"The Fifth Estate"

Every Movie Awards Season needs at least one "controversial" current-events film that receives reams of breathless coverage in the political media but that ultimately not even most "engaged" audiences actually bother to go see - regardless of whether or not it's any good.

This year's entry looks to be "The Fifth Estate" (trailer below), with Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks mouthpiece Julian Assange. Directed by Bill Condon, the film looks to be making a game effort toward balancing an apparent sympathy for WikiLeaks' actions (or at least philosophy) and an acknowledgement that Assange is a pretty sketchy individual. For the record, Assange (currently in and Ecuadorian embassy ducking extradition for sexual-assault charges) has called the film's script "a serious propaganda attack" and "a lie built upon a lie."