Introduced as an unusual Rewatchables that basically tosses away the categories to discuss Contagion, a movie from nine years earlier called incredibly relevant right now; taped on a Friday with Chris Ryan (ASR 'Chris Rants') and Sean Fennessey present.

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Contagion is said to be the third or fourth pay-per-view rental on iTunes, with a New York Times piece about its resurgence two days earlier; the hosts say they hesitated because they did not know whether the coronavirus would get worse.

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The rewatch the night before is called an unbelievable, uncanny experience that almost predicted how 2020 would play out - not as deadly, but the same panic - using germs like the shark in Jaws by lingering on a pole someone touches.

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Another host shares the reaction, notes many articles about rewatching it (one by a former colleague, ASR 'Cam Collins', for Vanity Fair six weeks earlier), calls the first 20 minutes eerily prescient, and says the movie tries to make science legible.

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The opening 30 minutes are likened to a serial killer movie tracking germ transfer on door handles, ATM cards, touchscreens, railings and public transportation; washing hands, not touching your face and hand-sanitizer stockpiling are described as the number one talking points now.

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The film is said to have been inspired by SARS, Ebola and H1N1; one host says he never felt fearful about those in the way coronavirus now dominates, including a lunch he had just left.

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Hosts say they were not paying close attention the first time; one saw it once because of Soderbergh and Damon and felt no differently than watching I, Robot - a futuristic, near-science-fiction scenario despite its realism.

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The opening cough over a black screen now feels like the Jaws music, and the first 20 minutes watched in 2020 are called about as disoriented and uncomfortable as a movie has ever made one host.

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A host cautions against one-to-one comparisons: the film's virus (MEV-1) is described as much quicker acting - two days, coma, fever, frothing at the mouth.

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The fast-cutting globe-trotting opening montage, pounding music and score are praised; the recent Ocean's 12 episode is called the intellectual inverse, since this movie never winks and is grounded in real science unlike The China Syndrome.

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The film is called a very 2011 version of global collaboration among the CDC, World Health Organization and military; hosts say that sense of global community feels shakier in 2020 and cite Soderbergh wanting to convey that the fabric of society is stretched thin.

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Needing a last-ditch effort (ASR 'hail-man') to find a vaccine makes the film scarier: Elliott Gould's professor disobeys CDC orders and Jennifer Ehle's scientist (ASR 'Ely') gives herself the vaccine and exposes herself to her sick father.

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Origin as recounted: after The Informant in 2009, Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Burns discussed a medical thriller based on SARS and the 2009 flu, with September 11th and Hurricane Katrina in the background; a Columbia public-health professor helped design the virus from traits of a late-1990s Malaysian virus (ASR 'NEPA') that spread from pigs to farmers, leading to bats and pigs.

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Whether Burns also wrote Side Effects is first doubted, then later stated: Side Effects is called a Scott Burns script.

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Hosts call it crazy how close the film came to how everyone feels; the outbreak might die down in two weeks, but it is also said this is not the summer of the shark and will likely get worse, and called very hard to say.

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Soderbergh carving out the origin - the first Paltrow title card is Day 2, and Day 1 is revealed at the end as patient zero - is praised as clever and one of the film's two best decisions.

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Burns is said to have consulted Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, after seeing a TED presentation; people in that field thought it was not if but when.

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Hosts cope by not thinking about scary things; the movie shows a threat moving from background to foreground - Damon's stepson still at school, stores open, stocking up but no martial law when Fishburne calls Sanaa Lathan, who does not take her CDC-doctor fiance seriously.

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The cast is said to include five Oscar winners and five nominees; the named starting nine is Damon, Paltrow, Winslet, Jude Law, Cotillard, Fishburne, Cranston, John Hawkes as a janitor and tenth man, Sanaa Lathan, with a stated 60 million budget, 135 million gross and no Oscar nominations.

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It is a formula Soderbergh has repeated since, as in The Laundromat - a recognizable star, then short stories moving from Damon to Winslet, Fishburne, Cotillard and Ehle; it recalls 70s all-star disaster films like The Towering Inferno and Airport but is played straight like All the President's Men, and Soderbergh cited The Day of the Jackal.

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Playing it straight is called the other best decision: an Elliott Gould role played for laughs by a Paul Rudd type would be a disaster, and nobody except Jude Law is showy.

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Soderbergh's films are said to share unease about modern medicine and science (Side Effects, The Informant's agribusiness) and suspicion of corporate culture and money (Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Ocean's 11's Terry Benedict as the house); in Contagion, Paltrow's company plows up jungles and knocks bats out of trees.

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A best-Soderbergh run is listed - Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Ocean's 11, Contagion, Magic Mike; Contagion is said to be in there now, and it is also said it would not have made the list before because it was a see-once movie.

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The Laundromat had a middling reception but two hosts thought it great, one calling it top ten of last year; Soderbergh is so consistent that he is taken for granted, and Contagion followed a down period (The Good German, Ocean's 13, Che, The Girlfriend Experience, The Informant).

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A run of Contagion, Side Effects, Haywire and Magic Mike is noted; one host says people do not like Contagion that much despite its box office.

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That year's Oscars are called a bad year that The Artist won; Contagion is called better than half of the nominees read out, Soderbergh is said to have been Moneyball's original director, and Scorsese and Woody Allen director nominations are doubted in a do-over.

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What the Oscars deem a serious movie is said to be very rarely serious; Soderbergh shoots and edits his own movies, with a story of him cutting the day's footage at a bar with Damon and the crew; celebrated for Sex, Lies, and Videotape and again for Traffic and Erin Brockovich, he is now taken for granted.

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An alternative version would center Tom Hanks running the CDC; instead the film goes micro to macro from Mitch and Beth in Minnesota, and Soderbergh's rule was no shot a character would not see - no president, no presidential press conference, no establishing helicopter shots.

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A Michael Mann version is imagined with Pacino as the Elliott Gould character doing Vincent Hanna, which the film does not need.

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Recalling a Tarantino conversation about Tony Scott's Unstoppable and signature directors, the hosts call this a specifically Soderbergh style - fast, going five countries in four minutes - and him singular.

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The Kate Winslet and Matt Damon scene is praised: a long wordless shot of Damon processing that his wife may have been unfaithful in her last days, letting actors and story do the work.

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Damon is described as a chubbier everyman stay-at-home dad in Minnesota, not Jason Bourne, two years before Behind the Candelabra with Soderbergh.

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Rather than a one-man Captain Phillips or Tom Cruise War of the Worlds version, the film puts viewers in rooms with Cranston's and Enrico Colantoni's characters and CDC scientists; Winslet waking up coughing is called one of the most horrifying moments.

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One theory for the film slipping from consciousness is an era of apocalypse and dystopia - The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, Will Smith movies, The Hunger Games - made with a sense that it is scary but under control.

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Jude Law's character felt like a cartoonish caricature of bloggers and conspiracy theorists in 2011 but now seems like Alex Jones mixed with a figure the ASR renders 'Martin Schrelly' - someone profiting off sickness and selling remedies like shows that push special vitamins.

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Chris Ryan is noted to have been a blogger in 2011; bloggers took the portrayal personally, including Gould's 'graffiti with punctuation' line, which is framed within a 2011 backlash against Gawker-type blogs and the Moneyball-era don't-go-on-the-internet mood.

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The Alan Krumwiede character (ASR 'Cromwoody') is said to presage 4chan, 8chan and Reddit conspiracy boards and the early stages of Sandy Hook-style conspiracy theories.

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Another host calls it more nuanced: he is introduced pitching the San Francisco Chronicle a real story with a bus video from China or Hong Kong, is proven right early, then capitalizes cynically.

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In 2020 he would post the video on Twitter; a host thinks coronavirus conspiracy theories started immediately and that people would jump straight to 'a biological weapon gone rogue', and the film has officials speculating too, with the 'birds already did' line called one of the most chilling.

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Burns reportedly sent Damon the script with a note to read it and then go wash his hands, and Damon wanted in.

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Cliff Martinez's score is praised: Soderbergh asked for a brisk pace with fear and hope; it was not Oscar nominated and was modeled on Marathon Man, The French Connection and 80s Tangerine Dream, with Tangerine Dream linked to Michael Mann, Risky Business and Thief.

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The released 20-song soundtrack has odd track names read aloud, including '100 Doses', 'Bad Day to Be a Racist Monkey', 'Handshake' and 'Bat and Pig', likened to Massive Attack remixes.

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Marion Cotillard was said to be six months pregnant when she finished shooting and Winslet filmed her role in 10 days; Soderbergh is fast and questions doing more than three takes.

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Whether all-star casts should happen more: not distracting here, but holiday ensemble movies, The Towering Inferno's Oscar nominations (with John Cazale said to have missed a Godfather nomination) and Hobbs and Shaw with Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds are cited as distracting; JFK is raised, said to have other flaws but a crowded cast that worked.

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Traffic and Robert Altman's Nashville are cited as ensembles that work; Kate Winslet is an actor who never pulls focus, while 1917's star cameos such as Colin Firth were criticized for taking viewers out.

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Gwyneth Paltrow's dying face became a meme possibly used to sell the film; killing such a huge star in the first 15 minutes, staring at something in the middle distance, is called terrifying.

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Paltrow's era is recalled - Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Country Strong - with Country Strong on the Rewatchables slate for its 10-year anniversary and Liz Kelly expected to argue it beat A Star Is Born.

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A Talented Mr. Ripley reunion (Dickie, Marge and Ripley) is noted, though they are never in one scene.

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Bats are called underrated as an unsettling device; asked what bats bring to the table, the answer is that they are useful exterminators in the food chain, though the movie is a tough mark against them; 'not a fan of bats' is repeated as the takeaway.

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A host says bats have a long speculated history of spreading disease this way and have been connected to coronavirus in some of the science, while they also exterminate pests; the hosts joke they are just a couple of zoologists.

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The ending - sick pigs, the chef carving one, wiping his hands and greeting Paltrow - is called chilling and really well done.

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The doctor telling Damon that Paltrow died is called the strangest scene; others say it was intentionally awkward and realistic because the filmmakers consulted an ER doctor on delivering news, and Damon's character does not process it.

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The ER doctor guessing meningitis shows even doctors have no idea what happened.

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The autopsy scalp-peel shot of Paltrow is called disturbing and would rank in a hypothetical least rewatchable scene (Craig is said to have had issues with it); the medical examiner's 'call everyone' line is more disturbing.

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Posed as a question: is it a virus movie or a don't-commit-adultery movie? The film carries moral judgment, the John Neal voice on the phone to Paltrow is said to be Soderbergh, and the company's role in destroying the planet makes it an environmental story, with cheating a device to move the virus between cities.

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Asked whether to do any categories, the answer is that they can't do categories; hypotheticals are mentioned but not pursued.

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Fishburne's call telling Sanaa Lathan to drive to Atlanta is discussed: interviewees say they would do the same, his arc ends with Cranston saying there will be a hearing, and a friend with a child immediately calls her, showing the stakes.

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A Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Alanis Morissette - a terrorist-attack tip Larry told one person - is recalled; 'Larry David invented Contagion'.

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Jennifer Ehle's Dr. Hextall is called the hero; the story is that she was cut from Michael Clayton but seen in a version of it and cast; her run (The King's Speech, The Ides of March, The Adjustment Bureau, Zero Dark Thirty) then went sideways (RoboCop, The Forger, Fifty Shades of Grey, A Gifted Man, Low Winter Sun), compared to Carla Gugino.

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A host recalls Chris having Carla Gugino on a podcast and walking past Bill's office without introducing her; a host promises to bring Jennifer Ehle by, and the apology is not accepted.

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Contagion is called the first movie that redefined the Rewatchables, since people are literally rewatching it because of something in the world; a host's wife had thought about it but did not want to put herself through it.

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A host cannot think of another movie reinvented by later events; All the President's Men and The Social Network had topical angles but were loved films, while Contagion was not on the long list and was pushed forward by current events.

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Sign-off: a regular Rewatchables next week, stay safe; the hosts recommend it, note it is not on a streaming service but on Cinemax on demand or for rent on Amazon.

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