Category: News

As with The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man, Glenn and Mike saw The Dark Knight Rises separately to do this Siskel and Ebert style review. We were going to run this last Friday on the movie’s opening day, but as we’re sure you can appreciate the events of Friday morning in Colorado demanded we delay this publication to give our readers more time to see the film.Again, we offer our standard disclaimer: there are all sorts of spoilers in this review. And this time around, there is an observation that may actively ruin the end of the film if you haven’t seen it and you intend to do so. (more…)

What’s the difference between justice and punishment? The answer is in this short film starring Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, and directed by Phil Joanou. (I’m loath to call this a Punisher fan film, even though it obviously is a labor of love unsanctioned by Marvel— because, really, you don’t get A-list directors and actors reprising their roles from major motion picture releases in any old fan film.)

Quoth Thomas Jane:

“I wanted to make a fan film for a character I’ve always loved and believed in – a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It’s been a blast to be a part of from start to finish — we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.”

Follow the creators on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/thomasjanehttps://twitter.com/adishankarbrandhttps://twitter.com/chadstjohnhttps://twitter.com/pjoanou

A press release from Chicon 7:

Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), would like to remind members that the voting deadline for the 2012 Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award is July 31, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (Wednesday, August 1, 2012, at 2:59 a.m. EDT). The same deadline applies for access to the 2012 Hugo Voter Packet, which can currently be downloaded via the Chicon 7 website.

Hugo Award voting, and access to the Hugo Voter Packet, is open to all Adult, Young Adult and Supporting members of Chicon 7. Convention memberships can be purchased online via the Chicon 7 website at www.chicon.org/membership.php. Full Adult Attending memberships currently cost $215 (rising to $230 from August 1), Young Adult Attending memberships cost $100, and Supporting memberships cost $50.

Members can submit their Hugo Award ballots online via the Chicon 7 website at www.chicon.org/hugo-awards.php, or by postal mail. Postal ballots must be received before the voting deadline. Members wishing to vote online will need their Chicon 7 membership number and unique Chicon 7 PIN. E-mail reminders of these details are currently being sent to all members who have provided their email addresses to the convention.

The Hugo Voter Packet is an electronic package of nominated works graciously made available to voters by nominees and their publishers. This year’s packet includes a wide range of fiction and non-fiction works along with art, music and webcast nominees.

What do we say? How do we react? A guy named James Holmes slipped into a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in a suburban town in Colorado and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle, a shotgun and two 40-caliber handguns. He set off what may have been tear gas as he started his killing spree. According to CNN, the suspect was dressed head to toe in protective gear including a gas mask. CNN also reported that a federal law enforcement official stated Holmes had colored his hair red and told the police he was “the Joker.”

He killed 12 people and wounded 58. As I write this, eleven are in critical condition.

His apartment has been booby trapped with incendiary and chemical devices and trip wires. Residents in the surrounding five buildings have been evacuated. It may take days to defuse it all.

What do we say? What can we say? Should we say anything at all at this point?

If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be writing this column. I was working on a different one but I’ve let it go for now. Why?

Words are important. It’s how we take something that is inconceivable, incomprehensible, horrific and give it a shape and form. We communicate thoughts, beliefs, fears and give them a human shape. Some will misuse the power of words and cast the events in terms of their own ideology. They will try to shape the narrative to support or further their views. The events will not be described; they will be twisted. You can see some of this already on the Internet. I know I have.

In the past I have said that nothing that is human is alien to me, that I am capable of understanding anyone on a human level, that somewhere within myself I can find something of that person. Is that true in this case? Am I capable of understanding Holmes?

If I was writing the Joker, I’d have to find somewhere inside of me where I felt like the Joker. And that can take me to very dark places, not places to where I am eager to go. When I was writing Wasteland, I wrote a story from the point of view of a serial killer, or at least what I thought was a perspective a serial killer would have. I now think it was a little naïve. The story was interesting but I don’t know if it was successful in what I set out to do. Would I really want to be successful in that sense? Could I?

The Joker in Nolan’s previous Batman film, The Dark Knight, was not a “criminal” as much as an anarchist forcing Batman and the entire city of Gotham into choices that would reveal that, at heart, they were not better than he was. He would expose them as what his own dark twisted concept of humanity said they must be. Is that what James Holmes thought he was doing? If so, what more appropriate venue that the opening night of the next Batman film?

I’m speculating, of course. Guessing. That’s all any of us can do at the moment. It may be all that we can ever do. I think it’s important that we try. I don’t want to dismiss Holmes as an aberration, a freak, a monster – something that is not me. That’s too easy. He is human. Yes, a very screwed up human but human nonetheless. If I deny him his humanity what happens to mine?

I don’t have answers. Maybe I won’t be able to find any. Maybe the only answers will be the ones I impose on the situation. Maybe I’m wrong and there are monsters. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s not possible to find a common humanity with this killer. In the days and weeks to come, we’ll have more information. Maybe that will help; maybe it won’t. The attempt, I think, is necessary.

We also need to look at a basic fear underlying all this, one that hits home.

The Dark Knight Rises’ director, Christopher Nolan, was quoted as saying, “The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me.” I think that’s true for all of us in this little community. This is our home, too, and this weekend was supposed to be a triumph for us in a summer of triumphs – the best summer of comic book movies ever. Now it’s sullied, bloodied and sullied, and whatever sales records the film sets, whatever awards it may win, that opening night in Aurora will be forever linked to it.

And I think that what we fear, deep down, is the possibility that the killer may have been one of us – a deranged, twisted version but one of us nonetheless. That’s the fear we need to name and only words will ultimately serve.

Let’s talk – and listen.

Monday: Mindy Newell

Fresh from ComicCon 2012, we’ve got interviews with some of the hottest new shows (ARROW and THE FOLLOWING with Kevin Bacon), plus returning favorites like NTSF:SD:SUV and new web channels like STAN LEE‘S WORLD OF HEROES. Plus Brian Cranston explains what’s next on BREAKING BAD and Ryan Cartwright fills us in on the direction of SyFy‘s second season of ALPHAS.

Don’t miss a minute of pop culture news – The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Colorado officials state they believe James Holmes, 24, the man they charged with killing at least 12 people and wounding over 70 others at The Dark Knight Rises screening in Aurora acted alone. He was arrested minutes after the incident was phoned in wearing a helmut, a gas-mask and a bullet-proof vest and carrying two Glocks and rifle. Holmes’ hair was dyed red and referred to himself as “the Joker.” Whereas he offered no resistance and waited for the police near his car in the multiplex parking lot, Holmes’ apartment is heavily booby-trapped with incendiary devices and people living in his building and at least four other buildings have been evacuated.

The usual flame-throwers in the media responded in their sadly predictable manner. The Washington Examiner suggested the shooter was acting out a scene from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight comics. ABC suggested the shooter was a Tea Party member; they later recanted. Countless individuals are blaming the incident on a lack of appropriate gun control. Various police departments across the country have dispatched officers to ward against copycat killers, and Warner Bros. has withdrawn the trailer to their movie Gangster Squad, which was attached to The Dark Knight Rises.

Holmes had been in the University of Colorado’s neuroscience studies program studying towards his PhD. He was in the process of withdrawing from the program at the time of this incident.