Film news is real news this morning, as a consulate and a safe house in Libya were stormed, and the US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens killed along with three others in an attack. The US embassy in Egypt was also stormed by an angry mob, and in both cases, the mobs were angry about an obscure, Anti-Islamic film called “Innocence of Muslims” (screencap above left). The film was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real estate developer named Sam Bacile, who released a 14-minute trailer back in July. Through a complicated series of events detailed by the NY Times blog The Lede, the film eventually came to be championed by Florida pastor Terry Jones, the dipsh*t who wanted to hold a Koran-burning event a while back, and a collection of anti-Islam, Coptic Christian Egyptians like Morris Sadek, with Jones planning to show the trailer to his congregation in Gainesville. Clips of the film were eventually picked up by the Arab media, where extremists used them to stir up anti-Western sentiment, much like that Danish cartoon kerfuffle from a fews years back.
Contravening the Islamic prohibition of portraying the prophet, clips from the film show him not only as flesh and blood—but as a homosexual son of undetermined patrimony, who rises to advocate child slavery and extramarital sex, for himself, in the name of religion.
The film’s 52-year-old writer, director and producer, Sam Bacile [who is now said to be in hiding, duh], said that he wanted to showcase his view of Islam as a hateful religion. “Islam is a cancer,” he said in a telephone interview from his home. “The movie is a political movie. It’s not a religious movie.”
Mr. Bacile said he raised $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors, whom he declined to identify. Working with about 60 actors and 45 crew members, he said he made the two-hour movie in three months last year in California.
The film has been promoted by Dr. Jones, who said Tuesday that he planned to show a 13-minute trailer that night at his church in Gainesville, Fla.
“It is an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam,” he said in a statement. “The movie further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.” [WallStreetJournal]
The tragedy here being, of course, that when dumbasses kill people over a dumbass film made by other dumbasses, you’d hope that the dead would at least be more dumbasses. Sadly, dumbasses, can’t aim, and some innocent diplomats paid the price. You can see a bit of the film here:
If only the Libyan and Egyptian protestors would’ve waited a few weeks, Sam Bacile would surely have been attacked by his own Jewish investors when they saw that he’d taken their 50 grand and made this piece of sh*t. If this cost $5 million, the sweatpants I’m wearing right now are worth 100 grand. You gotta love the random, overweight valley girls walking around whatever Middle Eastern country this is supposed to be.
It reminds me of that old SNL bit where “Azrael Abyss” would try to make goth films in the park, but there’d be people playing Frisbee in the background.
In any case, this whole story seems like the most perfect illustration to date of Patton Oswalt’s shorthand for religion-based controversies, “Oh, Skycake! Why are you so delicious?!”
UPDATE, AFTERNOON: Doubt has been cast as to whether Sam Bacile is actually a real person, and whether the film was just a convenient excuse for a pre-planned terrorist attack. More here.