The Internet’s buzzing with talk about Contagion, Steven Soderburgh’s new thriller “about a deadly pandemic” to quote a number of marketing and news sources, is expected to top The Help at the box office this weekend.
While that’s not necessarily wishful thinking from those observers who wrote such views, I’ve seen The Help, and just the fact the movie was mentioned in the conversation about Contagion means it’s something special.
Here’s why I’m willing to bet Contagion may not beat The Help at the box office this weekend.
First, The Help is an uplifting, thought-provoking, and unintentionally edgy, but nice ride of a film. It’s about time someone in Hollywood crafted a movie that, even though fictional, does give a different perspective on black-white relationships during the civil rights era.
Also, The Help has one scene that will go down as one of the greatest in movie history. If you’ve not seen it, let’s just say it will make you look at chocolate pie in an entirely different way. That one scene makes The Help to “chic flick” movies, what another “pie” scene in American Pie is to high-school “coming of age” movies.
Does Contagion have anything to top that? Haven’t heard anyone say so, yet.
Also, Contagion just doesn’t read like a great date movie to me; I though The Help was much better. But Amy Kaufman in the LA Times writes that “The film is generating interest among both males and females and a wide range of ages,” so let’s see how it does.
See ya Monday!
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