The YouTube video du jour features a young woman doing a spot-on impression of Lena Dunham "trying out" for Jessica Chastain's super-serious role as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty. She is Chelsea Davison, and this is where the whole thing came from.
After failing to win all but one* of its Oscar nominations, Zero Dark Thirty's filmmakers got some good news on Monday, when the Senate Intelligence Committee dropped its investigation into the movie.
Oscar buzz, at least for Best Picture, at least for people who really care, comes in ebbs and flows of speculation. Here's a look back at the Hollywood conventional wisdom, from The Master's weird rise to Zero Dark Thirty's torturous fall and Argo's late surge.
What with all of the political drama in this year's Best Picture crop — and Michelle Obama hosting the kid from Beasts of the Southern Wild at the White House — we couldn't help but wonder which films our top politicians would like to see win.
The Oscar-nominated Lincoln screenwriter and legendary playwright isn't too happy with politicians criticizing his film — or Zero Dark Thirty, for that matter — for deviations from reality.
That Argo, an almost universally well-reviewed film, is now an Oscar front-runner isn't exactly a surprise, but its late-season trouncing of another film certainly is. What happened to Zero Dark Thirty?
This should fuel some of the Zero Dark Thirty controversy fire once more: the movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden, which contains a controversial depiction of torture, will screen at the place that became synonymous with torture.
Welcome to the Box Office Report where we're always telling to people to welcome more feral children into their homes.
Dana Milbank on kids being used in the gun debate, Fred Kaplan on Mali, Jonathan Mahler on Lance Armstrong, Slavoj Žižek on European elites, and Ricky Sekhon on playing bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
The Zero Dark Thirty director addresses her film's critics head-on in a new op-ed. But does her self-defense succeed?
Welcome to the Box Office Report where we're talking about curious casting, the Olympics, and movies about aspiring marble champions.
A conservative watchdog group says the U.S. government has provided no reason to block the photos' release. Whether the perceived threat to national security can convince the courts remains to be seen.
After being condemned by the CIA, discounted by the Pentagon and picked apart by every arm chair critic in America, Zero Dark Thirty just premiered in DC, and -- surprise, surprise! -- there were protesters.
Filmmakers Kathyrn Bigelow and Mark Boal have been more candid about defending Zero Dark Thirty. It's just not very clear what their defense is, exactly.
The number of strongly-worded letters inspired by the scenes depicting torture in Zero Dark Thirty grows by the day. Today, a group of Senators directed their ire towards acting-CIA director Michael Morell about comments he made about torture in his own strongly worded letter.
It's been a heck of a ride for Zero Dark Thirty, the torture-laden movie about hunting down bin Laden, and the next stop is extra exciting.
Should you believe the CIA's latest attempt to continue debunking Hollywood? We break down each agency claim with actual details from Zero Dark Thirty and beyond.
It's rare but not uncommon to see movie stars in multiple Oscar-bait movies in the same year. But it's been a good end of 2012 for those guys who you recognize from somewhere but can't always place. Here are your character-actor MVPs.
The Zero Dark Thirty torture debate broke out before you'd even seen it yet, right? Which led us to wonder, as everyone flocks to the theater over the holidays: Do tough conversations help or hurt at the box office? Do they make seeing a movie any more enjoyable? Or, in the case of Django Unchained, is immersion in controversy actually sort of the point?
Acting CIA director Michael Morell is not happy -- not one bit happy -- with how the CIA was ultimately portrayed in Zero Dark Thirty, that new movie getting all the buzz about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
We already knew that Zero Dark Thirty messed up a couple of details about the bin Laden raid, but now, some senators would like the filmmakers to know they're straight up "incorrect."
Time can have its real person of the year, but not-real people can influence us, too, and in 2012, fake characters mattered. From Katniss to Bane and Zero Dark Thirty's Maya, here's our alternative list.
As if Zero Dark Thirty needed more controversy, ABC News is now reporting that Under Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers is under investigation for leaking sensitive information to the filmmakers.
Uh, so, this is weird. According to a new interview with an expert on the CIA's operation to find Bin Laden, the CIA agent that portrayed by the character Maya, a girl, in Zero Dark Thirty is actually a guy.
Harold Meyerson on the downside of right-to-work, Adam Ozimek on the upside of right-to-work, Maureen Dowd on Zero Dark Thirty, Francisco Toro on Venezuela after Chavez, and Soner Cagaptay on Turkey.
If you're not already aware of the bull-headed CIA agent whose persistent pressure to track Al Qaeda couriers helped lead the way to Osama bin Laden's compound, you're about to be.
Kathryn Bigelow's movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden isn't even out yet, and already people are sparring over its depiction of torture. Here's how everyone got so angry so fast, and how to talk about what everyone's talking about.
Three film critics' groups announced their winners Sunday, and while Zero Dark Thirty continued its early award-season run, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association spread the love to The Master and Amour.
It's still early, but things are looking good for Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden flick, which today claimed the National Board of Review awards for best picture, best director, and best actress.
So much of this movie is real, and in new and surprising ways, which makes it newsy and relevant here and now, three weeks before its release. A review of Kathryn Bigelow's thorough and satisfying depiction of the most famous manhunt of our time.
In May, we speculated that staunch Democrat and Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was planning an October Surprise with the release of his special ops thriller SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden, a dramatization of the mission to kill al Qaeda's leader. Turns out, we were one month off: Weinstein is releasing his film two days before the election.
He's only got three days left on the job and New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane is making them count: For the second time in a week, he's dinging the Grey Lady's ethical standards.
For everyone who didn't get special access to information about the Osama bin Laden raid, today was a little bit discouraging as new e-mails revealed CIA officials gushing over Hollywood filmakers at the expense of trained reporters and documentarians.
In an example of the kind of cooperation with sources a New York Times editor encouraged reporters to "push back" against earlier this summer, Times reporter Mark Mazzetti shared a Maureen Dowd column with the CIA to assuage concerns before its publication.
Sorry patriotic moviegoers, you'll have to settle for two well-financed movies about killing Osama bin Laden instead of three.
There are already two movies coming out this fall about the Bin Laden raid, and now apparently there's going to be a third. The New York Post's Page 6 reports the new book from a Navy SEAL Team 6 member is going to be turned into a movie, and Steven Spielberg is in talks to direct.
Columbia Pictures has released the first trailer, really a teaser, for Zero Dark Thirty, a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller about the killing of Osama bin Laden, directed by The Hurt Locker Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow.
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