So I went to American Sniper last night. It's a good movie, just like everybody says.

In the context of this blog, it deals first with the U.S. Embassy attacks, and then 9/11 as motivating factors for Chris Kyle to join the Navy Seals and avenge these attacks. It should be mentioned at this juncture that the movie was directed by Clint Eastwood, who's about as right wing as right wing gets, so either he's a closet truther, or this got slid by him.

The scene in question occurs when Chris Kyle's wife calls him into the room to look at the TV- this scene is set on 9/11/2001. And there on the TV set is the predictable image of the towers being struck by aircraft- so far nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, the banner headline on the screen says "Third Explosion rocks Towers". These of course being the explosions that were reported by mainstream media on the day of the attacks as being heard, felt and (ultimately recorded by seismic equipment) occuring in that brief window after aircraft impact but before global collapse. Those same explosions that have never been mentioned since. Also the audio portion of the newscast is heard, where the words "controlled demolition" can be clearly heard. These are not the words spoken by Dan Rather we're all familiar with, but they are spoken by the newscaster in the clip nonetheless. The language banters back and forth, forgive me if I don't have it word for word, but something about "controlled demolition, more like an uncontrolled demolition". This will all be easier to review once this movie is released on DVD naturally.

So I asked myself, of all of the news footage that could have been used to represent the 9/11 attacks, why this news clip?

Maybe it's just me, but I saw similar references throughout the cartoon movie "The Incredibles", where a news crawl at the bottom of the screen ran continually throughout one scene- ala 9/11, referencing a large attack and an aircraft that had crashed into the ground level of a building. And then there's the anti-hero, who was known by a single letter "S" (think "W") who was confronted by Crag T. Nelson's booming character voice- "You killed real heros so you could pretend to be a hero?"