Armored

'Armored' MPAA rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense violence, some disturbing images and brief strong language Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes Playing: In general release

For Larry Zanoff, the armorer who lent Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" its firepower, fake blood can be a serious occupational hazard. "The gun gets splattered with fake blood," he said. "Now it's all gummed up; it doesn't want to work anymore. That's why we had backup guns, multiples and multiples of them. " Zanoff, 48, has never had a shortage of guns in his life. The son of a defense industry engineer who was also a competitive rifle shooter, Zanoff showed at age 6 an aptitude for disassembling his father's firearms.

Things get tense when a lone voice in a group of unbreakable car guards balks at the plan to cash in on a major delivery of their own in Sony Pictures' "Armored," set to hit theaters Dec. 4. In the film, Matt Dillon gets bloodied and Columbus Short plays the new guy whose spark of morality sets the situation ablaze after a cop is unexpectedly shot during the heist. Director Nimrod Antal had to orchestrate a shoot that saw armored car stunts, gun battles, fire and a large cast that also includes Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Skeet Ulrich and Milo Ventimiglia.

Scientists have infused "life" into inanimate chemical compounds by flashing a blue-violet light that prompted them to assemble themselves into a crystal. The feat, described in a study published online Thursday by the journal Science, marks an important step toward creating "active" materials that can repair themselves, such as a smartphone screen that fixes its own cracks or a Kevlar vest that fills a hole made by a bullet, experts said. Showing that microscopic particles can be made to come together or break apart on their own "opens a new area for design and production of novel and moving structures," wrote the study authors, a team of physicists and chemists from New York University and Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

Canada's death toll in Afghanistan rose past the grim milestone of 100 after a roadside bomb killed three soldiers. Brig. Gen. Denis Thompson said the soldiers were riding in an armored vehicle on patrol west of the city of Kandahar when they struck an improvised explosive device.

A new wave of fear swept Beijing today as military convoys rumbled through the Chinese capital, firing repeatedly into the air and sometimes at pedestrians, while more armor was sent to reinforce the army's hold on Tian An Men Square. About 400 tanks, armored vehicles, troop and munition trucks moved into the square early today following a second day of bloodshed in central Beijing, while other convoys roamed the city around noon. Gunfire rocked the city's embassy section at about 1 p.m. as troops moved north past the compound housing the American ambassador's residence and the press and cultural section of the U.S. Embassy.

Can you explain why every single component of the media picks up a specific word or expression and repeats it endlessly, without attempting to analyze what they are saying, much less recompose or, God forbid, try to improve the use of the English language? Early news on TV reported that the death of the thugs in that infamous North Hollywood shootout may have been "unnecessary." Not only was I incensed by the stupidity of the word, but I keep hearing this, repeated almost verbatim, by everybody ("Bank Robber Bled to Death Unnecessarily," April 21.)

A convoy of up to 1,000 armored vehicles and 500 trucks carrying Soviet arms and food broke through a guerrilla blockade and rumbled into Kabul on Tuesday in the biggest operation of its kind since Moscow's troops left Afghanistan two months ago. Helicopter gunships flew overhead as the columns of tanks, armored cars, mounted multiple-rocket launchers and food trucks reached the capital after running a gauntlet of guerrillas dug in on mountains dominating...

The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday in the journal Nature. Scientists studying 380-million-year-old fossils of the armored placoderm fish had thought the fish laid their eggs before fertilization. Then they realized the pelvis of male placoderms had a fin not seen on the female fish, and surmised it was probably used to grip its mate during fertilization, much as sharks do.

The robbery and gun battle in North Hollywood will settle into a fruitless debate, for most will dismiss that there is evil in the world and therefore continue to not understand how futile gun control is. Many will comment on a lack of balance in firepower. There really wasn't. LAPD proved that it is not the size of the weapon in the fight, it is the size of the fight in the one with the weapon. Their training and courage carried them through. As a police officer for the past 16 years I found once again that no matter what, when you need help, we show up and stay.

Russell Crowe's combat armor from the 2000 sword-and-sandal epic "Gladiator" and Keira Knightley's flowing 19th century dress from "Anna Karenina" won't displace princesses or superheroes from this year's National Retail Federation list of top-selling Halloween costumes. But anyone with an iPhone or iPad can try on these and 14 other classic film costumes virtually, through a new 99-cent application created to commemorate the opening of the Hollywood Costume Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

U.S. Armor Corp. employees know that lives depend on every product they turn out. The Cerritos company makes ballistic armor vests for law enforcement and emergency workers at more than 200 agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and the sheriff's departments of L.A. and Orange counties. But police can be a tough crowd. Phoenix patrol officer Jan Moore, for one, was skeptical when she received her custom-made vest. "I often wondered how it could possibly save me," she said.

Los Angeles Times AURORA, Colo. - It was less than half an hour into a post-midnight screening of the latest Batman movie,"The Dark Knight Rises,"when a young man opened an emergency exit door and slipped into a packed multiplex theater. He was dressed in dark, head-to-foot body armor, including a helmet, gas mask, vest and throat guard, and he was armed. "He didn't say anything," said Tayler Trujillo, an 18-year-old moviegoer. "He like kicked the door open with his foot and held it open with his foot, and he threw something and it landed in the row in front of me. " What ensued was several minutes of grisly horror as the intruder, armed with a combat-grade arsenal, set off two gas canisters and sprayed the theater with sustained gunfire.

These days a dollar can buy a can of soda, a song on iTunes - or, in South Pasadena's case, an armored vehicle. Last week the city took delivery of a vehicle known as a Peacekeeper, paying Burbank $1 for the privilege. Burbank originally received the Peacekeeper as surplus from the U.S. Air Force. The vehicle is primarily used for rescues and creates a barrier between a potential shooter and a resident or police officer, Burbank Police Lt. John Dilibert said. The Peacekeeper saw no action during its Burbank years except during SWAT exercises, but South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne said that his department is boosting its SWAT training and capabilities and that he's pleased to have the vehicle.

As many as 13 Americans were killed Saturday when a suicide bomber struck their armored military bus in Kabul, in what may be the single deadliest attack on U.S. citizens in the Afghan capital since the war began a decade ago. A U.S. official said the death toll was believed to be 13 U.S. citizens: five service members and eight civilian contractors. But, the official said, a Canadian and at least one British national could also be among the dead. The full extent of the casualties was unclear, he said, because the massive explosion had made identifying the dead difficult.

As students return to middle schools and high schools in California this fall, they will need more than fresh notebooks and apples for their teachers. Thanks to a state law that took effect last month, students entering grades 7 through 12 will need proof that they received a vaccine for whooping cough. The law was prompted by last year's outbreak of the highly contagious respiratory infection, which is also known as pertussis. Nearly 9,500 cases were reported in California, the most in 65 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Re "4-Hour Standoff Chokes Freeways," March 9 It seems to me that local law enforcement has lost its collective mind. How can any rational person determine that it is in the public's best interest to shut down seven miles of a critical freeway for half the business day for one person in an immobilized van? Please don't give us that puff about public safety; one person died in an accident possibly resulting from this fiasco. So here's an idea: The next time this happens, get a forklift, pick up the vehicle and move it out of harm's way. If law enforcement can get three armored vehicles around a van, surely they can armor a forklift.

You are correct that we, the public, are growing weary of hearing the NRA expound on "the right to bear arms." Expounded out of context and intent as drafted in our Constitution. Perhaps the first step for mankind is a uniform waiting period for purchase! This to be associated with subsequent and uniform registration of handguns on an annual basis, on change of permanent location and/or on change of ownership. We live in an era of weaponry capable of firing ammunition that can penetrate the armored vests that police officers are now forced to wear for protection!

When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates leaves the Pentagon every evening, he carries home a sheaf of documents about the latest American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. After dinner, usually alone, he takes out a pen and writes notes to the families of the fallen. And most nights, he weeps. He has signed about 3,400 condolence letters since taking over the Pentagon in late 2006, aides say. "There's probably not a day in the last four years that I haven't wept, and it's mostly when I'm doing those letters," Gates said in an interview.

Bahraini security forces have intensified their crackdown on the opposition by removing an estimated 20 to 80 wounded protesters from Salmaniya Medical Complex, the country's largest and best equipped hospital, said a human rights group and doctors in contact with hospital staff. The raid on the hospital and relocation of patients to undisclosed locations, if verified, would be an escalation of the state's harsh response to a largely peaceful protest movement whose persistence and size have shaken Bahrain's ruling Khalifa family.