Microcinema DVDs - Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup

2010-02-03 Pop Damage
By Roman Kozak

Just as in every other 9/11 article, I will use the cliché to catch your attention:

Each of us remembers exactly where we were on that fateful day of 9/11 as we watched jetliners fly into the Twin Towers, then saw those lofty landmarks crumble to the ground. We thought, “No way can this be happening to the United States! I mean, we are…..America!”

But it happened, and we were pissed. Where do we direct our anger? By the end of the day, Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network, al-Quaida, were to blame. Or is it Usama? The first three letters of his name are USA!?

This is not used to mock this historical event. This event was a tragedy and a horror. It breaks my heart to see the clips of people jumping from the buildings. It tears at me to hear those final phone calls between husbands and wives passing on their love to each other, ending with “tell the children I love them.” Were Osama, and his cronies hanging out amongst the mountains that separate Afghanistan and Pakistan, really to blame? Did the Islamic so-called “extremists” do this with box cutters because of their hate for the West’s “freedom and prosperity”?

The media has convinced the general masses that those who take Islam seriously are to blame. We’re American and we take offense to those who hate our freedoms. Reports released from the government all pointed to Osama and his henchmen.

Dylan Avery’s most recent and final cut of the Youtube sensation, Loose Change, is available on DVD and is highly revamped from the original, somewhat amateur, version released earlier, which challenges the media and government reports.

I have always been highly skeptical of Avery’s film. It appeared unpatriotic and unaware of the pain countless thousands of families were feeling.

How could you possibly think that our government would lie about the most horrendous attack on U.S. soil? Why would you try to unsettle the families’ sense of closure that the government and media have already given us? We know who did it! All these thoughts run rampant through your conscience, but while Loose Change is playing, you start to find yourself saying, “wait, this makes sense, but no, I can’t take something like this seriously. Wait, what? That does not make sense. Why would the government lie about that!? Whoa, this is true. No it can’t be. But that report is a lie! How did the towers topple like that?”

You argue with yourself during the whole documentary, trying to convince yourself otherwise. We cannot be as gullible as this makes the general public out to be.

If what Avery and the thousands of others who support his claims are right, then we are living through some of the greatest elite corruption ever known. Something that would cause Americans to commit felonies by trashing the American flag, turning it upside-down and lighting it on fire.

If what Avery and others claim is not true, then this is a mockery to America’s ideals and its democratic principles. The documentary is unsettling and rocks the foundational patriotism we have all inherited from our “pledge of allegiance” public school upbringing.

The problem I find with the newest cut of Loose Change is not the documentary, but with the loose ends it presents.

Avery does not simply state or imply that 9/11 is an inside job. This is the most beneficial revision Avery has made to his new film. Instead, it is a call to reinvestigate and answer the countless questions many Americans still have about this fateful day.

With the absurd number of questions still left unanswered, it is absolutely appropriate to call for some sort of reinvestigation. As the movie explains, along with some of those in mainstream media, the 9/11 commission was a sham and a mockery. It cleared up nothing significant and left the questions unanswered. A reinvestigation is needed and wanted by many, but the talking heads of our society have not helped to take this step.

Terms that gain negative connotations due to their context have disrupted this campaign, such as “truthers.” These terms decimate others who may call into question particular ideals and even something such as 9/11. “Truther” has been made into the same sort of swear word as that which “liberal” has been transformed into by conservative talk show hosts.

They no longer represent a particular ideological understanding or position, but represent a demeaning and derogatory position. Apparently some have “arrived” while others have not. I do not necessarily consider myself a liberal, and neither do many “truthers.” My point is the power of words and how easy they can dismiss anything with the connotations they carry.

“Truther” is one of these words, and many who use this term negatively have never looked into what they are suggesting. (Throwing Rosie O’Donnell in the group who supports Loose Change was what the media wanted: since dumb people are associated with this belief, the belief therefore is dumb. End of case) Not so fast, my friend. Sorry Rosie, but you are not the brightest bulb in the room. We all know this from watching that horrendous show “The View,” which should be subtitled “making a mockery of strong and smart women around the world.” Anyways, my point is that this language has destroyed much of the effort to bring awareness to the most tragic event in American history and its unanswered questions.

Loose Change is worth watching, no matter how much you hate the idea of it. I promise you will also walk away with questions. Whether you like it or not, explosive residue was found on the scene. Buildings do not collapse that way, and none ever has in modern history. Not in the case of a structure fire (jet fuel is not enough to do what it did, as scientific evidence from the video suggests). Government reports are not consistent with eye witnesses.

These are just some of the major discrepancies in the story we have been told. I’m not making a statement that it was Big Brother and Bush’s neo-con homeboys, but I am for a reinvestigation to wrap up the loose ends.

Call me a “truther” and a “conspiracy-nut” for all I care, if you want to Rush Limbaugh me. At least watch the documentary, read positions from both sides, and make up your own mind. Apparently the petitions signed by victims’ family members are not enough. What do they have to hide from us if it happened exactly as we are told? This event was the reason for two wars. It is not to be pushed aside. To quote a classic film masterpiece that my friends and I go to for a patriotic reminder: AMERICAAA! F*** YEAH!

2009-11-03 popmatters.com
By Bill Gibron

The events of 11 September, 2001 continue to resonate for most of us. It’s not a matter of never forgetting as much as always remembering. It also lingers for reasons that have very little to do with the horrific events of that day and, instead, deal directly with their shocking, sensationalized aftermath. Remember, we’ve gone to war because of it, turned our Constitution into a shell of its former self because of it, and played nation maker as an indirect byproduct of our desire to sweat out the enemy.

Now, nearly a decade later, memories haunt us like the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers, their significance continuously countermanded by declarations of support and pro-American prostylitizing. But for some, 9/11 is significant for other, more underhanded reasons. In the always compelling - if not usually logical - realm of conspiracy theory, the tragedy was nothing more than a staged coup, an outright power grab by a President and his insane inner circle to redefine the United States foreign policy for the next several years.

Pointing to previous despotic interventions on the part of position-mad politicians, the documentary Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup sets up a scenario by which George Bush, along with several highly placed members of his Cabinet, construct an elaborate cabal for a controlled implosion of the World Trade Center and a surrounding skyscraper. Evidence both anecdotal and visual is compiled, contradicting the “official version” of the day’s events. Coincidences turn into prearranged plotting (the sudden start of important war games on the same date as the attacks, the Federal agencies housed in the last structure) and illustrations from the past (Hitler and the Reichstag fire, Johnson and the JFK assassination) become validation for such a surreal, self-imposed catastrophe.

Like Oliver Stone’s evisceration of the Warren Commission, Loose Change hopes to dismantle the findings of the government’s own 9/11 tribunal, taking down the sequence of events, the men responsible, the motives for such a “stunt”, and the lack of any other explanation. They then pull out the most important and damning piece of proof they possess - a scientist who assures us that “explosive residue” and “nanothermite fragments” were found in the post-incident debris. Their argument sounds rational - reopen the investigation, follow the paper and rubble trail, and determine if four airplanes, several tons of jet fuel, and the structural integrity of the towers themselves could cause this kind of massive destruction - or in two cases, a lack thereof.

Indeed, where Loose Change wins a lot of points is in the presentation of the Pentagon/Pennsylvania cornfield discussions, two ancillary crash sites which yield little or no wreckage. While it doesn’t prove that two massive jumbo jets didn’t not smash into the side of a building or isolated farmland, the lack of anything remotely resembling a plane puts an uneasy spin on the surrounding conjecture. As Rescue Me‘s Daniel Sunjata narrates from a carefully crafted script director Dylan Avery, little lights start going off in our heads. It may be nothing more than a kneejerk reaction, a case of instant fault without benefit of all the facts, but it’s all Loose Change needs. From there, it can gather steam and discuss suppressed testimony, harmful hearsay, and any other kind of specious conclusion and, at the very least, gain our attention.

Yet what’s hardest about buying into Loose Change‘s conclusions, even if the intention is nothing more than to reexamine the case, is that there have been a great many post-tragedy attempts to illustrate what happened, outside a carefully orchestrated inside job. The Discovery Channel has delivered near definitive reports on the building collapses, arguing without much contradiction that a series of structural design flaws, including the rapid and sudden removal of the metal’s mandatory fireproofing, allowed the smoldering diesel to do its irreversible damage. Architects, other than the ones Avery speaks to, have also illustrated some construction missteps that may have helped in the buildings’ eventual “implosion” like freefall.

Of course, anything written above can and sometimes is used by Loose Change to support its theory, spun into a web so slick and a factual fallacy so compelling that you can’t help but get caught up in the hysterics. As with any situation that seems both unfathomable and unexplainable, Avery plays on our fears, both internal and external. He dismisses Al Qaeda and the whole Saudi/Bin Laden angle while drawing direct links to many in the Bush White House. Religious fervor and the increasing anger toward the United States in matters of Middle East policy are placated by interviews with individuals who heard “explosions” inside the various buildings on that fateful day. In fact, the overall insularity of Loose Change may be its greatest strength - and its most pejorative weakness. To forget the foreign landscape to forward an awkward and sometimes circular hypothesis misses the main purposes of the documentary format - instruction and insight.

Yet Loose Change cannot be shouted down, Bill Maher style, in simple hopes that its supporters go away. Indeed, we live in times when everything is suspect, from the simplest proposition to the most complicated multilayered circumstance. The internet fuels feelings of distrust and personal empowerment, making investigative journalism null and void in favor or blogsphere deduction and messageboard conclusions. Does Avery and his DVD narrative expose questions that should be looked into and addressed once and for all? Absolutely. For instance - Why did we ship all the WTC metal out of the country without inspection? Why was there no wreckage near the Pentagon or out in Pennsylvania? Were the foreign pilots really experts, or patsies as part of a bigger scheme? In our initial rush to judgment, certain conclusions became givens. Loose Change suggests there is still more to learn and it might just be right.

But again, being on the moral side of a subject doesn’t prove your position. It will take more than a few blow-up frames of the towers’ collapse and some casual conversations with witnesses to convince the family of a fallen soldier that he died because George Bush wanted to maintain his passive Presidency by any means necessary. It’s going to take a lot more than handy happenstance and easy alignments to turn a nationally televised incident into a wholly realized secret strategy. No one said for Avery and his ilk to be silenced. Their voice is one of concern, not crackpot history. But one must always be careful when treading on memory.

For many, that’s all that remains of 9/11. Take that away, and you upset the long settled balance. Loose Change clearly delights in such shakeups. Here’s hoping it can accept whatever happens - pro, con, or most likely, nothing. This is a very clever bit of cinema. But good does not automatically equal correct. Currently, all Avery has is motion picture proof, and that’s just not enough.

2009-10-05 Q W Magazine
By Mark Jungwirth

Since its first installment the Loose Change series has been at the forefront of the 9-11 Truth movement. It was called “the first internet blockbuster of all time” and has millions of views on YouTube. The most recent addition, Loose Change: An American Coup, didn’t deviate from the path of constantly following up with current information. Avery could have just re-hashed the other films a bit and created a new mash up, but that’s not at all the case. There is plenty of great new stuff in this film. I can’t possibly cover everything here, but I’ll give you a taste of some of the new facts presented. The film begins by citing examples of false flag attacks in previous history. Then it touches on project paperclip, as well as the Project For A New American Century (PNAC), which is a right wing think tank. It gives a history of the Bin Laden video tapes and goes over that the translation that the Department of Defense was giving us was not accurate. There is also an in-depth look at Amalgam Virgo and Vigilant Guardian, as well as the other war games going on that day. This section has more information than previously given in the earlier films. There are new details about the individual hijackings. And one of the best pieces of new information is the interview where Dr. Steven Jones breaks down the proof of the super explosive, thermate, in dust samples collected from the World Trade Center (WTC). He goes over the chemical composition of it and the lab tests that they performed on it. This is a great new section that has a lot of up-to-date and irrefutable evidence. Another cool interview is a follow-up interview with Barry Jennings, who speaks of explosions inside building 7 of the WTC complex. The film covers his controversial death as well. Getting near the end, the film tells the story of Smedley Butler. Butler was a General who blew the whistle on a large number of the ruling elite who were going to attempt a coup to overthrow President Roosevelt and install a fascist regime. This is a very interesting and necessary piece of history to include. Wrapping it up, the narrator, Daniel Sunjata, says that a group has hijacked America that is beyond any one man or any one administration, a statement that is very well put. Speaking of the narrator, Sunjata does an excellent job as his voice is clear, calm, and precise with each delivered line. And with his notoriety and passion for 9-11 Truth, I believe they made the right call in that department. I do have to say, just for the sake of irony, that one of the recent callers on the Alex Jones show was right: Daniel Sunjata can be easily mistaken sometimes for Charlie Sheen, which is an odd 9-11 related coincidence due to Charlie Sheen also being deeply involved in 9-11 Truth. The way this documentary is edited, worded, and presented is a bit more palatable for newcomers to 9-11 Truth than the previous films. It contains a lot of incredible new facts and information and puts it all together in a very classy manner. There were only a few things missing from the film that I feel are mandatory in a 9-11 documentary, and they are the insider trading information, the details about the roles of companies like Kroll, and the fact that the CIA created and funded Al-Qaeda through Pakistan’s ISI. But you can’t expect everything to be perfect. Over-all Loose Change: An American Coup is a tremendous film that everybody should own and nobody should ever stop talking about.

2009-09-24 Filmmaker, CKCU film critic and theatre owner
By Lee Demarbre

I think it’s the best of the four [Loose Change movies] that they’ve put together.

2009-09-23 DVD Reviews and More

“Loose Change” is one of the very few films in recent history that has deservedly acquired “cult” status. Directed by Dylan Avery, with a ,000 budget, it was originally released for free in the internet and as DVD in some stores in 2005. Since then, it has been edited and released three additional times, the most recent one being the very informative and provocative “Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup.”

The current version of “Loose Change” follows the tradition of its predecessors, in which the filmmakers try to explain who may have been the real forces that were responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on US soil, in which, as we know, the World Trade Center Twin Towers were apparently demolished by the impact of two airplanes. Since the premiere of the first film, each following version has been updated, with some scenes removed, some improved, and some added. Very much has happened since 2005, and the new edition of this very important film includes well-researched additional information.

Narrated by actor Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me), the documentary opens with several key episodes in world history, in which governments have taken advantage of specific situations or crises to promote their agendas, most of them not necessarily for the good of mankind. We witness, for example, how Hitler rose to power; how Franklyn Delano Roosevelt lied about Pearl Harbor; the interesting history of the Atomic bomb and its eventual use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the lies about the Gulf of Tonkin, which led the US to war in Vietnam. All these events were shadowy in nature, and their results have been cataclysmic.

Once the tone is set, the filmmakers take us to the events leading to September 11, 2001. Some of the hijackers’ lives and motives are examined in some detail, providing us with some inconsistencies that do not match the government’s version. We then move to the sad day itself, and are provided with an exhaustive account of all the air-defense exercises, designed to prevent attacks on US soil, that were taking place that same day, and how the alleged terrorists nevertheless succeeded with no resistance. This, I think, is the best documented part of the film. Then, of course, the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers is examined in detail, stressing the well-known point of view that this collapse was the result of an inside job, rather than the impact of the planes. For this purpose, some experts are summoned and they provide evidence about the controlled demolition hypothesis, making emphasis that never in history steel-supported buildings have collapsed due to heat. However, most intriguing is the story of building WTC 7, which collapsed several hours after the twin towers did. This building apparently suffered minor damages to its structure, compared to the ones that were immediately next to the twin towers. Nobody, apparently, even the government apologists, is taking about it. Witnesses to this mysterious and unexplainable collapse were interviewed and provide chilling accounts of this event. Finally, the crash of the airplane that hit the pentagon and the one that crashed on an open field in Pennsylvania, in which little evidence of a plane crash was found – if any --, are also discussed.

There is plenty of information in “Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup,” which will leave the viewer full of questions. I saw the original, which Vanity Fair claimed “might be the first Internet blockbuster,” and I never get tired of watching it. This film is really a “work-in progress,” because of its continuous evolution. As new evidence is uncovered, the movie takes a new shape, and I don’t doubt that new versions will be popping out in the future. Hopefully, one of these days somebody in government, with power, determination, and love for country will order a real, unbiased and nonpartisan investigation of this, as the filmmakers suggest, “psychological attack on the American People.” The DVD includes a 12-page booklet featuring Daniel Sunjata’s manifesto to our elected officials and corporate media; interview with Sunjata; interview with Richard Gage, founder of Architects and Engineers fro 9/11 truth; and more.