My thoughts on Innocence of the Muslims: There IS no full-length movie.//UPDATED

Yesterday evening, Bloomberg news posted an article entitled Figure Tied to Anti-Islam Film Has Criminal Fraud Record.

With all due respect to the writers, the article mainly reports that which those of us following the developing story online already knew earlier yesterday: that Mr. Bacile/Nakoula was an ex-con with a pretty jaw-dropping history of bank fraud and identity theft, and in the late 1990's, involvement in methamphetamine trafficking/creating.

However, at the end of the article, I found an extremely revealing quote from Christian extremist, "Wake Up America" video-star, and Media For Christ figure Steve Klein (my emphasis):

Klein, 62, heads the group Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, which stages rallies and educational events, contending Islam is a threat to U.S. democracy and freedom.  

He said he read the script before the movie was shot and advised the filmmaker to recruit actors through a Hollywood talent agency. Klein said he didn’t know the name of the agency.

The movie had one theatrical showing at a cinema on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Klein said.

“I got there about a half hour before the movie started and stayed a half hour after it started and I saw zero -- nada, none, no people -- go inside,” Klein said.

To date, Klein is the only source I'm aware of for the assertion that Innocence of the Muslims was actually a movie--not just a 13-minute piece of agitprop--that was shown in a theatre, that is to say, an unnamed cinema on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Look at Klein's exact word choice: He says he got there thirty minutes before the movie allegedly began--a reasonable window of time while the lights are still on before assorted previews, commercials, and the actual movie begins and an important detail indicating you could see properly if you were going to later assert, believably, that no-one else walked in.

Klein then says he stayed a half-hour after the movie started and saw "zero -- nada, none, no people -- go inside,".  This time frame is important, too, because if he had claimed to have sat through the entire length of the alleged movie--let's say it was purported to be 90 minutes--he might have been asked about scenes and details that he saw which were not in the now-infamous 13-minute clip.  Klein needed to be able to explain the fact that he knew of no other scenes or details, so he kept the time frame of his alleged attendance very short.

Think about it: Why would the person who has, thus far, seemed rather proud of and unapologetic about the "film" NOT want to sit through the entirety of the project that he helped bring about--at least once? Even if it meant sitting all by himself in a dark theatre for 90 minutes (which would be preferred conditions for a critical screening anyway)?

I seriously doubt Klein sat in any theatre on Sunset and watched Innocence of the Muslims by himself for any length of time whatsoever.

And I strongly suspect, based on what we know so far, that there IS no full-length movie. Only the incendiary agitprop piece, timed to be just long enough, but not so long as to exceed the 15-minute time limit that YouTube places on uploads by non-verified accounts.

[I copied this post directly from a long comment I made this morning at Daily Kos; that site's font and typesetting styles remain intact.-- DNT]

UPDATE: It turns out I was wrong about the 13 minute clip being all there was. (I maintain Klein is still lying about having seen the movie in a theatre on Sunset. If evidence proving otherwise surfaces, I will publish it here.) This Monday morning, I'm learning there is a longer version--74 minutes--of the film that has recently been posted to YouTube. I will not link to it here, but readers should easily be able to find it if they are so inclined.

Furthermore, yesterday afternoon, I learned via the extremism-watchdog blog Talk To Action that islamophobic blogger Pamela Geller had not only co-hosted anti-Muslim rallys with Coptic Christian extremist Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, head of Media For Christ, but also had posted on her blog Atlas Shrugs a fundraising appeal for the "movie" by another figure involved in the making of the film--seemingly a screenwriter who goes by the name Ali Sina (his own website is currently offline, and all Internet archives after summer of 2011 have been scrubbed).

Ali Sina establishes a clear intent to inflame:

I am not thinking of a high budget movie, but given the subject matter, it can become one of the most seen motion pictures ever. (Recall Danish cartoons?)

And in a comment responding to another Atlas Shrugs reader, he offers details that would appear to line up with the content of the piece that would eventually be called Innocence of Muslims:

"Any film about Mohammed should not leave out the beheadings of 900 men and boys of the Banu Quraysha tribe, his 78 battles in the last nine years of his life, nor his thieving, misogyny, lying, murderous and paedophilic ways. But somehow, I would expect it to have these glaring omissions. We are in the politically correct self-loathing West and are afraid of offending a mouse if it sports a crescent." 

Not so! All those details are in the movie. That is the whole porpose of this movie - to tell what others don't. In 4 hours you can't tell everything, that is why I have chosen the parts that really matter. The devil is in the detail.

Obviously, this is a developing story. As further, updated information becomes available, I will share it in a new post.

-- DNT