Six people were killed in a bar shooting in Cancun Thursday, according to reports. Two men armed with a machine gun and a handgun opened fire in a bar on the outskirts of the Mexican tourist resort town. Five others were wounded. A popular vacation area on the Caribbean, Cancun has largely escaped the violence that has racked Acapulco, a faded tourist hot spot on the Pacific. The country’s drug trade is largely blamed for Mexico’s crime problem . Just last month, six Spanish women were raped by hooded gunmen who forced their way into the Acapulco beach house the women had rented. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has vowed to reduce the violence that soared after his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, launched an assault on drug cartels. How bad is it? More than 70,000 people have been killed just from drug-related violence in Mexico since 2007, according to government estimates.
46 People Arrested During Brooklyn Protest Over Teen Killed By Police Things are continuing to heat up in NYC as a heartbroken community in Brooklyn continues to protest the shooting death of a 16-year-old teenager who allegedly pointed a gun at NYPD before they opened fire, shooting him to death. via The Grio Nearly four dozen people were arrested as scores of demonstrators gathered in Brooklyn for a third consecutive day to protest the NYPD department following the police-involved shooting of a 16-year-old boy over the weekend, authorities said. Protesters attended a candlelight vigil Wednesday night for Kimani “Kiki” Gray just blocks from where he was shot to death by police Saturday night. The anger was palpable as a group of young people heckled police officers in helmets and later marched down a street. The vigil’s organizers tried and failed to calm the young people, some of whom later threw bottles at police officers. One officer’s face was hit with a brick; he was treated for a laceration and released from Suny Downstate Hospital, police confirmed. Forty-six people were arrested on disorderly conduct charges during Wednesday evening’s protest, including Gray’s sister, police told NBC 4 New York. Police said additional and varying charges are pending for many of those arrested. Specific charges against Gray’s sister were not immediatgely clear. A spokesman for Gray’s parents said they would not speak publicly as long as there was violence, which he said has “clouded their message.” “It’s a tough time for the community,” said the spokesman, Rev. Gilford Monrose. “But the family and myself do not condone the violence.” Too many lives are being lost as a result of these young people being in the wrong place at the wrong time and often for the wrong reasons. Finding a way to reach these teenagers before the end up in situation like the one young man and so many others have found themselves in is becoming more critical by the day. Photo Credit: NBC
We’re actually surprised that it took this long. Law & Order SVU Airs Chris Brown And Rihanna Based Episode Via RadarOnline Stop if you’ve heard this one before: A stunning pop star (who answers to a single name) takes beating after beating from her also-famous boyfriend (whose initials are C.B.), but remains loyal to him in spite of the violence. Yes, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is living up to its “ripped-from-the-headlines” reputation again, as next week’s episode, titled My Funny Valentine, has Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) handling the case of Joi (Starshell Menzies), who remains committed to Caleb Bryant (Eugene Jones). “What he did to you is despicable,” Benson tells Joi, before informing her cop colleagues that “Caleb has a hold on her” and “going against him feels impossible.” Of course, there’s too many coincidences to ignore the underlying Rihanna / Chris Brown theme this episode has written all over it — lavish red carpets, bulldog defense attorneys, brutal evidence photos — though in Dick Wolf‘s world, the character modeled after Brown appears to meet a grislier fate than his real-life counterpart, who is back together with the Barbadian beauty after four turmoil-drenched years. We know a lot of people that Stan out for Law & Order, but this episode sounds like it’s ripe for big ratings from folks that want to watch Caleb/”Chris” die for what he did to Joi/”Rihanna”. Image via Splash
The Violence Against Women Act is a federal law that will provide investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, impose automatic and mandatory restitution…
Despite eyewitness accounts and the police report filed after authorities arrested Jason London , the actor says he was the real victim the other night. At least when it came to the fight at the Martini Ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona. London’s rep says he doesn’t exactly remember how the violence began, but says a guy approached him and accused him of “looking at his friend’s girl.” Jason says the man then got physical with him. Apparently VERY physical. London says the next thing he remembers is getting arrested but before he wound up in cuffs, he claims he was brutally assaulted by the bar’s security staff. The 40-year-old says he doesn’t know why. His rep adds: “Jason’s injuries are consistent with deliberately aimed landed shots to the head which, according to eyewitnesses, continued even after he was unconscious.” TMZ reports that Jason suffered a right orbital fracture in the brawl, as well as a sinus fracture, multiple contusions, hematomas, abrasions and a concussion. Jason claims he didn’t throw one punch in the bar fight, and his fists back up that claim, as there are no bumps, bruises or cuts on either of his hands. He did, however, curse out the cops and defecate in his pants in the back of the police cruiser, along with some other choice moments (see above link).
Prince Harry’s military tour of duty was no joke. Upon returning from his five-month stint in Afghanistan, he was asked (yes) about his naked photo scandal , but also about killing Taliban insurgents. Which he did . The 28-year-old Apache helicopter pilot confirmed to the British media that he and his fellow soldiers killed Taliban fighters during his deployment. “To take a life to save a life,” the World’s Top Bachelor said. “That’s what it revolves around, I suppose. If there’s people who are trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.” Scary, but candid. Harry was stationed at Camp Bastion, a British base in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. He flew scores of missions in support of ground troops. We’re glad Prince William’s little brother is out of harm’s way, and hope for an end to the violence and for the safety of all those serving and living there.
Quentin Tarantino probably had a vastly different idea of how the months leading up to the 85th Academy Awards would transpire for him. As he began to promote Django Unchained , he no doubt expected to spend the majority of Awards Season talking about America’s legacy of slavery, about his decision to portray it as unambiguously horrific, and how the peculiar institution has historically been treated in film. That’s how this awards season started, of course. At the beginning of December, Tarantino was explaining that his goal was to make audiences feel, viscerally, the brutality of slavery. Later in the month, he was making the very excellent point that the legacy of slavery continues to this day , in the form of America’s massive prison complex and the war on drugs. ‘Django Unchained’ & The Sandy Hook Shooting Unfortunately, just 10 days before Django Unchained premiered, the massacre in Newtown, CT happened. Making matters worse, in the weeks since Sandy Hook there have been a succession of other mass shootings. (In fact, there was another school shooting Thursday, near Bakersfield, CA). As a result, all anyone is talking about is the influence of violent media on actual, real world violence, and unluckily for Tarantino, the conversation about slavery has been terminated and replaced with nearly constant demands to address the dubious notion that his violent films may contribute to that problem. Perhaps that’s why he’s beginning to lose his shit about the issue. Now generally, Tarantino’s responses to these questions have been measured; he’s made the excellent case again and again that, no, his movies are not responsible for societal violence. That’s changed somewhat since the beginning of the new year. Speaking to NPR on January 3, Tarantino got rather testy with Terry Gross , but that was nothing, compared to his low-temperature freak-out aimed at the U.K.’s Channel 4 news host, Krishnan Guru-Murthy. The Question About Violence In Movies That Shut The Interview Down “Why are you so sure there is no link between people enjoying movie violence and people enjoying real violence?,” Guru-Murthy asked, during an interview that aired last night. Tarantino’s response revealed, like nothing else, that he’s getting goddamned tired of talking about this. “I’m going to tell you why I’m so sure? You’re not asking me a question like that. I’m not biting. I refuse your question. I refuse your question,” he said. “I’m not your slave and you are not my master,” he continued. “You can’t make me dance to your tune. I’m not a monkey. I am saying I refuse.” Tarantino then added, “The reason I don’t want to talk about is because I’ve said everything I have to say about it. If anyone cares what I have to say about it, they can Google me and see 20 years of what I have to say about it.” It’s hard to blame Tarantino for being extremely annoyed with the whole thing. Hell, I’m annoyed with the whole thing. Django Unchained has been unfairly singled out for scorn despite hardly being unique in how violent it is, and one can’t help but feel that the conversation about it has changed less because of a sudden rediscovered concern about how violent his films are, but because people would so much rather talk about something that feels nebulous, like societal violence, rather than talk about something that remains, almost 150 years after being abolished, a very taboo subject. So it’s absolutely appropriate that Tarantino rejects the premise. However, this conversation is happening whether he likes it or not, especially after Django Unchained’ s five Oscar nominations. And outbursts like this are going to make him an easy target for stupid people who think Americans are so impressionable that we can’t watch a fictional depiction of violence without immediately running out to kill our neighbors. (Not to mention rather dishonest people who enjoy stirring up tabloid-levels of moral outrage just for fun.) Falling back on the dodge that he’s already said everything that must be said on the issue is just going to make media-concern trolls even more determined to play gotcha with him — especially when his angry outbursts contain terminology that, considering what Django Unchained is actually about, are rather… unfortunate. So if nothing is going to make the question go away, maybe the time has come for him to figure out a way to change the subject back to what it should be. I keep waiting for someone to ask him what I think is a far more interesting question about violence in America. America has a long history of pretending half the country didn’t start a war that killed nearly a million people just to keep their slaves, The manufacturers of our popular culture also have a history of minimizing just how bad slavery actually was for the enslaved, and of course,there’s also the country’s unwillingness to discuss the continued disenfranchisement and oppression of the descendants of those slaves. Doesn’t that, more than any film ever could, contribute to a national culture that seems terrifyingly comfortable with acts of massive public violence? Maybe, maybe not, but since no one else is asking, maybe it’s time Tarantino said it for them. It might not make the idiotic conversation stop, but it makes for a better quote than the word ‘monkey.’ Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine. Follow Ross Lincoln on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Enough is enough!?!? The shootings have got to stop! Via The Huffington Post : A single violent Saturday in Chicago left three people dead—including one man police say was shot more than 15 times—as the homicide rate gets off to a troubling start in the new year. Around 3:10 p.m. Saturday, DNAinfo Chicago reports the man was found shot multiple times in the abdomen on the 5500 block of South Loomis Boulevard in the West Englewood neighborhood. The man was not immediately identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, though Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O’Brien told DNAinfo police believe they have “a possible offender” in custody. The day got off to a bloody start with a another homicide in Humboldt Park where a 25-year-old River Grove man was shot in the chest around 7 a.m. The Tribune reports David Kartzmark was shot near in the 1500 block of North Talman and died in the the ambulance before even reaching the hospital. Police have no suspects in custody. Around 6:45 p.m., police responded to a South Chicago home in the 8300 block of South Kingston Avenue where they found 55-year-old Angela Welch stabbed multiple times, reports the Sun-Times. Welch’s 25-year-old daughter is suspected of stabbing her mother during a domestic dispute and was taken into custody after initially fleeing from authorities. Ten more people were injured in single-day shootings around the city, said the Sun-Times in a separate report. Shootings were dispersed throughout Chicago Saturday, even including areas like Irving Park that don’t normally see gun violence. A 22-year-old man killed in an expressway shooting in the early hours of Sunday morning marked Chicago’s 10th homicide within the first week of 2013. When will this violence stop!? Images via AP
The lessons of Quentin Tarantino’s interview with Terry Gross on NPR? He has a high tolerance for “viscera” and a low tolerance for questions that attempt to connect Sandy Hook and other incidents of actual violence to the kind found in movies. The Django Unchained director became audibly peeved when Gross asked him the question that every reporter feels compelled to ask filmmakers in the wake of the Connecticut shootings. Here’s NPR’s transcript of the awkward, testy exchange. I’ve taken the liberty of putting Tarantino’s comments about how linking Sandy Hook to violence in movies is “disrespectful” to those who died. I agree with Tarantino. Connecting the shooting to movie-making trivializes what happened in Connecticut, which, as Ross A. Lincoln pointed out in his post on The Hollywood Reporter ‘s poll on media violence, doesn’t bring this country any closer to figuring out how to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook and Aurora from happening. GROSS: So I just have to ask you, is it any less fun after like the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, like, do you ever go through a period where you lose your taste for movie violence? And movie violence is not real violence, I understand the difference. But still, are there times when it just is not a fun movie experience for you – either to be making it that way or to be in the audience for something like that? TARANTINO: Not for me. GROSS: So it’s so completely separate, that the reality of violence doesn’t affect at all your feelings about making or viewing very violent or sadistic… TARANTINO: Sadistic? I don’t know. I do know what, I don’t know. I think, you know, you’re putting a judgment on it. GROSS: No, no, no… TARANTINO: You’re putting a judgment on it. GROSS: The characters are sadistic. The characters are sadistic. I’m not talking about, you know, the filmmaker. I’m talking about the characters. I mean, the characters are undeniably sadistic. TARANTINO: Mm-hmm. When you say after the tragedy, what do you mean by that exactly? GROSS: Well, like… TARANTINO: Do you mean like on that day would I watch “The Wild Bunch?” Maybe not on that day. GROSS: Or in the next few days, like while it’s still – while it’s still really fresh in your – while the reality – yeah. TARANTINO: Would I watch a kung fu movie three days after the Sandy Hook massacre? Would I watch a kung fu movie? Maybe, ’cause they have nothing to do with each other. GROSS: You sound annoyed that I’m… (LAUGHTER) TARANTINO: Yeah, I am. GROSS: I know you’ve been asked this a lot. TARANTINO: Yeah, I’m really annoyed. I think it’s disrespectful. I think it’s disrespectful to their memory, actually. GROSS: With whose memory? TARANTINO: The memory of the people who died to talk about movies. I think it’s totally disrespectful to their memory. Obviously, the issue is gun control and mental health. Although it’s not in the transcript t hat NPR posted, at an earlier point in the interview, Tarantino explained that he did tone down some of the violence in Django Unchained . As Samuel L. Jackson mentioned during my interview with him in December, his favorite scene in the movie, which was cut, involved his character burning off the captured Django’s nipples with a hot poker. The Playlist also points out that another scene that was briefly glimpsed in the trailer but excised from the movie, involved the rape of Broomhilda. (You can find these scenes in Tarantino’s script for the movie, which the Weinstein Company has posted here .) When Gross asked Tarantino, “What are your limits for..what’s your sensibility for how much splatter, how much violence, how much sadism” in a movie “feels right, like it’s part of the genre” and how much feels like “exploitation,” the filmmaker replied: “I could handle a lot more than I put in this movie,” adding: ” I have a tolerance for viscera, more than the average person.” But, he explained that after screening earlier, more brutal cuts, “I traumatized the audience” when his goal was to have them “cheering Django” at the movie’s end. “If you don’t cheer at the end, I haven’t done the job,” he said.
