In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, governments all over the world – including the UK – have urged those who can to stay at home. This newfound plethora of time may feel stressful and strange, or perhaps mind-numbingly boring. What better way to alleviate lockdown blues than by watching a great film, or finally tackling the tv show you’ve had on your watchlist for ages? Below, a handful of our writers share what films and television shows they’ve been watching to pass the time.

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Sex and the City

Tomi Haffety

The perfect binge, watch-whilst-you’re-eating, feel-good series, Sex and the City is a noughties classic. Spanning ninety-four episodes over six years, the witty and glamourous series follows the lives of four women as they navigate style, sex and, quite obviously, the city. Carrie Bradshaw’s namesake column in a small New York newspaper is the backbone to the show as she narrates her and her best friends’ lives, inventing a wealth of creative euphemisms as the group’s relationships go out of fashion quicker than nineties sequins. Winning seven Emmy Awards out of a substantial fifty nominations, Sex and the City was an unprecedented hit when it first aired and is still just as relatable and entertaining. Although the crucial theme of spending absurd amounts of money on shoes and labels feels somewhat outdated – a detail toned down in the subsequent films – the show pioneered the normalcy of casual dating and cherished female friendships. As with many series from the same era, the show’s punchlines occasionally drew on casual racism and sexism, revealing the lengths the show still had to go. Nonetheless, it is a sitcom best watched when you want to fantasize about living in a big city, laugh at Samantha Jones’ consistent sexual humour, and realise, as popularly regarded, that Carrie Bradshaw is possibly the worst friend to grace television. More than this, the show’s unashamed approach to important issues regarding female sexuality and debates surrounding feminism continues to be relevant. Sex and the City remains a turning point in representing the modern woman, and its lasting legacy has filtered through generations; take, for example, the Instagram page ‘@everyoutfitonsatc,’ which has reached 670k people twenty years after the show aired. Watching Sex and the City will make you laugh, equip you with fashion tips, and – most importantly – help you pass the endless hours of quarantine.

Before Sunset

Sang Park

Whenever the going gets tough, at least one person will tell you to just focus on the positives, look forward, and crack on until things work out. However, it would be criminal for any of us to claim that the question of “what if?” has never crossed our mind. In Before Sunset, set nine years after Jesse and Céline’s first encounter in Vienna, we are re-introduced to the pair, who have both been pondering that very same question since the last time they saw one another. Once the two reunite, this time in Paris, what ensues is a stroll through la ville de l’Amour accompanied by a conversation that bounces around from topic to topic like a pinball. While their ramblings and chitchats show us the beauty of people’s ability to reconnect in an instant, no amount of coffee at a chic Parisian cafe or a sarcastic back and forth about American optimism and French sullenness is able to prevent Jesse and Céline from asking the inevitable question: ‘Where would we be now if we had met again after our night?’ As the two grapple with this hypothetical, the facade that they have both put up fades away and ultimately unsheathes the caged hopeless romantics living inside them. 

Amidst this pandemic, most of us, like Jesse and Celine, are forced to make peace with the fact that our relationships with our loved ones and our community have come to an abrupt halt, and that they may be lost forever. Maybe like Jesse, you wish you could just call that girl, who took up all the nooks and crannies in your brain or maybe, you just miss grabbing a cold pint with your mates. Whatever the case may be, Before Sunset has something for everyone wrapped up in the pain of solitude. Jesse and Celine’s encounters remind us that there is a future, where we can love and treasure one another unconditionally; their enduring love reminds us of the joy in the unknown ahead of us, no matter our past and present.  

Climax

Sofía Kourous Vázquez

There are a lot of parallels between quarantine life and Gaspar Noé’s Climax. Much like the film’s protagonists, who find themselves stuck in their dance school during a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, we are all trapped indoors in what is also somewhat of a nightmare. Quarantine brings out the worst in everyone: you’ve got your sad babies who would rather curl up in a ball until it all blows over; your angry types who are just looking for someone to blame; and your run-of-the-mill thirsty hoes keeping their eyes on the prize through the chaos. If you need a reason to reminisce over your long-lost days of (possibly) substance-induced clubbing and then take it all back as Noé’s neon dance fantasy degenerates into depravity and horrific mayhem, Climax is your ticket. A global pandemic is a total bummer but hey, at least you’re not stuck unknowingly drinking large doses of LSD-spiked sangria with a bunch of fucked up French people! Explosive and immersive. Many trigger warnings apply.

My So-Called Life

Fatima Jafar

I watched all nineteen episodes of My So-Called Life in rapid succession one summer a few years ago, when there was a lot of time to do nothing. Something about the story of Angela Chase, a fifteen-year-old living in a quiet suburb of Pittsburgh, rang true for me then, and has stayed close to me all this time. Now, in these weeks of quarantine and isolation, when cities have slowed down and the roads seem quieter than ever before, I find myself turning to these episodes for some kind of solace. My So-Called Life expertly charts the lives of a few adolescents and their families in the fictional neighbourhood of Three Rivers. Each episode navigates the fabric of each character’s experiences with a tenderness that I have seldom seen in American coming-of-age television shows. The uncomfortable intricacies of growing up are delved into, and families, relationships, and health are picked apart and tackled with an unflinching eye. I think the reason that my mind goes back to this television show during the pandemic is because of its own willingness to sit in its slowness. The plotlines unfold with both the hesitancy and intensity that accompanies every confused teenager— the fleeting, intense crushes, the hot bursts of anger, the frequent tears. Because the heart of the show is the emotional drama between various characters, the story simmers within its own anxiety, and at times, it’s own yearning. This suburban pull – the desire to feel and experience something more than boring high-school life in a small neighbourhood – evokes a tension not far from the isolation we are experiencing right now. Watching human lives slowly playing out on screen and immersing myself in the tender fragility of passing time has helped me reframe this period of isolation for myself, teaching me how to pause and be on my own for a while. 

Rocknrolla

Maria Düster

This film, I’ll admit, is a wildcard. I think about Guy Ritchie a lot – not because I admire him in any way, but because his films occupy such a niche place in the film industry that none of us knows exactly what to do with. While some may simply call them “British gangster films,” I prefer “pathological commitment to imbuing every single storyline on earth – from Sherlock Holmes to King Arthur to whatever the hell The Gentlemen was – with a mildly revolting form of British maleness that roots itself in Cockney accents, martial arts, and a simultaneous hatred towards and fetish for the class system.” All of his films – save for Aladdin, thank God – appear to be colour-graded with the hard salt spray of an ugly British beach somewhere. Yet, I still find myself drawn to his films, unable to look away (except for the half of them I have never seen). Rocknrolla follows a trio of crooks called “The Wild Bunch,” comprised of “One-Two” (Gerard Butler), his partner “Mumbles” (Idris Elba), and driver “Handsome Bob” (Tom Hardy). When a (you guessed it) Russian mob boss concocts a massive real estate scam, The Wild Bunch – along with a crime boss (Tom Wilkinson), an evil accountant (Thandie Newton), and a punk rocker named Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell) – all duel it out for a big wad of cash. Mark Strong’s alluring narration, combined with a convoluted and unrealistic plot, provide the perfect escapism for surviving a raging pandemic. Also, unless I imagined it in a fever dream, Tom Hardy hooks up with Gerard Butler in one scene. Or maybe it was Idris Elba? Either way, happy watching!

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Niloufar Javadi

I grew up consuming an unhealthy amount of American media. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was one of those films that I had heard about countless times, but never actively sought out. So when my American flatmate suggested watching it, I tentatively agreed. I was pleasantly surprised. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off follows wisecracking high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), who is determined to enjoy a day off school sightseeing in Downtown Chicago with his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and his best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck). Equipped with a charming protagonist, fast-paced plot, and surprisingly deep and tender moments, the film offers a welcome distraction from the sporadic episodes of uncertainty and confusion that seem inseparable from our new reality.  Like most people I know, I have become increasingly introspective during the lockdown (I like to think I have good reason to). Like Ferris, I am about to graduate and be hurled into the “real world,” where I will need to survive without an academic structure for the first time since I was four years old. The past month has forced me to put my life on hold, to think about the direction I am taking the rest of my adult life and why. Ferris Bueller offers a reassuring squeeze of the hand, reminding me that there is no harm (well, perhaps not too much)  in taking a day off of normal life to think, indulge and live more deliberately.

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COVID-19 is a global health emergency. UCL Film and Television Society urges all readers to consult their local government’s advice. For UK-specific advice, visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

Dan Jacobson demystifies epidemiological models through Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead.

It was only a matter of time before the outbreak of COVID-19 caused a worldwide shift towards armchair epidemiology. Whilst this outbreak has triggered an incredible global, collaborative, scientific response with regards to everything from vaccine development to nation-wide tracking (with significant contribution from UCL itself), we have also seen every type of pandemic misinformation come to fruition in the scariest of ways: from conspiracy theories about 5G networks to Didier Raoult’s highly criticised chloroquine study influencing US policymaking to the archetypal Silicon Valley trope “I’m not an epidemiologist, but…” offering the fake illusion of integrity and expertise when none exists.

Incidentally, you probably wouldn’t think that the best preparation for a pandemic would be a hypothetical zombie apocalypse; yet, many of the techniques and strategies which would be applied in this scenario are surprisingly similar. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta – probably the world leader in disease research and response – has been known to release “zombie warnings” as disease-preparedness stunts. The topic has even been debated in the Canadian Parliament.

The first-ever epidemiological model of zombie infection, known as the ‘Munz model’, was created by Philip Munz of Carleton University in 2009, and it’s incredibly simple. Essentially, you separate the population into three groups: susceptible individuals, zombies, and “removed” individuals, and then you use differential equations to model how individuals move between these groups. Susceptible individuals become zombies by being bitten by a zombie, zombies are removed by being killed by susceptible individuals, and removed individuals gradually become zombies again.

Figure 1: The Munz Model

The Munz model is also known as a “compartmental model”, which has been applied to real-life disease outbreaks and epidemics for almost a century. The models are intuitive, incredibly flexible, and can be adapted for any type of infectious disease. And now, they are forming the basis of the models used to predict and react to this year’s COVID-19 outbreak. I’ll come to that in a minute, but for now, let’s focus on zombies.

The Munz model suffers from one huge problem: it uses a terrible definition of a zombie outbreak. Assuming that a real zombie apocalypse would be similar to that which is seen in popular culture, there is not a single case where all removed individuals become zombies. In reality, the model applied will differ depending on which film you choose to watch.

Shaun of the Dead

The epidemiological model behind the zombie outbreak in Shaun of the Dead follows the same basic technique behind these compartmental models. This time, the population is split into four groups: susceptible individuals (S), infected individuals (I), zombies (Z), and “removed” individuals (R), or “dead zombies”. Susceptible individuals become infected by being bitten by a zombie. Infected individuals become zombies at a specified “zombification” rate. Zombies are then removed by being killed by a susceptible individual.

Figure 2: Shaun of the Dead: Model

In terms of population dynamics, this model – though incomplete – is fairly accurate. It is missing the regular population dynamics, such as births, deaths, and emigration, as well as any real intervention measures beyond “removing the head or destroying the brain”. However, as the large majority of Shaun of the Dead takes place over two days, with all “anti-zombie” measures only occurring during the second, these are not concerning. (The only anomaly of this model is Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, who appears as a zombie late in the film, and then as his human self in the final scene some months later. I will be ignoring this). I will also include only London (population in 2004 ~ 7.4 million) in this model. It is unclear how much the zombie outbreak has spread, but Morrissey declares that there is “Panic on the streets of London”, and motorways out of London are said to be blocked. So that’s encouraging.

However, in the case of Shuan of the Dead, the real challenge is not in identifying the dynamics of the outbreak, but rather correctly estimating the parameters of the model. These are the values used to describe the effect which each part of the model has on the population. In order to properly estimate these parameters, what you really need is data. Unfortunately, Shaun of the Dead doesn’t provide this. A previous study which presented a model of Shaun of the Dead used a nifty statistical technique called Markov Chain Monte-Carlo simulations. However, I cannot be bothered to do this, so instead, I will use a combination of common sense and the fact that I have seen this film far too many times.

The parameters of this model are:

1. The transmission rate of a single zombie: this can be roughly translated to mean the average number of susceptible individuals which a zombie will infect per day. I am assuming that this is a standard zombie feature and does not change over the course of the film. I have set this as 5.
2. The zombie-killing rate of a single susceptible individual: this is the average number of zombies which are killed by a single susceptible individual per day. As is suggested in the film, there seems to be a minimal response to the zombies until the second day, so this is initially set to zero. Once the second day begins, this is increased to 5, and later on in the day is increased to 10.
3. The “zombification rate”: this is the average rate with which infected individuals become zombies, which can be estimated as the reciprocal of the time spent infected. I have estimated this as 8 hours, as evidenced by Pete (late on Day 1 to early on Day 2), Philip (early on Day 2 to the middle of Day 2), and Barbara (middle of Day 2 to late on Day 2). Ed received multiple zombie bites, which likely explains why his symptoms escalate far quicker than the others.

Figure 3: Shaun of the Dead: Results

According to my model, the outbreak begins around 5 days after the initial infection. By the time Shaun and Ed begin killing the zombies, the zombie count is around 2.1 million. If we assume that infection is irreversible, the final number of susceptible individuals in London is 1.2 million, which seems accurate. Although, at this stage, “accuracy” is somewhat beside the point.

What does this have to do with the COVID-19 outbreak?

In the initial version of this article, written during the very beginning of the UK lockdown, I created my own model of the COVID-19 outbreak, using the exact same principles detailed above, in order to demonstrate how these models could describe a real-life pandemic. However, I decided to remove it, as to not add to the screaming online void of the feared aforementioned armchair epidemiologists. Fortunately, other far more knowledgeable and experienced researchers have done the work themselves.

In the case of the COVID-19 outbreak, its dynamics are far more difficult to ascertain. The best demonstration I have come across of the usefulness of these compartmental models in describing the COVID-19 outbreak was an interactive model developed by Dr Alison Lynn Hill, a Research Fellow at Harvard University, in which you can alter parameters and analyse for yourself the effects of various intervention measures. Hill makes two interesting alterations to the standard SIR model: the first is a latency period (E), during which the individual is carrying the disease, but is not yet infectious. The second is a separation of infectious individuals into mild, severe, and critical cases. Only mildly infectious individuals can infect others, and only critical cases can result in death. As a disclaimer, Hill clarifies that this simulation is for research and educational purposes, owing to the limitations of the model and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 infection. Another COVID-19 projection tool can be found here.

Another example is probably the most widely-circulated model of the COVID-19 outbreak, fronted by Professor Neil Ferguson as part of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team. Published on March 16th initially as an agent-based model, and then as a compartmental model, the report predicted, assuming zero-intervention measures, over half a million deaths in the UK and complete overwhelming of the NHS, and has been widely credited for triggering the lockdown measures implemented by the UK government beginning on March 23rd. The key underlying message of the report was the analysis of two intervention strategies: mitigation (slowing the epidemic to reduce the strain on the NHS, otherwise known as “flattening the curve) and suppression (reversing epidemic growth through “wide-scale intensive social distancing”).

It is worth clarifying that these epidemiological models are not predictions, but simulations of potential futures with the intent of influencing the choices we make as a society. Indeed Ferguson has since suggested that, given increased NHS ICU capacity and ventilator availability alongside current social distancing measures, the UK death count will likely stay below 20,000. But, as stressed in Zeynep Tufekci’s fantastic article for The Atlantic, “we have one simple, urgent goal: to ignore all the optimistic branches and that thick trunk in the middle representing the most likely outcomes. Instead, we need to focus on the branches representing the worst outcomes, and prune them with all our might.” With the flexibility of these compartmental models, we can ask a plethora of questions: what could happen if we lift the lockdown after three weeks? Six weeks? What if prior infection is not enough for immunity, and individuals become susceptible again? How long does immunity need to last to prevent a second outbreak before a vaccine is developed? Will there even be a second outbreak? 

Additionally, I would like to clarify that my own models could not be classified as predictions either, even if they weren’t describing a fictional zombie apocalypse. I am a first-year PhD student who wanted to learn how to encode differential equations in R because I haven’t left the flat in days. However, I think it is incredibly important that these models are used and discussed. They allow us to think about the effects of our policy decisions and, more importantly, what happens when Londoners do not follow them. The public should know what these “mysterious models” are and how they inform these decisions. So, for now, wash your hands, practice social distancing, and maybe just watch Shaun of the Dead again.

The code which I have used to model the zombie outbreak in Shaun of the Dead can be found on my GitHub.

COVID-19 is a global public health emergency and FilmSoc encourages all readers to follow their government’s advice closely. For UK-specific information, visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

Shaun of the Dead is available to rent and buy online. Watch the trailer below: