All screenings of NOTORIOUS canceled at Greensboro, NC multiplex after shooting; Actor who plays Biggie Smalls was at theatre
by Steve MasonThe movie Notorious (Fox Searchlight) a biopic about the life of rapper Biggie Smalls, has opened well-above industry expectations with about $9M on Friday and, as I reported Friday night, that could mean about $29M in ticket sales over the 4-day MLK weekend. But there will be no more tickets sold at the Grand 18 at Four Seasons Station theatre complex in Greensboro, NC.
Friday night at approximately 9pm, there were gunshots in the lobby of the multiplex and a 32-year-old man was shot twice in the abdomen. A report from the Greensboro News Record has identified the man as Clive O’Connor, and he was rushed to the hospital where he underwent surgery. There is, however, no report on his condition.
Local police say that they cannot be certain about whether there is a link between the shooting and the movie Notorious, which is playing on three screens at the complex, but let’s be honest. Every theatre that opened this movie had legitimate security concerns given that Christopher Wallace aka Biggie Smalls aka Notorious B.I.G. lived and died violently.
What makes the story interesting is that rapper and actor Jamal “Gravy” Woolard who plays the title role in the movie was actually at the theatres seeing the movie when the shooting occurred. Making his acting debut in Notorious, Woolard is no stranger to trouble himself. In New York, he is well known as the guy who got shot in the posterior, then proceeded to do a radio interview before seeking any treatment.
Brooklyn native Woolard was at radio station Hot 97 (WQHT) to appear on the popular Riding with Funkmaster Flex in April of 2006. Emerging from a nearby sandwich shop prior to his appearance, there was a rain of gunfire. He was shot in the left buttock, but proceeded to do the radio appearance anyway. As Wooldard told The New Yorker, “What was I supposed to tell a powerful influence like Flex, at Hot 97? ‘You know what, Flex? I’m sorry, man. I can’t do the show. I was standing downstairs—got shot in the ass.’ What, are you nuts? Right? It wouldn’t make any sense. So I had to do what I had to do.”
I have to emphasize that police reports do not indicate that Woolard was in the proximity of the shooting, and in no way has he been linked to the Greensboro incident, but he was on the premises.
An estimated 700 people were evacuated from the Grand 18 theatre complex, and screenings of Notorious have been suspended indefinitely. Produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was nominated for a Golden Globe Award this week for producing the acclaimed television version of A Raisin in the Sun, Notorious has received very solid reviews and has a supporting cast that includes Oscar nominee Angela Bassett (What’s Love Got To Do With It?) as Biggie’s mom, Independent Spirit Award nominee Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker) as Tupac Shakur and Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) as Combs himself.
The real life Biggie was from Brooklyn, like Woolard, and went from crack dealer to million-selling rap star with his debut album called Ready to Die in 1994. He was one of the central figures in the East coast vs. West coast rap rivalry, which played a role in his drive-by shooting death in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. Only 24 at the time of his death, his murder remains unsolved.
Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Tips & Feedback
69 Comments
Is it just me or does this look like a made-for-cable movie?
Police can’t say there was a connection? How many shootings were there at Bride Wars? (OK, besides the self-inflicted ones)
Very interesting, going to go see this film tonight.
Thanks for the news. Nice site.
I said to my wife yesterday when I was looking at the ad for this “film” in the paper that there would be a shooting in a theater sometime before the weekend was over. Didn’t take long did it?
I’ll pass. Hollywood has a painful history of trying to make thugs look far better than they were in real life. There is still such a love for Tupac, most of which ignores the accusation that he held a fan down while his bodyguard raped her (plus I always thought he was really mediocre).
Seeing a fictional story is fine, but when they make one about a real person, they need to base it on real events. Until they get over this fascination with making scumbags look like saints, I’ll find something better to do with my money.
As we all know, situations such as this one will not be happening after Jan 20th.
Hope something like this doesn’t break out during Tuesday’s coronation.
Didn’t I hear of a speech made by a now famous politican that the American Citizens should be beyond this type of behavior? And so, will the producers of the film get arrested for making this movie? Where are the lawyers?
There was also a shooting at BENJAMIN BUTTON a couple weeks ago in Philly.
If they’d quit glorifying the gangsta thugthizzle shizznit this garbage culture would die off. Remember the shootings at “Colors” or “New Jack City” or “Boys in tha Hood”? Those are just a few examples.
Seems like the Great Society’s biggest achievement was to legitimize this type of gutter culture and thuggish behaviour.
Try to explain this irony to young people today but they wouldn’t know the meaning of irony.
Darwin was wrong, some species allow their parasites and cheaters to thrive and multiply and encroach on the well-being of the greater society.
C’mon man we can’t watch a movie in peace.Black folks gotta stop the violence,on Martin Luther King weekend that’s terrible of the shootings.
It’s sad that the producers of this movie were not in the lobby.
Ummm…your logic has one gaping flaw in it. Shouldn’t theater owners be more afraid of those seeing “My Bloody Valentine?” Surely the R rated violence of that film is sure to incite more meyham then spoken word poetry over broken down funk beats…
CORRELATION WITHOUT CAUSATION.
Your basic argument is frankly, racist.
Do we even know the ethnicity of the shooter or the victim? The name O’Conner sounds ambiguous to me.
The bigotry on display in the comment section of this article is deplorable. All I have to say to you is, “And by the measure by which you judge, so too shall ye be judged.”
Like him or not, Wallace produced some important, legitimate, and moving poetry. He was an artist and a cultural lightning rod, not because he died, but because of what he wrote when he was still alive.
Do you decry Charles Bukowski because he was a drunk and a wife beater? Pedophilia plays a major role in many of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels, are you wishing for his death? The Beatles, The Stones, Donavan, Led Zepplin, The Who and The Doors all glorified drugs and talked about promiscuous sex. Do you want to tear their pages from the book of our culture?
Also, by the logic exhibited here, people should have feared for their lives while seeing Across the Universe. John Lennon died under similar circumstances…
Ahhh, poor Hunter D. Without the mental capacity to evaluate the situation with his “brain”, he is left with nothing but the pathetic race card. I guess poor little Hunter D has been living under a rock. On Tuesday January 20, 2009 The United States of America will swear in and inaugurate the first African-American President in the history of the republic. Sorry, matey, but the race card is now a JOKER. It doesn’t work anymore. Kaput. Gone. Neutralized.
Ummm…Hunter, sorry to break this to you, but there haven’t been any shootings except the one in the theater celebrating the life of a scum sucking criminal pig who should have been in jail, not a recording studio. His getting shot and killed was the perfect end to a useless life, proving Darwin’s theory. The herd was thinned of another parasite. Good Riddance.
“So for now, let’s put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said “I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore.”
Oh man, flashbacks!!! *Sounds of chopper noise, gun fire and explosions are heard as “Riders in the Storm” softly plays in the background, as JFW remembers that horrid night at the Mamma Mia premiere*
Less than a month ago there was a shooting at a screening of Benjamin Button. No one posted stories about like this then. Furthermore, there is clearly a subtext of race to this article and to the responses. The baseline rejection of black culture and the inference that it is worthless because it doesn’t mimic your expectations of what “Culture” should be, is in fact racist.
The very fact that you conflate this situation with Obama proves my point. You wouldn’t relate Robert Downey Jr. with President Bush and say, “typical white coke-head” but you confuse Christopher Wallace with Barrack Hussein Obama…why is that?
White men are allowed to act poorly without casting blame on all white men, but if one black man does something (and we don’t even know if anyone was black, much less saw the movie as the incident happened in the friggin’ lobby). You cast black’s as a monolithic force. That is racist. It denies the autonomy of the individual and actually makes you a crappy conservative too. Personal responsibility anyone?
Racism can still exist with a black President. If Joesph Lieberman have been VP in 2006 I still would have been pistol whipped 8 times by Nazi Skinheads. Your supposition that the president relates to racism on a micro or marco level is simply illogical. It implies that somehow everyone who was vehemently against Obama (calling him an Arab and a Muslim as if these things were synonymous and/or slurs) simply shrugged and said, “Oh, guess I was wrong” on Nov 5. Clearly that didn’t happen.
Obama won because he mobilized the minority vote while energizing the base. Palin’s dead-cat-bounce in the polls and ensuing incompetency coupled with McCain’s shaky handling of the economic breakdown discouraged right wing votes. Too, McCain never capitalized on the Evangelical vote that Bush Jr. used (and I do mean USED) so well.
I am a white, Jewish American. I don’t own a single album from Wallace, or 2Pac or any of the other 4 hip-hop/rap artists you’ve ever heard of. I’m not some ditto-head offended that you insulted my idol. I am, however, clearly capable of much more rational thought than you are.
Just one question, does it hurt when your knuckles drag on the ground? Have you fashioned some type of gloves or have they just calloused over?
I’ll never forget the drive-by shootings at the multiplex between Harry Potter and LOTR fans in late 2001 as their respective films played at the same time. I got the bullet scars to prove it, yo. A dude in an elf costume tried to plug some kid in a Hogswarts uniform while I was getting some popcorn and I got caught in the crossfire.
Hunter – Why yes it does hurt when my knuckles drag on the ground. It has been twenty degrees below zero for a week up here and my poor hands are dry and chapped. I am not sure why you think people confused the Obama with Biggie, must have been something you imagined in your guilty, self-loathing, racist white heart. Yes, you are a racist. The left has always been based on racism and group identity, the right on individuality.
“The baseline rejection of black culture and the inference that it is worthless because it doesn’t mimic your expectations of what “Culture” should be, is in fact racist.”
Your assumption that there is a “black culture” is, by your own logic, racist.
But there IS a culture that Biggie Smalls represented. It is a pathetic, horrible, decadent, and ultimately destructive one. It is a culture fully consistent with opening fire in a theater lobby. It in fact does NOT comport with my expectations of what culture should be. That doesn’t make me a racist, it just makes me opposed to the glorification of thuggery.
But there IS a culture that Biggie Smalls represented. It is a pathetic, horrible, decadent, and ultimately destructive one.
———————————————————————-
And that culture isn’t just a black culture. It’s got a lot of white males who buy into it too. It’s not a culture that values love, family and a long life.
“But there IS a culture that Biggie Smalls represented. It is a pathetic, horrible, decadent, and ultimately destructive one. It is a culture fully consistent with opening fire in a theater lobby. It in fact does NOT comport with my expectations of what culture should be. That doesn’t make me a racist, it just makes me opposed to the glorification of thuggery.”
Exactly Orrin. I’m black and I have almost NOTHING except skin color in common with people like Biggie or Sean Combs. Hunter D’s assertion that their behavior is synonymous with black culture is typical condescending liberal crap imo.
The shooting at the Button movie had to do with people talking in the theater. While deplorable (and dumb), it had nothing to do with the movie itself. It could have occurred at any movie where people were talking. Notorious, on the other hand, specifically played to the type of crowd that likes to play with guns. To argue otherwise is to bury your head in the sand.
I worked at a movie theater in the early 90’s. The most violent movie openings we had were for “New Jack City” “Boyz N Tha Hood” “Deep Cover” and “Juice”. Yes, I know they are all family fare. Looks like some things never change.
What does deer hunting have to do with shooting people? Notorious is about a guy who thought it was cool to shoot people. Do you think Hollywood really would make a move that glorified a family of white NRA-member Kentuckians shooting other people? They wouldn’t, and they shouldn’t.
As for the lame “a building which contained 18 screens, a couple of which were showing Notorious” you’ve moved beyond apologist. Now you’re just an idiot.
Man, it’s obvious why the vast majority of convicted felons and high school dropouts vote Democrat. Stupid is as stupid votes.
The whole point of this discussion is the glorification of violence that is the hip hop culture and Notorious. That is the crowd that likes to play with guns. If you don’t understand the difference between that and hunting, you’re so stupid that…well, you must be a Democrat.
So, was it a Desperaux shooting? Maybe a Dustin Hoffman fan gone crazy from his latest? Or was it maybe the one that also inspired 4 stabbings at its New York premiere party, or the one where the star of the movie was at the same place as the shooting? My fault, I guess, for expecting logic from the “fire can’t melt steel” crowd
HunterD: Care to guess my ethnic background? I am an American. My skin is black. I did not vote for Obama, based on his politics, and nothing else. He panders to the base instincts of all parasites, white or black or brown or yellow. We, the so called “Black Community” have more problems due to the idiocy of The Great Society, treating blacks as a group rather than as individuals. It is true. Liberals demonstrate racism with their every move. There were countless blacks that did not vote for Obama. Those of us that are American first, and black second, do not appreciate being grouped. We are individuals, and expect to be treated as such. My quote from Iowahawk is testimony to the delusions of all leftists, regardless of color. I do not want or expect a hand out. I raised eight children in the same culture. Judge me for who and what I am, not what I look like. We are all devout Roman Catholic, fervently believe in the sanctity of life and we do not judge. We do, however, observe and are free to share our observations under the constitution. Yes, America had a history of slavery. When I was young and growing up in the south, in the fifties and sixties, I experienced first hand segregation in all of its evil…at the hands of Democrats like George Wallace. We took communion every Sunday side by side with whites, latinos and blacks. We played together as children. We stood by each other at weddings, baptisms and funerals. We formed life long friendships that endure to this day, sixty odd years later. We are all truly color blind. We all deplore the idea that a reprobate like Notorious and his ilk are considered part of ‘culture’. Raising criminality to the status of culture is the refuge of collectivist group-think, no doubt due to some sense of guilt. No Thank You.
Lest you forget, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Obama’s ego, and liberal guilt, allow him to ‘play’ Lincoln. Our children, all of our children, need role models that reflect American values, not the values of drug addled criminals, prostitutes, sleaze, victimhood or a sense of entitlement. My children and grandchildren hold Dr. King, Pope John Paul II, Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas, St. Francis of Assisi and Rush Limbaugh up as their heroes. Hunter D, you should try thinking for yourself sometime, you will find it a refreshing change of pace from being a member of the herd.
Jesse Taylor:
Gangsters and thugs “play” with guns. The vast majority of NRA members I know and have known (starting with my grandpa when I was a little kid) don’t put those two words together. They USE guns. They TRAIN with them and PRACTICE to make sure they can use them competently and safely for purposes such as HUNTING and LEGITIMATE SELF-DEFENSE. The NRA, like Biggie Smalls, produces videos – but their videos deal with safety, conservation, and how to PROPERLY use a gun legally and safely. Smalls’ videos, on the other hand, teach pretty much the opposite – and have helped promote a culture primarily to young black males that is literally killing them and their future.
Get it?
And sorry – I’m just not willing to chalk up the fact that the shooting took place in the same building and at the same time the star of the movie was sitting. The police and other investigators have an obligation not to speculate to reporters so as not to poison a potential jury pool. That doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t draw our own common sense conclusions.
“Culture” is a neutral word. There are good cultures and bad ones. Some of that is in the eye of the beholder, I admit – those Taliban dudes did like a culture of religious persecution and violence, but I think most of us can agree THAT culture is objectively inferior to our own.
Only in the mind of the insular left could ALL cultures be celebrated as equally valid and good, when this is so obviously not the case.
Jay – January 18th, 2009 at 9:47 am
These people are animals. What is truly frightening is that a large number of the more “successful artists” are vocal supporters of our soon to be President. Thug life comes to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Everyone is responsible for everyone who likes him? Damn, it’s a good thing that Mario Cuomo never became President or obviously it would have been shiny Italian suits, wife-beater undershirts and dropped final “Rs” all over la Casa Bianca!
I want someone to deal with the Benjamin Button issue. Why aren’t we teeing off on Brad Pitt?
See, Jesse, this is the problem. The “plain meaning” of “play” does not include what NRA people do. You don’t understand that because you probably don’t know very many of them. Liberalism has taught you to equate EVERYTHING, and to never make distinctions between good or bad (that would be discrimination!). There are a lot of tools I enjoy working with – that doesn’t mean I’m playing with them.
And I’m not saying I want black males or anyone else to be prohibited from having guns. No double standard here, although nice try in building THAT strawman. What I want is a culture that teaches them to use those guns responsibly. The culture I grew up with taught that. The culture Bigs grew up in did not. That’s what this website is about – culture. See, like many on the left, you assume (because people tend to assume other people share their own mode of thinking) that if people on the right don’t like something, they automatically want to outlaw it. This is untrue. We’d MUCH rather have a culture which PRESSURES better behavior. It’s far less coercive and far more conducive to individual liberty, which is our touchstone.
Someone imitating the gangsta lifestyle is ABSOLUTELY playing. It’s just that they’re playing a very deadly game, and usually are too young/immature/stupid/high to understand the consequences of their sorry little game.
Exactly, Perfectblue.
To refer to shooting and killing human beings as “playing” is an insult to the victims of gun violence.
CRISSA, the above post is for you too.
Jesse, once someone says the words “plain meaning” and reveals themselves as a devotee of the Scalia school of interpretation (i.e., what I thought was meant was clearly meant, and no other meaning was admissable) there’s no point in continuing a dialogue. The gap is too great.
Ugh fine.
Play (verb, used without object–first definition)
“to exercise or employ oneself in diversion, amusement, or recreation.”
How does that meaning fit the horrific instance of gun violence, particularly in urban and african american communities. How does that meaning NOT fit the recreational use of firearms to shoot, e.g, deer? If we’re gonna play the “plain meaning” game, you’ve got it exactly backwards. Context is everything.
I think this point is quite silly and trivial, but I do think it serves to illustrate the extent to which you’re disinterested in opposing viewpoints.
ERL-I suppose you’re going to debate what the meaning of ‘is’ is next?
Scalia is a brilliant jurist, if you’re remotely interested in original intent of the founding fathers. Clarence Thomas is also a serious scholar of not only the constitution but of the Federalist Papers and other writings of the founders, as is Scalia. Libs hate jurists that do not share their belief that the constitution is a ‘living document’ from a judicial perspective. It IS a living document from the people’s perspective…hence the amendments to the original document, NOT judicial activism…from either side of the idealogical divide. ERL doesn’t seem to be well read on the actual decisions of SCOTUS or the writings and arguments of the individual justices. I’m not certain he understands the constitutional function of the Supreme Court.
Guns bring out the weird in people, unlike any other tool in civilized society. I am for outlawing screwdrivers…they have pointy ends and look scary.
Hunting, violence and cancer are all part of mankind’s history and make-up. Hunting provides food. Violence provides an outlet for anger. Cancer kills. We should celebrate hunting, but ‘we’ condemn it while whining about violence as we attempt to elevate it to ‘culture’ status. We don’t elevate cancer to culture status, but we depict deviates like Notorious BIG as heroes instead of the cancer on society that they truly are. Our society is dysfunctional, as all socialist societies have been, especially at the start of collectivism. This nation was founded on individual freedom, responsibility and accountability. Only weaklings advocate collectivism, as they are not strong enough to succeed on their own efforts and merit. They must form a herd or mob in order to establish and bolster their group esteem-they have no self esteem, which is earned, so esteem must be bestowed by the group to itself. The truly strong tend to be loners and individuals. The weak are members of herds, mobs and the democrat party.
This is why I get very angry when libs try to make me part of the “African-American Community”. This stems from their desire to be part of the “Guilty White Liberal Community”. My son was once asked why he was Catholic instead of being a member of a “Black Church”. He’d still be whipping that kid’s ass if his mother didn’t haul him out of there by his ear.
I am an American. My skin is black. Don’t project your own weakness and guilt on me. I want no part of it. I am in my middle sixties, grew up in the south during the fifties and sixties, served three tours in Viet Nam. I am an American and I love this country. I have no desire to see it destroyed to indulge the vanity of liberals, be they white, black or otherwise. If you don’t like it here, move to a country that is already a socialist haven and leave the rest of us grown ups alone.
Orrin Johnson – Heh. Let me start by stating that I’m a gun owner and I’ve got nothing against guns per se. However, the *VAST* majority of NRA members are not hunters, hunting has been on a serious decline in the USA for the past few decades, and “hunting” in the sense of “going into the woods and actually shooting an animal” has declined even further. Most states that issue deer hunting licenses issue more licenses than there are deer in that state, because most people who go “deer hunting” actually “go out drinking an playing with guns”.
Yes, there are serious hunters and serious home defense types. But its entirely fallacious to claim that they compose even a majority of gun owners and/or NRA members. I know far too many overgrown juveniles who are NRA members, have never hunted in their lives, know squat about home defense, but do play with guns.
I live in the Texas panhandle, a place where one of the main recreations of choice is to get blind drunk on piss poor beer and shoot at the beer bottles. You can’t tell me that NRA members don’t play with guns, I’ve watched ‘em do it.
Hello All. Please read this link carefully and put those BRAINS to work on it. Leave your FEELINGS at the door. This requires thought, not emotions. Emotions are for personal time.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/obama_and_the_lessons_of_histo.html
Look at all the pussy crybaby Republicans on here. It is a veritable online maternity ward.
Peter Pike’s comment about how society would benefit from the suppression of art created by artists with less than saintly (fictional saints, at that) backgrounds represents one of conservatives’ most ancient pipe dreams. Not coincidentally, the suppression of art deemed offensive to the authorities is the hallmark of dictatorships throughout history.
Through so many of these social experiments (Communists, Fascists, et. al.),we have learned that stories about good, conservative, people behaving goodly not only don’t sell, they don’t make anyone behave goodly either. And lots of good people end up in jail and suffer harsh interrogations.
You people really think that if all movies were about Jesus, everyone would act like Jesus?
Didn’t a white Iraq vet shoot a guy at Benjamin Button? Does that mean that white people are inherantly violent? I mean lots of white people shoot people.
But some guy in the comments (Dr. kenneth) thinks it is ok to shoot people in movie theaters. So what reason other than racism do we have for it being ok for white guys to shoot in a theater but not ok for black guys to do it, as per Dr. K? Please explain.
You must be logged in to post a comment.