commented entries on Throwback Thursday

I told my readers to "Stay tuned for a retrospective about comments on Throwback Thursday" at the end of yesterday's 'Soul' wins Original Score and Animated Feature. Since readers (spammers) left more comments on Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties last year, I am looking at how well "Contagion" matched up to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic to update that entry.

The earliest and most viewed comparison video I'm sharing today is Everything Contagion got right on the Coronavirus outbreak. Its creator Caya examines the subject from an intelligent layman's perspective early on in the pandemic. He also chose the best preview image. I'm not above arranging my videos using that shallow criterion.

I’ve been stuck at home for a week after the coronavirus outbreak has halted the world… so I decided to watch Contagion.
...
The 2011 film, written by Scott Z. Burns and directed by Steven Soderbergh, depicts a worldwide outbreak of a deadly virus… sound familiar?
Yes, it does. As I first wrote about "Contagion."
Roy Wood, Jr., is right about "Contagion." It hits way too close to home, as it accurately predicted what has happened so far. That's a point Grace Randolph made in Beyond The Trailer's Apple to Buy Disney? What to Watch on Netflix, Disney Plus, calling it "scarily accurate."
That extends to the penultimate sentence of Caya's video description, which was a transcript of his narration.
As for what comes next, the film predicts a suspension in basic services, food shortages, and mass graves. Let’s hope we don’t see any of that.
Unfortunately, the food shortages and mass graves did happen, along with looting and civil unrest, as I pointed out in CDC offering zombie apocalypse tips updates 'Zombie Apocalypse Index for Day of the (Walking) Dead,' the top post of the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News for Throwback Thursday.
The specialist I see for my diabetes and I talked about how accurate "Contagion" was during my last appointment, down to the civil disturbances and looting, although those were not directly connected to the pandemic. I told him "we are living in a horror movie." He replied "that's right!"
I like my doctor, especially when he and I agree.

Speaking of medical opinions, I'm moving to a scientific perspective on the movie, Disease Expert Compares "Contagion" to Covid-19 | Cause + Control from Wired.

Dr. Seema Yasmin, pandemic expert and former epidemic intelligence service officer, examines the 2011 film "Contagion" and compares the Hollywood feature to the current Covid-19 pandemic. The prescient film got a lot of things right, but plenty of the movie's main points were pure fiction. Dr. Yasmin combs through the picture, offering her professional insights.
Dr. Yasmin concentrated on the science in the film as well as the interactions between scientists and the government, not the average citizen's perspective, but she provided a valuable science lesson for her viewers.

I conclude with a cinematic perspective from Contagion — What Soderbergh's Pandemic Got Right About the Coronavirus.

Contagion (2011) was a chilling medical thriller upon release — now that COVID-19 has changed our lives forever, Steven Soderbergh’s film now functions more like a documentary. Contagion used to be a “what if…” kind of movie, leaving us to speculate whether it portrayed what life would be like in such a scenario. In hindsight, we can see that Contagion accurately predicted much of our current coronavirus circumstances.

Beyond comparisons to Contagion and our current lives in quarantine, there is something really fascinating about how Steven Soderbergh used the camera to capture a pandemic. Even before COVID-19, watching Contagion had a unique ability to get under our skin, so to speak — but how? In this video essay, we’ll explore the cinematography in Contagion and how Soderbergh used very simple yet effective techniques to make the fictional pandemic feel grounded, and much more terrifying.

Contagion stars Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Laurence Fishburne in a deadly global pandemic. Soderbergh’s filmmaking prioritizes these characters above the macro chaos swirling around them. Most films in this genre focus on an ensemble of survivors but few pay so much attention to the characters in the cinematography. Soderbergh uses three key elements to lock us into these characters: voyeuristic framing, shallow focus, and follow shots that never lose sight of the subject.

By prioritizing the characters and leaving the chaos more to the imagination, Steven Soderbergh keeps this outbreak grounded and real. Now that COVID-19 has shown us what life in quarantine is really like, we can see just how much truth there is in Contagion. Soderbergh’s cinematography and filmmaking skills were never more focused or prescient.
This was much more about the art of directing than about the science, but I found it interesting and useful just the same.

I conclude this section with another thought from CDC offering zombie apocalypse tips updates 'Zombie Apocalypse Index for Day of the (Walking) Dead,' the top post of the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News for Throwback Thursday.
By the way, the movie ended with people receiving the vaccine. That's a good sign, as my wife and I got our first shots today. The horror movie is almost over for us.
I hope that's really true, not just for my wife and me, but also for my readers.

Follow over the jump for the most commented on entries during the tenth year of this blog.


I'm an environmentalist, so I'm recycling nearly all of my comments about the most commented on entries, beginning with this summary from 'My Octopus Teacher' wins Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties from August 3, 2014 had the most comments of any entry last year with 70 thanks to the usual crew of aggressive and persistent spammers. The post was the most commented on entry during July 2020 with ten, August 2020 with twelve, and September 2020 with sixteen, tied for most commented on during December 2020 and January 2021 with four each, and was the second most commented on entry during October 2020 with six. The entry ended the tenth year of this blog with 148 comments and currently has 150, the most of any entry in the blog's history.
I deleted most of the spam comments, but I did keep an ad for someone advertising guns as an object of mockery.
You're posting that on a pro-gun-control blog? And one of your products has a price of $666.00? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I was going to delete your spam for being off-topic, but now I'm going to keep it for the comedy value.
I am not above trolling my commenters, especially the spammers.


Speaking of "666," A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP had the second most comments of any entry last year with 42, 54 comments over its lifetime, thanks to Illuminati spammers. Yes, really, the Illuminati. Honestly, I'd rather have the Satanic Temple commenting there.

Now for more recycling, this time from The Capitol Police Inspector General's report on the preparation for January 6 riot updates Election 2020 and its aftermath for Throwback Thursday.

The most read entry about the election from the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News featuring serious news sources was WOOD-TV finds dismantled mail sorting machines in Michigan and Governor Whitmer and Senator Peters react on MSNBC from August 20, 2020. It earned ~1,210 default and 1306 raw page views from my first sharing the link at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page followed by Tengrain sharing it at Crooks and Liars the next day and then Infidel753 linking to it on his blog a few days later. The graph above shows the combined spike in readers from Facebook and Crooks and Liars, then the smaller spike from Infidel753's blog. The entry ended the 2020 calendar year with ~1,210 default and ~1280 raw page views to rank seventeenth overall and fifteenth among entries posted during 2020. It ranked sixteeth overall and fourteenth among entries posted during the tenth year of this blog. It also tied for most comments on an entry posted both August 2020 and during the 10th year of the blog with 10, enough for third overall.
It tied with the next entry, which I described in Broken Peach celebrating Halloween updates holidays for the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News for Flashback Friday.

Space Force gets a flag for Armed Forces Day posted May 16, 2020 tied for most comments on an entry posted during the tenth year, most comments on an entry posted during May 2020, and third overall with 10 comments. While it placed third overall during May 2020 and second among entries posted during May 2020 with 776 default and 786 raw page views, its year-ending 871 raw page views did not place it in the top 25 for the year.
This was despite Infidel753 sharing it at his blog and Crooks&Liars. Darn.

The above two entries tied with a third I included in 'My Octopus Teacher' wins Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

Entertainment for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News from April 23, 2017 tied for third most comments overall with 10 comments, again because of the usual crew of aggressive and persistent spammers.
This is the second consecutive year this retrospective has earned a lot of comments, as I observed in Comments from the ninth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News for Flashback Friday.
Entertainment for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News from April 23, 2017 tied for the most comments during the posting year with 12 because of a series of persistent spammers. I recommend it to my readers just for the comedy value of some of the most inept spammers in the history of the blog. The entry currently has 23 comments, including nine from 2017, which placed it third for the year, so it missed being mentioned in Pins, comments, shares, and likes for the seventh year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News by one comment. Darn!
The entry now has 33 comments over its lifetime.

I recycled my summary of the other entry about holidays that merited mention because of comments in Seth Meyers and Vox take closer looks at D.C. statehood for Flashback Friday.

Susan Rice calls for D.C. statehood on MSNBC and N.Y. Times, a late Flag Day post from June 15, 2020 earned 8 comments to tie for second most comments on an entry posted during June 2020 and the tenth year as a whole, but fourth overall. Even so, the post didn't break into the top twenty for page views during June 2020.
This entry tied for second among last year's entries with two other posts, including one I listed in The Capitol Police Inspector General's report on the preparation for January 6 riot updates Election 2020 and its aftermath for Throwback Thursday.

Ta-ta, Tulsi, as Gabbard gives up from March 21, 2020 earned a mention because of the 8 comments had the most comments during March 2020, tied for second most comments on an entry posted during the 10th year, and ranked fourth overall.
I mentioned the third entry earning 8 comments last year in Noah and Colbert on vaccinations vs. a possible fourth wave of COVID update the pandemic for Flashback Friday.

The most read entry about the pandemic during the tenth year of this blog was CNBC explores why coronavirus is more dangerous for diabetics from April 6, 2020. It earned ~1,410 default and 1554 raw page views by March 20, 2021 to rank tenth overall and eight among entries posted during the blogging year just ended. The entry also had 8 comments, tying for second most comments on an entry posted during the tenth year and fourth most comments overall. The post ranked number one for April 2020 with 1,388 default and 1,473 raw page views by the end of the month. It ended the 2020 calendar year with ~1,410 default and ~1,540 raw page views to rank eleventh overall and ninth among entries posted during 2020. It earned its page views first by my sharing the link at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page and political groups on Facebook and MeWe, then by Infidel753 sharing it at his blog.
Speaking of the pandemic, I'm closing this entry with another song by Madilyn about the pandemic using comments, I Wrote a Song Only Using Your Instagram Comments! (i miss my friends).

sooo this happened... I wrote this song using only your instagram comments! xoxo

Last time I wrote a song only using Hate Comments, this time I asked you guys to comment all over my IG and this is what it turned into... I Wrote a Song Only Using Your Instagram Comments! (i miss my friends) Hope you enjoy! Love you MadFam - Madilyn Bailey
Not only was that fun, it served as another example of using a different art, music, to deal with current anxieties.

Tomorrow is Arbor Day, but I might use it for a Flashback Friday retrospective anyway. Stay tuned to find out.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about comments and likes.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)