CONTAGION (2011)

It's common knowledge that EBOLA SYNDROME is the greatest disease/virus outbreak movie of all time, but yet filmmakers still feel the need to try and defeat it...when will they ever learn?! [walks off shaking his handsome head]

CONTAGION opens with Gwyneth Paltrow looking more haggard than usual as she leaves China and returns to her family in Minnesota. Before long she collapses and dies. Her young son also dies. MEV-1 has made it to America. You would expect what follows to be a very exciting story of the vrus spreading and humankind's efforts to stop it. That actually is the story, but it's methodical and dull. I wanted so much to like this movie because I love outbreak films, but CONTAGION is a lifeless disaster. There's absolutely zero build-up so you never even have a chance to identify or like the characters and there's so many characters all running around different parts of the world doing different things it's difficult to even figure out what the movie is even going for...if anything! Because it certainly wasn't "To entertain audience."

The trailer did look exciting, but what's implied is not what happens. Instead of an exciting race-against-the-clock thriller with a roller coaster pace, we get a slow moving clunker with the pace of an 96-year-old man masturbating to an IKEA catalog. If the transmission rate of MEV-1 was as slow as this movie, then nobody would have died...ever! Plenty of talent on the screen, but it's all wasted by the slow as molasses script and weak direction. Skip it.

Sounds like that old South Park episode.

DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954)

Not to be confused with Dial M for Fuck You, this film is about grumpy husband Ray Milland who has had about enough of his wife, Grace Kelly.  He's found out that she's cheating on him and suddenly that Last Will and Testament where she left all of her considerable wealth to him is starting to look pretty good!  He's not in a rush though, oh no, he's taken months to plan out the perfect murder and tonight while he's out at a dinner party with plenty of witnesses around, his wife is going to be murdered at their home.  But if you know anything about Hitchcock you know there's going to be a twist or two or maybe not.

From what I've read, Hitchcock only did this film due to a contractual obligation, but I believe (I have zero proof of this) that Hitch was partially interested in turning the play into a film because nearly the entire movie takes place on a single set and he wanted to maybe use the experience as practice for his massive single set masterpiece he would make later that same year: REAR WINDOW. Don't quote me on that, it's just me thinking out loud.

Anyway, DMFM is a good film. It's nothing groundbreaking (even though some of the camerawork is very impressive), but it's good for a one time watch. One thing I did notice that impressed me was Grace Kelly's dresses change colour as the film progressed and her situation became more dire. The first five screenshots below show the progression. At first she is happy and her dress is crimson red, then a darker red, then white, gray and finally black.

Not the greatest Hitchcock film, but still a solid one that deserves to be seen.