The First Movie About This Pandemic Looks Real Bad
It was only a matter of time before someone made a movie about the coronavirus, but it turns out one dude managed to throw one together even faster than a slapdash Clint Eastwood production. There's already a trailer for Corona, an independent Canadian project about the current pandemic. Produced in Vancouver before the city declared a state of emergency, Corona is an "ultralow budget" thriller filmed in just one take. It takes place entirely in a cramped elevator, kind of like that movie Devil -- but with COVID instead of, you know, Satan.
So could a movie created in about the same amount of time Jared Leto spends on meditation retreats actually be good? There are reasons to be skeptical. For one thing, the trailer's title looks like it's using the default font setting on iMovie, which doesn't exactly scream cinematic excellence.
The story is seemingly more about bigotry than the actual virus, with people in a trapped elevator freaking out over a Chinese-Canadian's coughing fit. We learn that one character is racist, not through dialogue or behavior, but because he has a giant swastika tattooed on his goddamn head like a bigot Santa Claus.
Also a pregnant woman goes into labor because, presumably because well, has a cinematic elevator ever malfunctioned without a super-pregnant woman being inside?
Who knows, maybe it will actually be great, and not just a painfully amateur production that's only garnered media coverage from outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian purely because of its timely subject matter. On the other hand, maybe we'd be better off simply pasting clips of Trump's rambling press conferences into Contagion and calling that the first Coronavirus movie.
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Top Image: GrandMuse Pictures LTD
