I will be happy to, when we do it. 

Who knows?   It remains a stalwart on MY list of movies I'd like to cover.  But I'm only one vote in four.

I happen to agree with Teague on this one as well. This would be a fantastic 6 hour miniseries, but there's just far too many characters for a 2 hour film, so you've got essentially a procession of famous faces showing up for 2 minute scenes and disappearing from the story. I like it intellectually, I enjoyed watching it the one time I saw it, but I have no desire to ever see it again.

I think because the subject matter is inherently very dry and un-cinematic, you need strong, well-defined characters to root you in the story, and this movie just doesn't have the screen-time to do it. A movie like Zero Dark Thirty can get away with being more thinly sketched and focusing on the procedure because the procedure itself has a 3-act structure culminating in a tense gun battle. A movie like The Insider (which you guys oughta do at some point, cause fuck is it amazing) can get away with being uncinematic procedurally because the characters are 100% the focus of the story and all the dialogue and performances are outstanding. Contagion unfortunately ends up with the short-end of the stick on both. It's a clinical procedural where the procedure is realistically boring, and the characters have very little characterization and are mostly defined by their job description and the actors playing them.

I loved the recording of this episode and certainly understand where everyone is coming from, both Teague and Trey and Brian.

Personally, I of two minds on this movie. I love realistic portrayals, to a certain degree, and things like the real world stakes that this plague will decimate a huge amount of the world's population. That's worrying to me in a cerebral level and creates stakes, real stakes in terms of the real world. This isn't a threat to one town but the whole world and the movie treats with with a particular gravitas.

But, that isn't always a good story. I liken Teague's reaction to the government dude from Sahara when William H Macy presents how quickly the toxins will spread from Africa to the rest of the world's oceans. In movies like that, we tend to chuckle and go, "This is serious, right? I should be worried?" but it doesn't quite viscerally shake us. It doesn't grab us like the threat of the little girl eating the disease ridden cookie in "Outbreak" or sick to the stomach of a feeling that can come watching people freak out over loved ones dying. So, I don't like "Contagion" because it is a little too "realistic" in that sense. I don't always watch films for realism.

At the same time, the fact that it is realistic is an amazing feat, especially with an A level cast. I was talking with a friend of mine who recently watched "Olympus Has Fallen" and she could barely make it through.

Why?

Because the President of the United States tells a Cabinet member to give up the secret code to the bad guys because he can't stand to see her tortured, even though she held up better than a two star general. Both of those points made my friend yell at the screen because the people were so stupid! So, if realism means that I see TV doctors make medical decisions that MAKE SENSE, I'll take Contagion. I'll take the fact that there isn't always people I connect with because people sometimes make me cringe a little-sometimes I don't understand people. I'm ok with medical speak because I grew up with it and understand it, but I get that people don't.

Perhaps the final note to make is the simple fact that there is no happy ending, and that can really unnerve people. I know it unnerves me, and I usually don't watch films if they don't have a happy ending. Yes, I like realism, to a degree, but happy endings is one thing that I tend to want to hold out for. Because, life is depressing enough to not go to a film and feel depressed. I feel depressed just by listening to the news-I don't need a movie to give me something else to be depressed about.

So, glad this movie exists, and I get where everyone is coming from.

Good show, everyone!

Be he near so vial, this day shall gentle his contagion?

What we're all really saying is it's not so much a movie, as it is the best-produced Discovery Channel 2-hour special you've ever seen. Your mileage may vary on whether you think that's the best thing ever, or an intriguing but forgettable curiosity.

In terms of approach, it actually reminds me a lot of this BBC docu-drama that follows procedurally what would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted.