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NYPD Patrolling Sikh Temples in the City in Wisconsin Shooting Aftermath

NYPress — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:18:59 +0000

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

The NYPD is patrolling New York City Sikh temples as a precaution in the aftermath of a shooting in a Milwaukee Sikh temple that left seven people dead. Gothamist reports there is “no known threat” against any temples in the City, but officers are being cautious nonetheless. The blog also reports the Milwaukee shooter, 40-year-old former Army soldier Wade Michael Page according to the Huffington Post, is likely dead and the incident an isolated hate crime.

Some commenters on Gothamist‘s site said they were dubious whether a police presence would be reassuring to temple-goers. The increased police activity post-shooting is reminiscent of the recent NYPD monitoring of midnight Dark Knight Rises screenings in the wake of the Aurora, CO shooting.

—Alissa Fleck

Armond White: Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises Markets Mediocrity

Armond White — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:53:28 +0000

A better movie than The Dark Knight Rises would invite discussion of its content, but interpretation (“What’s that?” say Avengers fans) isn’t even required of this third entry in Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise. A film of empty spectacle, its actual content (formulaic violence, humorless dialogue, unvarying solemnity) runs second to the blatant process of supplying a pre-sold audience with brand-name characters and predictable action.

Why bother detailing the film’s routine story when Nolan can’t get beneath its surface? Demoralized Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) loses his fortune and retraces his previous torturous superhero training to protect Gotham City from another cast of overly familiar nemeses–sneak-thief Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), homicidal freak Bane (Tom Hardy) and an unlikely foe thrown in at the last half-hour.

The Dark Knight Rises only offers an economics lesson in how an entire culture gets indoctrinated into buying repackaged characters, set-pieces and hackneyed style, not a great modern myth. Instead, all the action-movie reflexes learned from James Bond films (the opening airplane stunt), Indiana Jones flicks (battles against world-historical evil) and comic book movies (innumerable, copycat origin-tales) seem for naught. Consumer amnesia rises.

When Batman was just a comic book figure, it appealed to youth and embodied an innocent sense of justice and necessary heroism. Then the graphic novel version, Frank Miller’s 1986 The Dark Knight Returns, converted the fable into casual cynicism that Nolan treats in his now over-scaled sophomoric manner. “I’m necessary evil,” Bane hisses during one of his rampages, appealing to jaded youth and tilting Nolan’s interest away from storytelling and toward trite, cynical mood.

Even I mistook the franchise’s previous mass killings and implacably malevolent adversaries for significant (sickening) ugliness because they resonated 9/11 anxiety. But as The Dark Knight Rises plods toward the three-hour point and Nolan drops-in newsy gibes, it becomes obvious that his political evocations mean nothing. There hasn’t been a trilogy this shapeless and unresonant since The Lord of the Rings–partly to ensure another Nolan sequel (Dark Robin Lays an Egg?).

The 9/11 shockwaves of Nolan’s terrorist-bomb-laden Gotham City include an explosive football stadium extravaganza no deeper than a coming-attractions trailer and offhand references to Occupy Wall Street in Catwoman’s felonious rage against the upperclass. But none of these opportunistic gimmicks (whether a law-and-order subplot or underclass rioting) relate to any character’s dramatized feelings. Bale’s bummed-out crusader lacks convincing moral resilience (see his reluctant hero in Zhang Yimou’s stirring The Flowers of War instead). Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Robin mopes in isolation. Hathaway’s one-note femme fatale never develops like Michelle Pfeiffer’s post-feminist hellcat in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. Tom Hardy’s Bane, a Hannibal Lecter/Darth Vader composite, remains muffled; his motivations masked like his face.

To read the full review at City Arts click here.

At Union Square, Fans Lined for Dark Knight Rises Midnight Showing

NYPress — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:30:57 +0000

By Paul Bisceglio

It wasn’t the line New York deserved, but the one it had to wait in last night to see Batman.

Movie nerds, comic book nerds and their reluctant significant others alike lined 13th Street at Union Square’s Regal Stadium 14 yesterday for the opening of The Dark Knight Rises, the highly anticipated final installment of director Christopher Nolan’s fan-favorite Batman trilogy.

By 5:15 p.m., around 30 eager viewers stood along a roped off section of the sidewalk that a security guard was extending along the block as the line grew. The line was a little misleading, however: at 6:30 p.m., two of the theater’s screens were showing the trilogy’s previous two films as a lead up to the new movie’s midnight premier, and the vast majority of people were there for this Batman marathon. That’s close to eight hours of the caped crusader — and the waiting fans couldn’t be happier.

“Been waiting for this one since the day the last one came out,” one man said.

“Some people think [waiting in line for movies] is crazy,” a woman said, “but it’s just part of the experience. It’s just as much a part of the event as the movie is.”

“People talk about the The Avengers, Spider Man,” another said, “but for me, it’s all about Dark Knight Rises. [The Batman movie series] is just on another level.”

The security guard noted that there was in fact another line in the building. The marathon was showing on two screens, so viewers who had tickets to the one on the top floor were permitted to wait inside.

At least one tenacious fan was out staking his claim for the midnight showing. A man about 20 people deep in the outdoor line said he didn’t know about the marathon showing, and that he panicked when he saw the crowd gathering. He laughed that at least now he and his friends would get the best seats — right in the middle after the aisle divide, with plenty of room to stretch legs.

Waiting in line would be a lot of funny anyways, he said. “My friends are going to show up soon with pizzas. Everyone hangs out and has a good time.”

Asked how long the line would extend by midnight, the security guard simply pointed down 13th Street. The theater has 14 screens, she said. All of them were showing the Dark Knight Rises, and all of them were sold out.

The line got a few disdainful looks from passersby, but in typical New York fashion, most pedestrians didn’t give it a second glance. One young boy had the right attitude, though: “Please can we get in line, please?” he pleaded with his mom, who had to drag him along the sidewalk to keep him moving. “It will be like a sleepover!”