CITIZENFOUR, the Edward Snowden documentary by Laura Poitras

yeah. ES's arguments of principle with himself about how to handle the media were my favorite part of the movie

loled so hard at snowden discovering the sd card still slotted into greenwald's laptop. "uh, protip?"

(also "hey could you just type in your root password ... okay, uh, it looks like your root password's about four characters.")

the part where the fire alarm keeps going off in the hallway is just great.

Also the teens holding lil snowden masks

the part where the fire alarm keeps going off in the hallway is just great.

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, January 4, 2015 4:38 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah so wonderful
strong this is not a film vibes

yeah, the alarm was...yeah.

the tension in the hong kong hotel scenes was so heavy.

i was like one of two people in the screening i just saw to laugh nervously, otherwise it was dead silent

Poitras on Bill Maher's show tonight (along with Mel Brooks).

ended up seeing this a few times and the last ~20min are kind of rudderless and repetitive but yeah the HK scenes are like nothing else.

gukbe otm upthread about the ominous shots of facilities, tho; at least the last section had plenty of those.

Last Saturday I ennded up watching this in the afternoon, and in the evening saw a small theater's not-so-subtle play about America's complacency w/ rendition/NSA intrusion/etc. - made for a weird paranoid day. The next day I really fell down the youtube hole, watching Snowden 'remote camera' speaker events. I find him likable and sensible and I feel like he's being true to the fact that he doesn't want the individual attention. The doc has its ups and downs (yes, how to end ... how to end indeed), but I think that it's overall great that there is a doc to capture the subject matter.

the obama appearance in this film created waves of cognitive dissonance that were almost palpable

for whom?

Well, for anyone who legitimately care for public life as it is, as opposed to some pipe dream- which sure, go for that, why not, i'm sure that will prove to be as richly rewarding for you as it's always been

premieres on HBO on the 23rd

(day after it loses the Oscar to the gorilla doc)

he's doing a talkback via skype in NYC on thursday! kinda wish i could go.

for whom?

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 31 January 2015 15:41 (1 week ago) Permalink

for anyone who placed any hopes in Obama? who admires aspects of his governance? who thinks he is a "good person," whatever that means? I fit into all of those categories. I realize your protective shell of cynicism is too thick to empathize, though.

so some of you rich ppl w/ hbo have seen this now.

never heard of this lawsuit!

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/everything-about-the-edward-snowden--citizenfour-lawsuit-is-batshit-crazy

Saw it twice in the theater.

yea i watched on hbo, im a rich person

liked how snowden knew hed be prosecuted under wwi era relic laws, and then how the doc let the aclu lawyers acknowledge that the fight is 95% political

"Poitras is teaming with AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook to launch Field of Vision, a documentary unit that will commission and create 40 to 50 episodic and short-form nonfiction films each year.”

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/citizenfour-laura-poitras-documentary-unit-1201589083/

https://theintercept.com/2015/09/09/field-of-vision-interview-laura-poitras-aj-schnack-charlotte-cook/

Watched the DVD this week... Good supplements, including the Greenwald/Poitras/Snowden interview by David Carr a few hours before his death.

Poitras on her Whitney show and return to NYC

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-sleepless-nights-of-laura-poitras-the-snowden-collaborator-and-award-winner-on-her-return-to-new-york-8336016

i should watch this again, it was easily the most fun i had at the movies last year. (i missed a lot of stuff i'd probably have had fun at.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlSAiI3xMh4

i had to recheck to see if Snowden's voice is as weird as JGL's in this trailer but nope it's just JGL.

Future poll: Most annoying JGL voice--SNOWDEN vs. THE WALK

This looks every bit as boring as I predicted; pity to see my fave actor of the last decade or so entering into the prestige-y biopic stage of his career. But who is the hottie who plays his friend (the one who calls him "Snow White")?

of course oliver stone had to direct this

JLG is a horrible actor

er, i mean JGL

ha

The Whitney show is terrible--Poitras should stay in her doc lane and not try to be a visual artist

JLG is a horrible actor

― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, April 29, 2016 3

you're a horrible actor

Can't imagine this movie having anything more suspenseful than the hotel fire alarm going off in CitizenFour.

did snowden himself approve this?

just watched the trailer. before doing so, i had forgot that oliver stone has been a purveyor of left-wing kitsch for 30 years.

why the jame gumb voice, is my question

It puts the files on the USB pen
and it gets a Pulitzer for the Guardian

lol

The Whitney show is terrible--Poitras should stay in her doc lane and not try to be a visual artist

this. like the half the exhibition space is taken up with a cheeseball IR closed circuit gag that is on par with a children's museum

I mean, how many more worthy artists could have had that space. Gets an art world Razzie from me.

how many more worthy artists could have had that space

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18gw0zg0xka4qjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

The Whitney show is terrible--Poitras should stay in her doc lane and not try to be a visual artist

^^^^^ on this.

xp Ha ha Aimless. NY art critic Jerry Saltz is on record that he thinks GWB is a good painter. That how awful the NY art world is

His paintings look like the things they look like.

what exactly does her whitney show consist of? any fun reviews i can read.

tbh there are much worse amateur painters than bush. at least he offsets the basic sentimentality of his subjects with the muted colors.

good review of Whitney show http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/07/laura-poitras-on-target/

I liked the show although it does have weak points. It's a bit off the mark to dismiss it as Poitras' misguided attempt to remake herself as a visual artist—not, I think, what she tried to do at all

One element of the show I really liked was the hallway of redacted documents. I liked how the narrow viewing slits gave the feeling of peeking out through the black bars on a document.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxkZP6pjs0k

jesus fucking christ I could never be an actor

<3

if you're in a Stone movie, best to follow Tommy Lee Jones in NBK and pretend you're Daffy Duck

who is the audience for this movie?

(answer is probably nobody: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fifthestate.htm)

so in this movie snowden has a manic pixie dream girl who turns him from a dumb ass stick in the mud conservative into a fun-loving NSA whistleblower?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/magazine/edward-snowdens-long-strange-journey-to-hollywood.html

this article starts out normally enough and then takes a really...bizarre turn towards the end

In the spring of 2014, Stone flew to Berlin and met with Poitras. The meeting did not go well. According to Poitras, Stone proposed that she delay the release of “Citizenfour,” which she was then in the middle of editing, to time up with his film. “Because his film would be the real movie — because it’s a Hollywood movie,” Poitras told me. “Obviously I wasn’t interested in doing that. To have another filmmaker ask me to delay the release of my film was — well, it was somewhat insulting.”

Stone was annoyed, but he stuck around for a few drinks. They discussed new movies, including “12 Years a Slave.” As Poitras recalls, Stone found the film too violent, while Poitras thought the brutality was appropriate given the subject matter. Stone was growing increasingly frustrated. “At some point, he reached over and had his hands around my neck,” Poitras said. “It was sort of in a joking way. I think he was a little bit drunk. But it was not a particularly pleasant evening.”

haha holy fuck what an asshole

"mine is the real movie!"

Poitras was being very charitable there.

yes

Ollie v much the opposite of classy

Snowden was really useless, it's just Citizenfour with prettier people. Far less compelling and not nearly as scary. No wonder Stone was pissed at Poitras.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/09/what_snowden_gets_wrong_about_its_hero.html

Lol @ zachary quinto's greenwald.

can't believe James Clapper's performance in this was forgotten yesterday

perhaps "not wittingly"

Just seen 5 minutes of the Stone movie, hadn't realised it was a spoof.