The thriller Contagion certainly has its moments, but ultimately adds up to considerably less than the sum of its parts.
You go in expecting a lot, with Steven Soderbergh directing, an "A"-list cast, and the promise of witnessing a global cataclysm along the lines of 28 Days Later, only the zombies are us, with really red runny noses, watery eyes and blinding headaches.
The movie (which I screened in "X-Dimension," throwing down some extra dollars for the privilege) has the unfortunate quality of aiming for something really big and exciting, and throwing in the kitchen sink to get it, but still... just missing.
It does not help matters that Contagion does build some expectancy and suspense, only to break the cardinal rule of movie-making by fizzling in the final act.
Also, the film does not give its stars very much to do beyond look really, really ill (always nice to see Gwyneth Paltrow foaming at the mouth though) or really, really serious (Marion Cotillard, who, in true Hollywood fashion, looks way too gorgeous and stylish to play a World Health Organization scientist).
In fact, I can pinpoint the only moments this overblown picture really works, and that's whenever Kate Winslet is on-screen (she plays an all-too-dedicated doctor from the Centers for Disease Control). Unfortunately, she's not on screen enough, and she exits ways too soon. And when she does, the movie starts to sink.
When you see a star among stars outshine everyone around her, well -- let's just say it's a potent reminder of one prodigious talent.
It was a talent spotted early. With both her parents and grandparents prominent in the English theatre, Kate was a natural from the get-go. She was acting professionally by age 11, starred in her first film at 17, was first Oscar-nominated at 20, then again just two years later for a movie that made her an international sensation.
That feature, of course, was James Cameron's Titanic (1997), a record-breaking movie that's enchanted as many people as there are McDonald's franchises. (I was never a fan personally; even now I think it reflects all that started going wrong with Hollywood roughly three decades ago, with its one-dimensional characters, dumbed-down script (filled with "'90s speak"), and lopsided over-reliance on special effects.
After Oscar night in 1998, when this young actress, on top of the world, had to be asking herself what she should do for an encore, Kate came up with the right answer. To her everlasting credit, she chose to steer away from vacuous Hollywood blockbusters like Titanic, and instead focus on smaller, smarter pictures that would both showcase and stretch her considerable acting chops. She chose quality over the big money. And we, her public, have benefited from that decision.
Now, almost fifteen years after Titanic, with six Oscar nods and one win to her credit, Kate Winslet is an actress at the peak of her powers -- no longer a precocious ingénue, but a woman who's lived -- and a professional who's conscientiously developed her craft. As a result, she's as well equipped as any actress I can think of to bring off complex portrayals requiring nuance and intensity. (And that's saying something!)
Here's hoping she continues from strength to strength as she builds on what is already a phenomenal career. Her late-breaking Emmy for the miniseries Mildred Pierce certainly augurs well for the future. Go Kate!
My own favorite Kate Winslet films follow:
Heavenly Creatures (1994)- Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) is a morbid, overweight New Zealand teen who feels alienated from her family and classmates, but discovers a bosom buddy in pretty Juliet (Winslet), a wealthy English transplant who shares her unusual taste in music and the arts. Together, they create a fantasy world that they retreat into with increasingly obsessive zeal. When their parents attempt to force them apart, the girls hatch a dark, violent plan of escape. An unsettling drama based on a real-life crime, Creatures is the magnificent brainchild of then-horror movie director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings), who brings considerable sensitivity to this tragic story of love and murder. Winslet and Lynskey have an intense, wholly credible rapport, playing highly intelligent girls whose intimacy takes them further and further from reality. Beautifully photographed, splendidly acted, and imaginatively directed, "Creatures" burrows under your skin in a lasting way.
Sense and Sensibility (1996)- An enchanting portrayal of two sisters' circuitous routes to love, this superior adaptation of Jane Austen's 1811 novel concerns the fate of pragmatic Elinor (Emma Thompson) and brassy Marianne (Winslet), left penniless and disinherited when their father dies. Elinor secretly falls for a well-mannered bachelor, Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant) -- who's previously engaged, as it were- while Marianne pursues womanizer John Willoughby (Greg Wise). The outcome is anything but predictable. Ang Lee's first English-language film, Sense is a vivid period drama, intelligent and involving, and benefiting from Austen's skewering of English social mores, gossip and materialism. Young Winslet is striking in a fiery, star-making turn, more than holding her own beside the gifted, appealing Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay -- and got the Oscar for it).
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2003)- Shy guy Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) meets free-spirited Clementine Kruscynski (Winslet) and a tentative romance begins. Soon enough, the impulsive Clementine has second thoughts, and learns of a medical technique whereby someone's memory of another person can be permanently erased. When she undergoes the procedure to rid herself of Joel, her heartbroken suitor decides to do the same. Yet once the process is underway, Joel regrets his decision, and feverishly works to rescue his and Clementine's relationship from oblivion. From director Michel Gondry and the zany brain of writer Charlie Kaufman comes a wildly imaginative, thought-provoking fable about the vagaries of love. Gondry and Kaufman's loopy romance really clicks, as we're dazzled by the visual fantasy involved in Joel's sudden decision to retain a subconscious remnant of Clementine. Performances are uniformly strong (including Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Wilkinson), with a surprisingly restrained Carrey and suitably kooky Winslet the real standouts. An exhilarating, moving film about the ridiculous lengths people go to in order to forget the past -- and also reclaim it.
Finding Neverland (2004)- Married Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) meets a widow, Sylvia Davies (Winslet), with four young boys he becomes very attached to, and is inspired to write Peter Pan, an ode to everlasting youth that would become a children's classic. But Barrie's efforts to produce the play at the Duke of York's theater in London are fraught with difficulty, even as his love for the Davies clan continues to grow. Man-child Depp is perfectly cast in this endearing biopic about Barrie's relationship with the family who inspired his greatest and most beloved work, and comely co-star Kate fits the bill just as nicely. Depp has always taken eccentric roles, but here he plays the real-life writer with authentic human warmth. Director Marc Forster allows us to see the world as Barrie does, depicting not just his emotional pangs (with grief and the passing of loved ones a central preoccupation), but also the flights of fancy soaring in his imagination. The effect is charming. See this one with the kids, or just for your own enchantment.
Little Children (2006)- After meeting at a local park, stay-at-home mom Sarah (Winslet) and handsome former jock Brad (Patrick Wilson), a failed lawyer with a young son, are drawn into an exhilarating, but potentially destructive, extramarital affair. Meanwhile, neighborhood busybodies are on edge about Ronnie (Jackie Earl Haley), a creepy sex offender who's moved in with his mother. Based on the acclaimed novel by Tom Perrotta, Todd Field's unsettling, often irreverent portrait of suburban malaise features a cathartic performance by Winslet, whose singular talents are on high-beam display. Sarah is unfulfilled by life as a stroller pusher; Brad has failed the bar twice and seems unfit for a career in law; both need escape from isolating routine and distant spouses, and find it in each other. Director Field takes his time developing the emotional tension, pacing us gradually toward a jarring conclusion. Former child actor Haley, in a superb turn, gives the film extra appeal as a scary, darkly funny, and vulnerable pervert.
The Reader (2008)- In 1950s Berlin, a torrid affair between tram-fare collector Hanna Schmidt (Winslet) and strapping 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross) is accented by the older woman's request that he read her classics after their lovemaking. Eight years later, long after Hanna has mysteriously vanished from her flat, Michael, now a law student, is shocked to discover she's a defendant at a Nazi war-crimes trial. Based on Bernhard Schlink's widely admired novel and penned by screenwriter David Hare, Stephen Daldry's Reader deals with a young man's coming of age in the arms of a former concentration-camp guard. Intelligent, absorbing, and sensitively realized, the film is distinguished by Winslet's haunting performance as a cold, mysterious, and existentially decimated woman. Kross, a young German actor, holds his own as Michael (played in middle age by Ralph Fiennes), who is privy to knowledge that could help Hanna in her defense. Reader dramatizes a second generation's coming to terms with Holocaust guilt, and the hard lessons learned on the road to truth.
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Just got his first flick "sex, lies and videotape" on blu-ray...
Agree with your picks above, with "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" being a personal favorite.
But then I love Charlie Kaufman's work, and Kate was perfect for the role with Carrey proving he can rise to the occasion when necessary.
Kate's got a long career ahead of her, and I always look forward to her films.
it's so obvious she cares more about the part than the paycheck.
how rare and how cool!
If you are familiar with that comedy series, you know Gervais plays an extra on movie productions. Kate was playing herself, and her part in this episode was acting the role of a nun in a holocaust film.
She was hilarious, and there's and interesting life-imitating-art story behind her character's remarks in the episode.
She explains the reason she's taken this role, is because she's been beaten out of the Oscar several times. She's sure that taking the role of a nun in a holocaust film, will be her ticket to the statue.
I believe it was the very next year, she won the Oscar for the actual holocaust film, "The Reader."
she should do more comedy.
Not appearing on your list is my favorite of her films, "Enigma," Michael Apted's taut, intelligent thriller about the code-breakers at Bletchley Park during WWII. It drew me in immediately and was compelling from first frame to last. No action or special effects set-pieces; just absorbing drama - both human and historical - on an intimate scale, but with huge ramifications.
Also enjoyed her tremendously in "Iris," another fact-based story. Emotionally draining at times, but mostly so in the sequences with Judi Dench as the character in her advanced years.
I admired Winslet's work, as well as the elaborate production design, in "Mildred Pierce," although it was, overall, a bit of a slog. The "emotional doormat" aspects of the character that I found tiresome had more to do with concept than execution - where Crawford's Mildred was feisty and proud, Winslet's went from querulous to masochistic - but she delivered everything the script required and more.
It'll probably be a while before I catch up with "Contagion," when it works its way to the top of my Netflix - oh, excuse me; Qwikster - queue.
whatever happened to the concept of brand equity?
Personally, I have no problem with either the separation of services or the fee restructuring, as I really had no use for their streaming function (used it maybe 3 - 4 times), although I can understand the crankiness of those who did. I've always been perfectly satisfied with the disc-by-mail service, so I see no reason to make any changes. In fact, that would have been my advice to them.
And yes, everytime I catch her on a talk show, she seems to be the most down-to-earth and funny person you could ever imagine seeing. I might be remembering this wrong, but I think she told one interviewer that her Oscar is in her bathroom.
There's an interesting story concerning her "Extras" comedy series performance, that you might be aware of. It's in my reply to 3fingerbrown above.
O T. When last we chatted, I was about two thirds into the Kaufman bio. When I got to the years he was on the TV show, "This Is Show Business," I was surprised. I had never heard of this show, with the exception of the YouTube clip.
Funny how Kaufman had his John Lennon "we're bigger than Jesus" moment, with the "Silent Night" scandal.
A most enjoyable read. Funny, insightful, and quite poignant in the chapters dealing with Bea's death, his marriage to Leueen and the last years of his life.
And "The Solid Gold Cadillac" became a hit! I love picturing him kicking his "good right leg" over the Cohan cane, as he stood outside the Philly theater's stage alley listening to the audience "laughing in the right places."
Happened to catch the film of "The Solid Gold Cadillac" a couple nights ago; I don't think I'd ever seen it in its entirety. Light to the point of thinness, but charming. Despite the reimagining of the character to suit Holliday, it's easy to see how it would have worked with Josephine Hull. Of course, Loring Smith, her leading man, was a much older actor than Paul Douglas. If you don't recognize the name, the face is probably familiar. Here's a frame grab from one of his "Twilight Zone" appearances:
http://www.tvrage.com/person/id-68317/gallery/?view=79580
And the film finally put Holliday and Douglas together before the cameras (since he declined the opportunity to recreate his "Born Yesterday" role for that film). Lore has it that Garson Kanin wrote the Billie Dawn character for Jean Arthur, and that Harry Cohn bought the film rights for Rita Hayworth.
Someone could do a whole book on casts that almost were, but weren't.
Kate Winslet is a good actor, but I don't think she outshone the other actors. It was more a case of Ms. Winslet having a more coherent and stable role than the others. Soderberg owes me a ticket refund, gas money, and parking fee for this underwhelming experience.