The Papers is the official title of Steven Spielberg‘s currently shooting Oscar-bait film that will pop on 12.22.17 via 20th Century Fox. Working from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, the drama is about how Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) grappled with a decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in June 1971.

Tom Hanks as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, Meryl Streep as Post editor Katherine Graham in Steven Spielberg’s The Papers.

One question: Has anyone ever heard or read of the Pentagon Papers being casually referred to “the papers” by anyone, ever? I haven’t. When I first saw the updated Wiki page I thought of Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas saying “I’m gonna get the papers, get the papers.”

I reviewed Hannah’s solo-authored script (which was called The Post) on 3.17.17. I said it was about how Graham, who initially saw herself as less than ideally suited to the task and was little more than a blandly embedded figure in Washington social circles, gradually grew some courage and a sense of journalistic purpose during the Pentagon Papers episode, which transpired over a 17-day period in June 1971.”

Kate Winslet in Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel (Amazon, 12.1). This is what you get when you have the legendary Vittorio Storaro as your dp.