Hoping to inject some momentum into the final balloting phase for the Oscars, which begins tomorrow and ends February 19, Columbia Pictures has turned a ton of PR cash into a poly-bagged extra for today’s editions of Daily Variety. You know it’s a major bit of marketing when it gets its own in-house blog item:

The 38-page, full-color bound booklet features a kudos roll call, critical praise and screenplay excerpts, as well as director Kathryn Bigelow‘s Los Angeles Times op-ed defending the film’s depiction of torture.

The final words on the back page are a quote from Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune: “A movie that will endure.”

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By gracing the cover of the February 4 issue of TIME magazine, Bigelow joins Foster once again, this time as only the second female film director to adorn the publication. Foster did so back in October 1991.

The cover shot was taken by Paola Kudacki, the accompanying interview-profile conducted by Jessica Winter with help from Lily Rothman. Female power all around for this one.

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But that was nothing compared to what happened when the nominees for Best Director were announced. The tweets quickly started flying as west coast entertainment journalists rustled up at the break of dawn reeled in the face of the omission of Ben Affleck (Argo) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty). Tom Hooper was also passed over in the category for Les Miserables, but that was something a number of pundits had actually been expecting.

The first wave of shocked analysis is floating all kinds of theories as to why Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed. Did accusations of Zero Dark Thirty being “pro-torture” hurt Bigelow? Was all that fawning over Affleck this awards season too much for jealous Academy members to bear?

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A year ago, media critics were writing Oprah Winfrey’s OWN obituary. But with Tyler Perry on the exclusive horizon and Rihanna in the rear-view mirror, the 58-year-old mogul’s conversation with reporters Lacey Rose and Stacey Wilson suggests this holiday season’s New Year’s resolutions will be a little less panicked:

“I’m not doing the hula yet… but compared to a year ago, it feels like a sigh of relief,” says Winfrey between sips of iced tea on her sprawling estate…

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The action thriller – tentatively titled Kill Bin Laden – was reportedly going to tell the story of a failed Black Ops attempt to assassinate the al-Qaida leader. That of course is now ancient history. Per Kit:

The Bigelow movie could stay more or less the same, gaining momentum as Sunday’s events give its subject matter added weight, context and timeliness. Or perhaps the project will do a 180-degree turn, with a new story line and focus. We can’t imagine the events surrounding Bin Laden’s ultimate killing not being incorporated into the script in some fashion.

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Kathryn Bigelow

In an interview with CNET News media writer Greg Sandoval, Garland outlines how the potential value of The Hurt Locker was decimated by early availability online, and the knee-jerk reaction that initially followed:

I think it happened first with Hulu, when Fox got really unhappy and pulled [three seasons worth of episodes of the FX show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia] out of the Hulu pool. But thankfully for the industry, something else has won out in terms of the strategic thinking about this. That is the greater fear won out: if we don’t start to change the way we distribute our content and if we don’t start to meet the consumers’ needs it doesn’t mean that distribution doesn’t change or that consumers needs aren’t meant. It means that someone else will drive that revolution and that’s worse.

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