Snowden

If you’ve a lot of time off over the holidays, that can be a blessing and a curse. You finally have the chance to catch up on some movies! But what the heck do you watch? That’s where our new series, On Demand With ScreenCrush, comes in. Every two weeks, ScreenCrush Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer joins you to recommend three handpicked new titles you can watch at home right now from Movies on Demand. These are big new releases you won’t find streaming on Netflix, and the choices run the gamut from indie favorites, to major blockbusters, to insightful documentaries, and everything in between — all available with your remote.

Despite new challengers of all genres, budgets and backgrounds, Sully remained number one at the box office this week, fending off the likes of Blair Witch, Bridget Jones’s Baby, and Snowden. In a month not traditionally known for producing many financial juggernauts, Clint Eastwood’s drama has emerged as something of a surprise smash, surpassing most expectations and showing no signs of slowing down quite yet.

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.

If you live in Washington, D.C., how often do you walk by the White House? It seems like an odd place to go. In the new clip from Snowden, for example, we see the two main characters on an early date as they stroll past a protest outside the White House gates. Wouldn’t this be an unnecessarily crowded and uncomfortable path to walk? I have to figure that this is the D.C. equivalent of taking your date on a walk through Times Square, something you should never, ever want to do.

With a summer movie season as bad as this one, the closer we get to fall festivals, the better. In a little over a month we’ll get our first look at the the fall movie season when the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival kicks off on September 8. TIFF is the major fall festival, following Venice and Telluride, that gives us our first glimpse at major awards season players.

In some ways, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a higher-end version of James Franco but occasionally you have to wonder if we’ve allowed him to take himself a little too seriously. Take the latest trailer for Oliver Stone’s Snowden, for instance, which A.) Reminds you that this is a movie that is still coming out soon, and B.) Features one of the most baffling prestige-acting accents in recent memory.

Edward Snowden’s story was one that was itching to be told in a glossy Hollywood thriller and director Oliver Stone, with his innate sense of paranoia, seemed like the perfect person for the job. Equally as enticing was star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Frenchy accent in The Walk notwithstanding, is one of his generation’s best actors...

Last year Open Road films pushed the release date of Oliver Stone’s Snowden back from Christmas, where it would have had to compete with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and a handful of Oscar contenders, to May 2016. That wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence for the film based on the life of famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and it would have forced Stone’s latest to contend with Captain America: Civil War. Snowden will no longer have to worry about Marvel, as the film has once again been pushed back, this time to early fall.

Snowden was originally given a winter release date, putting it right in the middle of awards season, but Open Road recently removed Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden film from the release schedule, pushing it back to sometime in 2016. It was a move that confused some and seemed like a bad omen to others, but now we know exactly when to expect Stone’s latest — and you’ll have to wait a bit longer than you’d probably like.

There are a few things the Academy loves: biopics, movies about the film industry, period dramas, films inspired by harrowing true events, Meryl Streep in all of the above, etc. Oliver Stone’s Snowden ticks off a couple of those boxes with a biopic about famous NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, himself the subject of last year’s incredible documentary Citizenfour. Originally slated to hit theaters this winter, Stone’s film has now been pushed back to 2016, ensuring its absence from next year’s Oscar ballots.