Kathryn Bigelow's angular thriller Zero Dark Thirty begins and ends with events that have been seared into public memory — the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, two incidents that bookended a decade in which America's sense of security and place in the world were radically shaken. more »
Kathryn Bigelow’s ambitious Oscar contender Zero Dark Thirty started out as a film about the 2001 siege of Tora Bora hunting down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but as the Academy Award-winner told a rapt audience at the picture's buzz-building debut in Beverly Hills on Sunday, it changed direction in one quick, fateful instant.
“At about 10 o’clock at night on May 1, 2011 we realized we no longer had a project about the hunt for Osama bin Laden,” Bigelow said at a packed post-screening Q&A at the Pacific Design Center, “because he was no longer living.”
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Running a dense two hours thirty, before credits, Zero Dark Thirty reunites director Kathryn Bigelow with reporter-turned-scenarist Mark Boal in re-creating the hunt for Osama bin Laden, rejecting nearly every cliche one might expect from a Hollywood treatment of the subject. Far more ambitious than The Hurt Locker, yet nowhere near so tripwire-tense, this procedure-driven, decade-spanning docudrama nevertheless rivets for most of its running time by focusing on how one female CIA agent with a far-out hunch was instrumental in bringing down America's most wanted fugitive. Spinning the pic as a thriller, Sony could beat the 9/11-movie curse when the Dec. 19 limited release goes wide in January. more »
While there's no shortage of burly action hero types in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, it's Jessica Chastain who's front and center hunting down Osama bin Laden in the first trailer — and that in itself is worth noting as you mark your calendars for the December Oscar contender.
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It was only a matter of time, really; we've got FDR fighting werewolves and Abe Lincoln staking vampires, why not resurrect Osama bin Laden from the dead so Western heroes can kill him off again? This time around it's a bunch of soldiers -- excuse me, hunky, apparently manscaped soldiers -- hunting the zombified bin Laden as he leads an army of flesh-eating terrorists towards a zombie apocalypse in Osombie. Yep, someone went there. Too soon?
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The conservative "watchdog" group Judicial Watch has sued the CIA and the Defense Department, alleging a failure to comply with requests to know what was discussed in consultations with Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal about the Hurt Locker duo's follow-up charting the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Great.
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Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming movie about the team of Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden was originally set to debut right before election day 2012, prompting U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to call for an investigation of the extent of the Obama administration's assistance to the project. Now, that point seems moot; Sony has rejiggered its release schedule so that the Mark Boal-penned picture will debut after the Presidential election, and possibly not until 2013. Then again, with today's news of Muammar Gaddafi's death, Obama might not need as much help raising the victory flag, pre-election. [NYT]
Sunday's news from President Barack Obama that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan brought closure to a nation still grieving the tragedy of 9/11. Deadline reports that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow has been prepping her follow-up to the Iraq-set The Hurt Locker, entitled Kill Bin Laden, which could become the first feature film to depict the historical events of May 1, 2011.
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