Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anyone.

Brandon describes Steven Soderbergh as both essential and uneven, a characterization that I'd like to echo (I'm reading his usage of "uneven" as something not entirely pejorative). Just look at 2009, the year he released The Informant! and The Girlfriend Experience. These are two solid films, beginning to end. Neither one is excellent but they are both firmly in the "good" category - yet they could not be more different. One is a big budget film starring Matt Damon and the other is a small, minimalist film in which Soderbergh cast ex-porn star Sasha Grey as the lead. Soderbergh's career, launched on the back of Sex, Lies and Videotape, has a similar arc to it as 2009 did. He strikes me as the type of director who always makes the film that he wants and has found a way to do that while remaining both "Hollywood" and "indie." 

Contagion is probably my favorite film of his yet. Like Brandon said, it focuses on the human story and does not use the scare tactics, paranoia or post-apocalyptic nonsense that would be so easy to rely upon. Of course, there is plenty of that stuff there, but it's not driving the film the way the characters are. This makes the film much more appreciable and, I find, actually adds to the intensity. 

Contagion could easily have come off as a bad TV movie in the hands of a less skilled director or storyteller. Instead, a smart script and attention to detail made it much better than I expected. But, then again, that's what I always seem to say after a Soderbergh film.

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Yeah, Jason, it sucks when the discussion for a film ends before you get a chance to see it and participate. That happened to me with Tree of Life and, to an extent, Meek's Cutoff. I also don't get to see many films in the theater. In fact, this year I've seen two (Meek's Cutoff and Midnight in Paris). 

I don't think we really discussed Black Swan too much here. If I remember correctly, Brandon and I both saw it last December when it first came out and were pretty much in agreement on how and why we liked it (though it made my Top Ten list and not his). By the time John got around to hating it we had already moved on. 

Sorry I'm not going to offer any commentary on Black Swan. I mostly agree with what you wrote anyway. As consolation, I'll leave you with this short essay on the film: Black Swan and Bathrooms.