Red Dawn

by Loren Coleman ©2012

Colorado means "red" and Aurora means "dawn."

We are entering an alternative reality, of sorts. In case you missed it, we have experienced a red dawn event.

In The Dark Knight Rises, Selina Kyle says to Bruce Wayne: "You think this can last? There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

Let's briefly examine a motion picture, politics aside and reality asunder, which contains strange coincidences of place and words, with a subplot of a name game with "red dawn."

"It's easy to make fun of a movie about a high school football team led by Patrick Swayze single-handedly defeating the Soviet army....[but] it might be the most anti-American movie made outside of the Middle East," wrote Philip Moon reflectively in 2010.


It is time to look at this film in a new context. I do not make any logical linkages to this film from the events of July 20, 2012. I merely show you the data, and assume together we shall discover tomorrow.

Red Dawn is a 1984 American war film directed by John Milius and co-written by Milius and Kevin Reynolds. It stars Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey.

It was the first film to be released with the MPAA rating of PG-13. At the time it was released, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute.

Red Dawn is set in an alternate 1980s in which the United States is invaded by the Soviet Union and its Cuban and Nicaraguan allies. However, the onset of World War III is in the background and not fully explained or engaged in this narrative fiction. The story involves a group of American high school students who resist the occupation with guerrilla warfare, calling themselves the Wolverines, after their high school mascot.

The film focuses on a fictionalized version of Calumet, Colorado, not as the actual small ghost town but the city as a fairly vibrant community with a substantial population, as depicted in this 1984 war film, Red Dawn. Calumet is the movie's attention point. This created town of Calumet was chosen to be the film's central location so that it could be related to almost anywhere in the US, an ambiguous American township with deliberately vague landmarks and names, you know, sort of like Aurora, Colorado. Red Dawn was actually filmed in the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, the "stand-in" for the fictionalized version of Calumet.

Much of the movie's story is set in the Arapaho National Forest, and a group of Soviet soldiers refer specifically to the Colorado War (1863-1865), which was fought there between the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indian insurgencies and the occupying U.S. government. Aurora, Colorado is located in Arapahoe County.

The leading villain in Red Dawn is Colonel Bella, a Cuban officer. (See here for more on the Bell name game.)

The Aurora, Colorado shooting appears to be a "red dawn," a milestone awakening event of which we can only guess what it might really mean in the near and distant future.

I went to see The Dark Knight Rises with my 22 year old son, at 3:15 pm, on Friday, July 20, 2012. One of the first visuals that stuck me, before the film, was what I saw in the preview to the forthcoming James Bond movie, Skyfall. At the about the 39-40 second mark of the trailer, quite readable on an IMAX screen, a frame appears with a vivid skyline. Right there, up front is a building with a red sign that reads Aurora. (This is the Aurora Plaza building in Shanghai, China.)

"The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming." 

~ Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight, 2008.

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The list

Here are some recent postings, gathered in one location, to be found mostly on blogs, by my synchromystic friends, fellows, and familiars, who have shared their thoughts on the recent July 20, 2012 incidents in Aurora. Highly recommended, although the opinions expressed are theirs, and not necessarily my own (unless noted).

Andrew Griffin's Red Dirt Report
"Midnight Massacre in Theatre No. 9"

Mike Clelland's Hidden Experience
"The Death of Jessica Redfield"

Red Pill Junkie's Blog
"A Midsummer Night's Nightmare"
"Darkest Before Dawn"

Katy Waldman/Slate
"Viral Violence"

Sean Higgins/Washington Examiner

"Was the Batman movie shooting imitated from scene from 1986 comic?"

Christopher Loring Knowles' The Secret Sun
"Dark Knight of Our Soul, or The New Ambulance Chasers"

Michael Hoffman's On The Contrary
"Predictive Programming: Batman Movie Shooting Synchronicity"

Loren Coleman's Twilight Language
"Blood Red Movie Massacres"
"Joker Copycats: 2008-2012"
"Dark Knight Shooting"
"Bane/Bain Bursts Bare (foresaw July 20th event) (Part 3)"
"Bane/Bain Continues (Part 2)"
"Bane/Bain: Batman's Villain & Romney's Curse (Part 1)"
"Gemstones Are Forever"

Selina Kyle: There's a storm coming.
Bruce Wayne: You sound like you're looking forward to it.
Selina Kyle: I'm adaptable.

~ The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

Blood Red Movie Massacres

by Loren Coleman ©2012

July 22nd is the anniversary of the 1934 death of John Dillinger, who was killed in front of a movie theater, Chicago's Biograph, after watching the film Manhattan Melodrama. Dillinger was betrayed by the "Woman in Red," a madam (Ana Cumpănaş, also known as Anna Sage) wearing an orange dress, which looked red under the theater's lights.

In Michael Mann's 2009 Public Enemies, Christian Bale (shown) plays FBI man Mervin Purvis, Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, Branka Katic plays Anna Sage, and Marion Cotillard plays Billie Frechette (shown at top as Dillinger's other woman in red). Bale and Cotillard have significant leading roles in The Dark Knight Rises.

In the film Dillinger saw the night he died, Manhattan Melodrama, Clark Gable (shown) plays the gangster-gambler Blackie Gallagher. The movie's finale has Gallagher being put to death in the electric chair for murder. The back story of Gallagher and his brother by adoption is one of two orphans, and parallels Batman and many other DC and Marvel superheroes. Indeed, they are twice orphaned in one of the strangest twists in movie fiction. The boys are adopted as orphans by Poppa Rosen for a short while. But then Rosen (meaning = roses, red), a Russian Jew, is trampled to death by a policeman's horse after he heckles former Red Army Generalissimo Leon Trotsky at a red Communist rally and a melee breaks out. In the end, Gallagher is the darkness, and his "brother" Jim, who becomes the DA and governor, is the light.

This is also the day of the release of the film Captain America: The First Avenger (a year ago, on July 22, 2011), with the first Nazi machine-gunning scene taking place in Norway, which also mirrors the same day's Breivik's massacre in Norway (July 22, 2011).

Hugo Weaving plays two roles, Johann Schmidt, Adolf Hitler's head of advanced weaponry and the transformed Red Skull commander of the terrorist organization Hydra, in the 2011 film Captain America. Weaving also plays the villain Agent Smith in the three Matrix films and V in V for Vendetta (all films that have resulted in copycat violence).

What we do know is that copycats were certainly a real outcome of the 2008 screening of The Dark Knight. The most infamous was Kim de Gelder, the Dendermonde Joker (shown), who killed two babies and a teacher in a Belgium daycare on January 23, 2009. He dressed like his own personal version of the Joker from The Dark Knight.

We still don't know how the alleged Aurora killer, suspect John Holmes appeared on July 20, 2012, at Theater No. 9. All is pure speculation, and yet the web has gone wild with imagined imagery (see above).

One of the news tidbits that has been revealed about James Eagan Holmes (shown in a photo from his youth) is that besides the reported red hair and goatee, underneath his black body armor, he was wearing red to the midnight showing of The Black Knight Rises. The name Eagan means "fiery."

The Greek Goddess Aurora is sometimes referred to as the "Goddess of the Morning Red." Colorado is Spanish for "red."

Anne Hathaway plays Selina Kyle aka Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. Seline (Luna/Moon) is the sister of the Roman goddess Aurora (dawn).

One of the first victims of the Aurora, Colorado shootings identified was Jessica Ghawi, an aspiring sportscaster, who happened to almost have been shot during the recent Toronto's Eaton Mall shooting. She also used the name "Jessica Redfield," a name she created because of her red hair, as she said people remembered that name more easily, since "Ghawi" is difficult to pronounce.

Seven employees of the Red Robin restaurant in Aurora were injured in The Dark Knight Rises shooting (thanks 82-28).

President Barack Obama came to Aurora, Colorado, early on July 22, 2012, to visit with shooting victims and family members. The quotation used by the media reflects an underlying theme in the event.

"It reminds you that even in the darkest of days, life continues and people are strong," the president said, after detailing the recovery of two victims. "Out of this darkness, a brighter day is going to come." [Emphasis added.]

The metaphor to dawn is strong in that simple quote.

For more, see my essay posted later on July 22nd, Red Dawn.

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The list

Movies and massacres are nothing new. Here is a compilation (enhanced by me) of theater-related violence, initially published by ABC News and other sources, which I preserve here before it vanishes. It is followed by video clips of Christian Bale talking about The Dark Knight and appearing in American Psycho.

1928 (Burlington, North Carolina): One of the earliest fatal shootings at a theater happened in Burlington, North Carolina and the active shooter is a Holmes. On Tuesday, January 17, 1928, George Washington Holmes, Jr., 30, shot to death Odis Leslie “Ode” Robertson, 34, in the lobby of Burlington's Lyric Theater, before the 7:00 pm showing of The Naked Truth (1924).

1934 (Chicago): Gangster John Dillinger dies in front of the Biograph Theater on July 22nd (see above for more details).

1955 (Chicago): Ex-con shoots rookie cop in a movie theater four miles from the Loop.

1985 (Chicago): Movie-line quarrel ends with one man dead of a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

1988 (Southfield, Michigan): In October, two men are shot during an argument near the box office of the Americana.

1989 (New York City): Ricardo Jimenez, 21, kills Sean Worrell, 20, for buying the last bag of popcorn at Tim Burton's 1989 Batman premiere on July 3rd, at the Whitestone Multiplex Cinema. Michael Keaton plays Batman and Jack Nicholson plays The Joker.

1989 (Southfield, Michigan): A man opens fire in the main auditorium of the November 17th opening night of Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights at the Americana. (Metal detectors were installed and it was reopened in 1990 as the Southfield City 12, and closed forever in 2001.)

1990 (Valley Stream, New York): A 15-year-old was killed and three other bystanders wounded when a shootout (between a group in the front row and one in the back) erupts on Tuesday, December 25th, Christmas Day, during the premiere running of The Godfather Part III at the Sunrise Cinema Multiplex. (2012 media reports this then becomes the first cinema in the country with metal detectors.)

1991 (Chicago): A 23-year-old man is shot at a July premiere showing of Boyz n the Hood.

1991 (Los Angeles and nationwide): Boyz n the Hood sparks shootings that leave 33 injured, in LA, Minneapolis, Universal City, and other locations.

1991 (Seattle): A 15-year-old is stabbed during the premiere weekend at the Lewis & Clark Theater of Boyz n the Hood.

1993 (Brooklyn, New York): 19-year-old man is shot to death during a late screening of Judgment Night.

1998 (Bakersfield, California): Eight people are injured after shooting during I Got the Hookup.

1999 (Seattle): One man shoots another in the stomach during Analyze This.

2002 (Philadelphia): Janitor shot twice in the head in movie theater bathroom.

2006 (Baltimore): A 24-year old man Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar, a resident of the exclusive Anton North neighborhood, sits behind Paul Schrum, 62, from Pikesville, at the Loews Valley Center 9, shoots Schrum in the head, hollers for everyone to stay down, and then fires three more shots during the showing of X-Men: Last Stand at the Owings Mills multiplex.

2006 (Pittsburgh): A screening of Get Rich or Die Tryin ends when one man fatally shoots another in the lobby after a trip to the restroom.

2008 (Philadelphia): James Joseph Cialella, 29, is charged with shooting the father of a family who he complained was talking during a Christmas Day showing of the Brad Pitt film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Cialella allegedly throws popcorn at the man’s son and then shoots the man in the arm at the Riverview Regal Theater.

2008 (Raleigh, North Carolina): An unidentified masked man tries to rob the Marquee Cinemas Theater, and then fatally shoots the manager Mark Douglas Buhaug, 48.

2010 (Daly City, California): A man shoots three people outside a Bay Area movie theater, including a pregnant woman.

2011 (Tuscaloosa, Alabama): Teen shoots another teen in movie theater parking lot.

2012 (Aurora, Colorado): Alleged suspect James Holmes opens fire at the July 20th midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and injuring 59 others, in Theater 9 and through collateral damage, at the Century 16 Theaters.

Credit: ABC News, Hollywood Reporter, and via other research and sources.

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Christopher Loring Knowles had this to say in his "Dark Knight of Our Soul, or The New Ambulance Chasers":

I do know that is just more bad news attached to a Christopher Nolan film. This is a guy who puts forward psychopaths as his protagonists (Following, Memento, The Prestige) and cast a guy previously best known as Bateman, the American Psycho as Batman....I do know this is a guy who revels in fascist, brutalizing imagery and themes in his work.
I do know that he deliberately created a brand new archetype with his Joker, the real protagonist of The Dark Knight. A figure of pure, wanton destruction- the killer that every Jugalo would love to be when they grow up. This was pure psychological manipulation of the worst kind, and has had terrible real world results.

 Bale on Batman

   

Bale as Bateman