Twilight Language: Film

Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Synchrocinema's Lone Ranger

As the new film Lone Ranger is soon set to open on July 3rd, let us not forget the twilight language of this event. This includes the recent history of this new movie's death-on-the-set, the mystical origins of Johnny Depp's Tonto, and the fictional relationship between the Green Hornet and the Lone Ranger. Synchrocinema rises again.

Water. Bridger. Death. Synchrocinema.

For details and more, see "Lone Ranger Death."

Monday, August 13, 2012

New Red Dawn Redux

The enemy takes over our McDonalds.

"This Thanksgiving, the Fight begins at Dawn."

Humm. The just released poster for the 2012 remake of Red Dawn, according to Yahoo Movies, highlights their new tagline. It was followed yesterday by a new trailer, see below.

Recently, an unnamed individual (Anonymous) left the following new comment on my post "Red Dawn":
"The original trailer, on the laserdisc release, includes a scene with a tank rolling up to a McDonald's where enemy soldiers are eating. The scene does not appear in the final cut, and was likely removed due to a mass murder at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, CA, weeks before the film opened."

Red Dawn, production photo, 1984.

(I wanted to post about the dates mentioned to fact-check the above comment for my readers. This movie is being noted more and more, every day, as in this weekend's "The Soldier of the Apocalypse" posting.)

The San Ysidro McDonald's event was a mass shooting that took place on July 18, 1984, at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego, California. James Oliver Huberty (born October 11, 1942, Canton, Ohio) shot and killed 21 people (including five children) and injured 19 others.

First of all, for those who weren't alive then, the images above and below give you some idea of the Columbine-like wall-to-wall nature of the coverage. (The media seized this reality form of broadcasting in 1963, when the television networks were made aware they could increase ratings as they covered the JFK assassination for four straight days in November.)

How specific were the graphic images that were published at the time? One lasting picture was the following one. It showed Omarr Hernandez lying next to his bicycle on July 18, 1984. The photo would become a symbol of the "devastating McDonald’s massacre in 1984." The 11-year old boy was among the victims killed by the shooter. Photograph was captured by Barry Fitzsimmons.

Speaking of impact, for example, Andrew Griffin discussing a recent Tulsa killing of two, wrote on his Red Dirt Report: “This Best Buy shooting brought to mind the infamous San Ysidro, California McDonald’s massacre on Wednesday, July 18, 1984. It was days before the start of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and my eyes were glued to the tube that summer. When I saw that story, as a (nearly) 12-year old, I was shocked. The photo of 11-year-old Omar Hernandez, shot dead near his bicycle, seared into my brain. Twenty-two people died and 19 were injured. The politically paranoid survivalist James Huberty, who was also killed, was the perpetrator of that massacre. He had told his wife he was 'hunting humans' and that 'society had its chance.'

This is a real boy. This is a real victim. His family and friends were forever changed by the event. Did the incident slip into the unconsciousness of America, without the obvious hurt associated with the killings, reframing the country, in terms of the copycats that followed after this shooting? More talk of the aftermath, of the hurt, of the survivors, versus the main attention being to the types of guns (as if there would be any change in American policy in that realm), the shooter's motives (as if there would be any understanding from those), or the graphic details of who was killed and how (as if this would stop people from eating out), might have helped.

Looking at exposing the unconscious - the behavior contagion choice option of these shooters - and forcing it out into the open, out into the consciousness of the broader society, perhaps would do more than has been explored. Doing a mediated, analytic reframing actually does change the way such material is taken in by our brains. Talking about murder-suicides on this deeper level does not cause future murder-suicides, but graphically making them entertainment appears to create copycats.

Red Dawn, production photo, 1984.

Certainly, this event did change the movie Red Dawn that would be seen in 1984. It appears the filmmakers did make a correct decision in changing the film, at least regarding the McDonald's "trigger" imagery.

Red Dawn (1984) was released on August 10, 1984.

San Ysidro, California, shooting site, 1984.

Red Dawn, deleted scene, 1984.

The site Fast Forward has this information:

The original theater trailer on the DVD shows a scene with a tank rolling up to a McDonald's restaurant where enemy soldiers are eating. This scene does not appear in the final cut. Some have suggested that this may have been removed due to a mass murder at a San Ysidro, CA McDonald's just weeks prior to the films opening.
There were 21 people massacred at that McDonald's on July 19, 1984, which was at the time located at 460 W San Ysidro Boulevard. It has since moved moved down the street. A campus of Southwestern College is there now with a memorial plaque.
Contributed by: Mountain Mike

"Mountain Mike" got the exact date wrong, but this "deletion due to the mass shooting" story certainly has made the rounds.

It is well known that Hollywood does edit their films based on post-production real world events. For example, in the wake of the Aurora red dawn event, the machine-gunning of the movie audience is being cut from this year's forthcoming film, Gangster Squad. The scene was in that film's initial movie trailer.

One thing is certain. There is a red dawn that's come, and another one that's coming.

For the links to other recent postings about

Colorado's Aurora's red dawn symbolism, please see also:

Red Dawn 2012

Red Dawn Again

Red Dawn

Recent interviews, about the Aurora shootings:

WGN - Mike McConnell: Loren Coleman

The Corbett Report: The Copycat Effect with Loren Coleman

Binnall of America: Loren Coleman and Bruce Rux

Talk Shoe - 42 Minutes: Loren Coleman

Red Ice Creations: Loren Coleman

The Copycat Effect

(NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004)

(Thanks MM for the news tip about the poster.)

Saturday, August 04, 2012

Red Dawn 2012

Thor comes to Red Dawn. And the Wolverines return. Filmed in one Superman's birthplace. Released the day before the anniversary of the assassination of JFK.

On Friday, I saw Total Recall (which made me think of Blade Runner throughout all its rainy, congested Asian-filled Colony scenes). But before that new feature film about mind control, there was the first showing of the trailer for Red Dawn. A movie trailer about an invading Asian army was being shown before another film about an invading army. Marketing.

Principal photography began for the new Red Dawn in September 2009, in Mount Clemens, Michigan. Historically, Mount Clemens' largest industry use to be the mineral baths that were scattered throughout the city from 1873 until 1974. The city once encompassed 11 bathhouses and several hotels at its peak. The first bathhouse was built in 1873 and was known as “The Original” and was located on the corner of Jones and Water Street. The bathhouse remained until 1883 when the building burned, yet was rebuilt in 1884 and accommodated larger crowds. Over the years, noted visitors such as film actors Clark Gable and Mae West, athletes Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey, news magnate William Randolph Hearst, and the Vanderbilt family vacationed in the city for the bath industry.

Wallpaper Art by Ben Burgraff

One of most well-known recent residents born in Mount Clemens is Dean Cain (born Dean George Tanaka; July 31, 1966), the actor who is most famous for starring as Clark Kent/Superman in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Cain ended up moving to Santa Monica, California, and playing on the baseball team there with Charlie Sheen, who in 1984 would be a character in the first Red Dawn. Cain is also remembered as the host of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! from 1999-2003.

The other trailer after the one for Red Dawn? Man of Steel, the new Superman movie, due Summer 2013.

Needless to say, after all I've written here lately about Colorado Aurora (red dawn), the timing seemed strange that after delaying the Red Dawn film from 2009-2010, now is the year this repeat of the 1984 political thriller is going to be released. After the 2012 election.

Iconic imagery is repeated.

The group shot from 1984 and 2012.

The 2010 poster.

Chinese invaders were part of the story for the 2009 filmmaking. But Red Dawn was not released in 2010. Now Northern Korean invaders have been edited in for the November 21, 2012 release.

The lead hero Jed Eckert (meaning, "strong," "brave," with the Scottish Eckert clan, also spelled Urquhart, being from Loch Ness, Scotland) is played by Chris Hemsworth. He has recently played Thor in three Thor/Avengers movies and the Huntsman in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Before Thor, the youthful Australian actor was a virtual unknown here in the United States. But he played “Kim Hyde” on 171 episodes of Home and Away, the successful Australian TV series where Heath Ledger (the Joker in The Dark Knight) started. Hemsworth is doing a sequel, Thor: The Dark World, which is set for release November 8, 2013. Natalie Portman plays "Jane Foster," an astrophysicist and Thor's love interest.

It apparently continues to be a time for comic book superheroes and cinematic wars. The red dawn this way comes.