'Fatal Contact' ''Bird Flu in America, should be quarantined

[Guest guest]

Most blatant piece of propaganda of this century; if you rely on ABC for

your NEWS, GOD have mercy on you; Sell your ABC stock.

Even the paid expert " consultants " on the show have labelled it B.S.

Geese and swans are painted as more dangerous than depleted uranium,

scarier than ..

Typical " scenes " include child wearing mask behind chain link fence,

heroine removing patient from respirator 'cause others with better

chance of survival need equipment, and bulldozers handling bodies of

deceased. " Corpse management will be critical factor " ---Bodies piling up

so quickly it takes dump trucks to haul them away. Barbed wire to keep

whole neighborhoods quarantined.

Pls remember that Tamiflu (anise seed base) has virtually no benefit

except to war criminal's pocketbooks.

NOW, I'm getting scared; but not of the BIRD FLU.

From our group, " PLEASE..don't blindly line up because inoculation is

" mandatory " and you are threatened with quarantine. Instead, relax, wash

your hands, have some red wine and dark chocolate, be happy and take

lots of " C " ...and

THINK...WHY?....UncBob

Click to join Avian2005 Avian2005/

Beware the needle, Mudville, Rose

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Fatal Contact' should be quarantined

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/05\

/09/fatal_contact_should_be_quarantined & e=14905 & sa=X & oi=news & ct=result & c\

d=2

By Gilbert, Globe Staff | May 9, 2006

I could start this review by toying ruthlessly with the title of ABC's

new TV movie, ''Fatal Contact. " Any time a word like ''fatal " appears in

the name of a big old stinker, it demands to be redeployed by the

critic. As in: ''Contact " is fatal. Or, more concisely, ''Fatal " is.

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But ''Fatal Contact, " which arrives with the thrilling subtitle ''Bird

Flu in America, " doesn't deserve to be used for fun. Folks, this is an

excruciatingly dull movie, and having a good time writing about it could

mislead. This piece of weakly constructed sensationalism, which

premieres tonight at 8 on Channel 5, is so unscary it almost serves as a

kind of promo for the poultry industry. If the avian flu is going to be

this unbelievable and jerky, I choose chicken.

The idea of the ''Fatal Contact " script, seemingly written during

morning recess by Ron McGee of ''Atomic Twister " un-fame, is that the

human spread of the flu, known as H5N1, would be bad. Really bad.

Really, really bad. So bad that ''bad " doesn't even begin to explain

just how bad it will be. And that's the only idea here. An American

businessman in Hong Kong returns home to Virginia, coughs, and voila!

The streets are mad with looting citizens, body bags are being dumped

into pits, neighborhoods are quarantined, and helpless old ladies are

starving to death.

And the phones are ringing. ''Fatal Contact " is one of those TV products

that resorts to having phones ring in the background to keep us alert.

As the epidemic gets worse, and as the movie gets worse, the ringing

gets more insistent.

The filmmakers, including director Pearce, are clearly hoping to

scare up easy Nielsen ratings for ABC during May sweeps. Even though the

whole world is coughing to death in ''Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in

America, " the subtitle tries to give a particular sense of urgency to

American viewers. Also meant to stir Americans: a slight of the French,

who are withholding a vaccine from the United States just because, well,

they're French. Of course, they're probably giving it all to the Iraqis.

Not coughing in ''Fatal Contact " is y from ''Nip/Tuck, "

who plays Dr. Iris Varnack, a brilliant epidemic expert. Varnack is one

of the few authorities handling the crisis, flying all over tarnation

and advising important men that the flu will ''rip apart the fabric of

society. " Alas, poor is miscast. Her strength as an actress

is worry, and yet here she is meant to be thick-skinned and immune to

hysteria. She puts on her best ''coolly diagnostic " hat, adopting the

restrained affect of Dr. Melfi in ''The Sopranos, " but the hat is

woefully ill-fitting. Cohen is also on the flu-fighting team as a

governor who's callous until a personal loss awakens his conscience.

''Fatal Contact " tries to blend emotion into its disaster scenario by

showing the tragedy and heroism of a few characters. But I use the word

characters loosely. The ordinary people in this movie make you wonder if

the avian flu is going to turn us into pod-people before it kills us.

a Machado, so vivid on ''Six Feet Under, " is wasted as a New York

City nurse. Ann Cusack is the personality-free widow of the dead

businessman. You won't care about them. Maybe that's why the movie

doesn't have a proper conclusion so much as it just stops. Apparently

even the filmmakers didn't care by the end.

Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@...

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

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See also MIKE DUFFY'S TV TODAY: ABC's 'Fatal Contact' serves up a bucket

of hysterical fluff " But the only things dying in this hysteria-addled

TV movie are the brain cells of those who watch it. "

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060509/ENT03/605090307\

/1038/ENT

AND ABC..ABC.com - Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America Fatal Contact:

Bird Flu in America follows an outbreak of an Avian Flu from its origins

in a Hong Kong market through its mutation into a virus ...

abc.go.com/movies/birdflu.html - 28k - May 7, 2006