Today's Entertainment

Auto RAcing MONDAY 6:00 p.m. NBCSN NA- SCAR Racing Whelen Series: South Boston Speedway. THURSDAY 11:55 p.m. ESPN2 Formula 1 Racing Vietnamese Grand Prix, Practice 1. (N) SUNDAY 4:00 p.m. NBCSN IndyCar Racing Grand Prix of Ala- bama. From Barber Motor- sports Park. (N) outdooRs SUNDAY 10:00 a.m. ESPN2 Fishing Bassmaster Classic, Day 1. Rodeo SUNDAY 1:30 p.m. WSBT 6 PBR Bull Riding From Sioux Falls, S.D. WinteR spoRts MONDAY 2:00 p.m. NBCSN 2020 World Men's Curling Championship From Glasgow, Scotland. (N Same-day Tape) Page 2 March 30 - April 5, 2020 crossword solution sudoku solution It turns out 'Contagion' was a blueprint for the future S cott Z. Burns is a genius. It's OK if you don't know who Mr. Burns is. He's the screenwriter who wrote "Contagion," the world's most discussed movie right now. Throughout 2009 and 2010, Burns talked to medical professions of every stripe: doctors, nurs- es, epidemiologists, biolo- gists, etc. as he researched what would happen if a virus that sprouted from animals in a wet market in China swept around the world causing not only a viral pandemic, but also a global shut- down, and, ultimately, complete chaos. The movie made from Burns's script is "Conta- gion." It's directed by Ste- ven Soderbergh and stars Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fish- burne, Elliot Gould, Marion Cotillard, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Released in 2011, "Con- tagion" is one of the most prescient films I've seen. Moment after moment cor- responds to what is hap- pening in our lives right now in such jaw-dropping fashion that you almost can't believe what you're watching, until, that is, you visited your local grocery store. Or wanted to go to a movie theater. Or hoped to knock back a good stiff drink in a bar. Speaking of the present, we know nurses are hero- ic, but who would have ever guessed that super- market employees would be heroes, too? The film, a multi-layered medical thriller like no oth- er, begins on Day 2 of the start of the health emer- gency that will lead to a deadly pandemic. I reviewed "Contagion" on Sept. 12, 2011, in a publi- cation I was writing for at the time. Here's a little bit of my rave review: "Although "Contagion" is about a serious subject, it enter- tains in the way all good dramas do. It's about con- flict, from which gripping drama arises. There is also a keen-eyed and keen- eared glimpse of how peo- ple talk and of how people would react. There are fas- cinating insights into how governments would martial their forces and of how society would work togeth- er or fall apart. There are myriad eye-opening statis- tics and a lot of very clever lines of dialogue. "As the movie progress- es, heroes take their chances and the more sto- ic citizens face their demise with grace under pressure. We eventually find ourselves at Day 1. Soderbergh has taken us full circle. Day 1 manages to be even more terrifying and more of a possibility than we might have imag- ined. Day 1 could really happen." Not having seen it in a while, I watched "Conta- gion" via my DVD copy the other day. I was mesmer- ized by the comparisons to what's occurring now in scene after scene. Its story is fascinating and very well executed – the new gold standard. Governments seem to using it as a play- book. Unfortunately, as you might expect, physical cop- ies of "Contagion" are diffi- cult to come by. If you can find one, expect to pay a steep price for it. In December, in the Warner Brothers back catalog, the film ranked number 270. It is now No. 2. What's No. 1? The "Harry Potter" titles configured as a single entry. The good news is that "Contagion" is back on iTunes. Additionally, some On Demand services may have it, and they may also have one or more of the films noted below. Four other contagion movies I recommend are "Outbreak," "28 Days Lat- er," "The Andromeda Strain," and "The Cassan- dra Crossing." DVDs and Blu-rays may still be in the marketplace, and all are available to stream. Although I find Dustin Hoffman's performance a bit hammy, the frantic pace of "Outbreak," in which a virus escapes the jungle, lends itself well to its deliv- ery of an over-the-top tale about a California town gripped by a virus. Avail- able on Netflix. Director Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" is a stun- ning zombie thriller written by Alex Garland and star- ring Cillian Murphy. A virus overwhelms Great Britain. I consider this one of the greatest horror movies I've seen. Available on Hulu. "The Andromeda Strain," from the mega-bestselling novel by Michael Crichton, is about a specially select- ed group of research sci- entists compelled to go to New Mexico to investigate mysterious deaths after a satellite crashes and releases a biological ele- ment. It's intelligent and tense. Available on iTunes and Prime. "The Cassandra Cross- ing" is a lot of fun. It's one of those classic 1970s disaster movies. Call it plague on a train. A virus gets loose from a laborato- ry. As expected, it has an all-star cast, including O.J. Simpson as a priest (yep), Burt Lancaster, Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner, and Richard Harris. Available on Tubi, Google Play, and YouTube. Completely free is the website Tubi, which could be your entertainment sal- vation. More than 12,000 movies and other media By MICHAEL CALLERI CNHI NEWS SERVICE CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 Nobody Knows our Hometown Better!

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