The only thing anyone's talking about

I was considering writing a post today about Claire Foy, about how we finished watching her final season of The Crown this week and then the next night I watched her in a very different role in The Girl in the Spider's Web. I may still write that post.

But until I've written this post, the post I'm currently writing, there's no point to go back to engaging anything quite so frivolous.

Coronavirus is the only thing on anyone's mind, everywhere around the world, so I've got to talk about it here, whether the connections to the movies are anything more than flimsy or not.

We're a bit behind here in Australia, which is a good thing in this case -- not that many cases yet (though more announced by the day) and public gatherings larger than 500 people not yet banned (that won't happen until Monday). Because the ban doesn't take effect until Monday, I am apparently going to my New Order concert tonight, which will be weird.

But we're all about to go into lockdown here too. My work has been trying to prepare us to work from home for a couple weeks now. The fact that it hasn't totally worked is not a sign of our ineptitude, don't worry. It's a combination of the massive demand (I work in IT) and the fact that we've got to get this softphone technology working on our laptops, and for some reason, it isn't.

Of course the movies that this feels similar to are many, but I've chosen probably the lamest and most obvious as my art for this post. "Most obvious" for obvious reasons; "lamest" only as a synonym for "most obvious," as I remember being quite shaken by Outbreak when I saw it.

I do sort of look forward to any period of home confinement, as long as it doesn't last too long. We're reasonably well stocked up on food (and toilet paper, thanks to our monthly subscription service to environmentally friendly TP that comes in large boxes in the mail), and it's heaven for a movie guy to be forced to stay home with his Netflix. Plus, as they say here in Australia, "change is as good as a holiday." It'll be different, I'll give it that.

Of course, the sooner it's over, the better, as the movie landscape is already being thrown into disarray this year (the latest Fast & Furious movie being the latest casualty I've noticed), and my precious baseball has just been thrown into an indefinite status.

Plus, you know, the health of all the senior citizens I know, which include my parents and my parent-in-laws.

Then there's the ongoing wonder if I myself have coronavirus. My wife assures me that there's no reasonable way I would have been exposed, nor am I showing the most alarming and telltale symptoms (sore throat and fever). Though I have had 1-2 of the other symptoms for close to two weeks now, which is at least annoying, because it's put me into a constant debate with myself about what my responsibilities are regarding getting tested. For a person with neurotic tendencies, that can be a kind of death spiral.

And on that subject of my possible exposure ... there's actually a path to it, and I can relate it to movies.

In googling new COVID-19 cases reported in Victoria, I came across a story about the people who had been diagnosed. It didn't name their names, but it did chart their movements since they had returned to the country (as all but one of them had recently returned from international travel). This section was quite interesting, as it talked about the actual cafes and supermarkets they visited, and approximately what time they visited. And in one case, one of the guys (I don't actually know if it's a guy or a woman) had gone to see a movie at Cinema Nova last Thursday night. (A movie called The Amber Light, the article even says -- though that must have been a special event screening as that movie is not currently playing at Nova.)

Nova is, of course, the cinema where I see approximately half of the new movies I see in the theater, including most indie releases that don't make it to the more mainstream cinemas. I wasn't there last Thursday night, but I was there this past Tuesday to see Downhill.

I'm not such an idiot that I think some coronavirus molecules were living on a movie theater seat for five days waiting to pounce on me. But it does create the greatest "close to home" threat related to the virus that I personally have experienced, if only symbolically.

So I'm wishing my best to Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, vaguely feeling excited about upcoming movie marathons on Netflix, and more than anything, hoping that a virus with a 3% mortality rate does not mean that 3% of the people I know will die from it.

Stay safe out there everyone.