Edward Snowden

There’s no doubting for a moment of Oliver Stone’s ‘Snowden’ that the filmmaker is a staunch fan of the whistleblower. A love letter fueled by a rah-rah liberal patriotism for the former CIA and NSA contractor’s achievements, Stone’s solemn biopic isn’t necessarily a film about Edward Snowden, but for Edward Snowden.

There’s no better way to turn any family get-together into a screaming match than to bring up Edward Snowden, the CIA whistleblower who revealed the extent of NSA surveillance on American citizens and became an international fugitive. You know, one man’s patriot is another man’s traitor and so on and so forth. Well, director Oliver Stone is looking to ruin a whole bunch of Christmas dinners this year with Snowden, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the most polarizing figure in modern American history. Consider the release of two images of Gordon-Levitt as Snowden your cue to start prepping for your next family argument.

Just hours after Citizenfour, the documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, took home the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary, Deadline published a report that another big name talent has joined the fictional version of Snowden’s story, which is currently shooting in Munich under the direction of Oliver Stone...

So, what’s next for Timothy Olyphant now that Justified is coming to an end? The actor appears to be making the leap back to the big screen, and is currently being eyed for a role in Oliver Stone’s untitled Edward Snowden film. Snowden is the subject of Laura Poitras’ acclaimed documentary Citizenfour, which is the frontrunner to take home the Best Documentary Feature Oscar at this Sunday’s Academy Awards. But Poitras’ documentary doesn’t appear to be the last we’ll hear on the subject.

At times, while watching Laura Poitras’ ‘Citizenfour’ (which premiered Friday night at the New York Film Festival) it feels like fiction. It feels like an almost lazy spy movie that uses clichéd tropes to present a world in which everyone and everything is being watched. But, this isn’t fiction. This is the story of Edward Snowden and it is terrifying in its paranoia.