Moneyball/Contagion

Its appropriate that I saw these films back to back since Steven Sodenbergh was two weeks away from shooting the former, before production was stopped, and ended up directing the latter instead. So that's something, and shows what an informed blogger I am.

Anyway Moneyball first. I'm a fan of the Michael Lewis book, and was definitely curious about how the film would get a conventional narrative out of the story of a small market baseball team that initiates a statistical revolution, but doesn't end up winning the big game. They get around this issue by focusing on the triumph of an idea rather than a team, and focusing a character who had no more than a passing mention in the book (Billy Beane's daughter). Overall the approach works. I wouldn't watch this film for a 100% accurate representation of the Billy Beane (just like I wouldn't watch the Social Network to learn about Facebook), but its entertaining, well-acted, and moves along at a nice pace. Its radically simplifies the basic idea, but in general captures the spirit of the book, which is more than I can say about The Blind Side (which in the interest of full disclosure I haven't been able to bring myself to watch even though somebody gave me a copy that is sitting on my floor. If I want to see a film about a brave white woman whose gumption helps her save an under appreciated black child I'll just watch the help. No I won't).

Contagion on the other hand attempts to show how a pandemic would affect the world, but in the most clinical, non-thrilling manner possible. Really for most of the film its almost as if Sodenbergh wanted to just do a meticulous live-action simulation of the mechanics of a pandemic. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. By stripping out most of the normal gyrations of this genre (namely worrying about who's going to die), you're able to really just focus on the effects of the disease and consider its implications. Really the only times the film doesn't work is when it jumps away from this approach and focuses on a completely unnecessary side plot involving a paranoid blogger (Jude Law). Still overall its engaging (if a bit draggy at times) and will make you try to avoid physical contact with other people (thankfully I'm already way ahead of them on that count).

Note: Two girls in front of me thought they were going to see The Ides of March (playing in the next theater). When they realized there was no Baby Goose in this one there was much consternation for a few minutes, but I'll give them credit that they actually sat through the whole thing.