Rating: 
Summary: interesting and valid point of view
Review: I saw this movie knowing little of Michael Moore and his ideas... I knew the general ideas but never read or saw any of his other material...This movie begins from Moore's own questioning of WHY did the Columbine killings happen. I sense Moore is a man who truly loves his country and is raising questions to begin a dialogue and thought about the issues he cares about. In his journey of giving us the facts, he discovers and points out:
-Americans citizens do not have more guns than any other country, Canadians have just as many as we do. -Japan is the worlds capital of violent video games. -Germany bred the Nazi party... we are not a more violent society.. yet we have a substantially higher percentage of killings with guns by citizens than any other country in the world... and this is the point Moore tries to discover thru this movie... this is something not completely analysed and revealed in the movie I felt... but more of a statement of fact of the statisics and his thoughts on the media, fear and commercialism has dumbed down our country to the point where we are scared of each other... I am a fan of Marilyn Manson but had never heard him speak on issues and was well suprised by his genuine talk with Moore. Bowling for Columbine should be watched by everyone of us who care about the state of our country and consider ourselves to be patriots. Conservative or Liberal the views and facts Moore presents should be considered.
Rating:
Summary: One of a kind...
Review: Bowling For Columbine has to be one of the most significant movies I have watched in a long time. From the time I hit play on the DVD player to the end of the theatrical trailer, I was very pleased. Mr. Moore really made me think, and no matter what anyone says he has a lot of points. The truth is we have more deaths in America, no matter what anyone says, than any other country and there is no excuse. There are no reasons why we like to kill one another. Not because of history, ethnicity, video games, TV, music, politics, NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING. And Michael Moore is a guy that is trying to shed some light on this subject and figure out with this is just so.
Rating:
Summary: everybodies favorite "leftist traitor" strikes again
Review: michael moore has taken a bunch of right wing nuts and video taped them in awkward situations, could anything be more entertaining? moore destroys several of the topical explanations for the violence in this country like gun ownership, video games, and maralyn manson and forces us to acknowledge that the violence is a much deeper and harder to fix problem. the reason he gives (our culture of fear) has its merits but i doubt the entire problem can be explained by it. if you have ever watched the news in canada you know that its a VERY different culture. when i watched the news there there was not a single story about violence, except a mention of a political "pie-throwing" incident. of course this movie is first and foremost entertainment, but the political message is important. hes great at proving other people wrong, but not so good at showing that he's right. the best thing about this movie is the right's reaction to it. they've been calling it decieving, misleading ect without citing a single decent example. facts are exagerated, but theres really nothing wrong with that as long as the origional facts support what he is saying (which they always do), especially since he doesnt work for the government like a certain illiterate fact twister and fabricator i can think of. the only example i saw was from a guy who said moore chopped up and respliced the speeches to make them sound the way he wants them to. of course he cut out parts of speeches that were of no use to him, but if he had conststructed sentences that the speaker had never intended you would definately notice because the speaker's tone would be discontinuous and their head would instantly move in mid sentence. that simply never happened.
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining but disingenuous
Review: Bowling for Columbine is an entertaining hour and a half. But as the credits roll, you'll begin to have doubts about its value as a piece of journalism or, for that matter, even as a political polemic. It certainly demonstrates the power wielded by a documentary maker. That curious feeling that comes after an argument that's gone badly - "If only I'd said [Insert witty but devastating rejoinder here]" - must be something Moore's interviewees feel en masse. Moore himself doesn't have that problem: with the benefit of hindsight he can (and does) supply his own explanatory commentary, and he edits and de-contextualises statements made by interviewees with whom he doesn't agree. Such sleight of hand is very hard to spot (though the dead giveaways are very brief, fractured interview excerpts) and impossible to unpick from the viewer's perspective. What can be unpicked, however, is Moore's logic. The order of the day is innuendo, double standards and bias. Moore (quite correctly, in my view) pooh-poohs Marilyn Manson's responsibility for influencing the Columbine gunners, pointing out the lack of causative evidence for the link and arguing that the killers were just as likely to have been influenced by the trip they made to a bowling alley on the day of the shootings (hence the title of the film). But without drawing a breath, Moore suggests that instead we should look to US foreign policy for the reason - Columbine occurred on the day of the US's most heavy bombardment of Kosovo. You can't have it both ways, and imagining these particular adolescents having any idea about US foreign policy is laughable. Similarly, we are told Columbine is nearby the factory, in Littleton Colorado, of Lockheed Martin, the world's largest weapons manufacturer. Well, *a* factory, at any rate. What we're not told is that the factory manufactures no weapons, only weather and communications satellites. A hapless company spokesman is interviewed in front of an enormous rocket-like thing, which (though Moore doesn't mention it) is exactly that: a rocket, for launching satellites. Moore describes it as a "Missile of Mass Destruction". In any case, the likelihood that the location or existence of this factory, weapon producing or not, triggered the Columbine shootings is surely low. Moore makes many statements which have no probative value and can only have been included for the prejudice they would dredge up in the viewer: we are informed, for example, that the National Rifle Association was founded in the same year the Ku Klux Klan was criminalised. Exactly what point Moore thought he was making here is not clear. Winston Churchill was born and there was a fire in Chicago in the same year, but Moore doesn't mention these. Both are about as relevant. Moore is inconsistent in his attribution of blame for the crisis and eventually just gives up. Given the amount of time he spends pursuing Charlton Heston, you would think that the NRA is his main target. Indeed, it seems to be, though by the conclusion of the film Moore has almost conceded that the NRA mantra - it's people, not guns, who kill - is pretty much right. He makes much of gun crime statistics in which the handgun murder rate in the US is measured in tens of thousands, against mere hundreds in European countries, and Canada. It's very difficult to verify the statistics, which are widely cited, but he points out that Canada has almost as common gun ownership as the United States, but only 130 murders a year. Which would suggest that gun ownership (and therefore the NRA) really isn't the problem. When pushed on this point, the NRA trots out what Moore clearly considers the old chestnut that America has a history of violence. Moore makes the counterpoint (repeatedly during the film) that Germany, Russia and France all have violent histories, but nothing like the US's gun fatalities. The fact of the matter is that Europe's history of violence has generally been a case of state perpetrating it on the population and not the population on each other, and at any rate it has generally been profoundly political in nature. The American history of violence (until very recently) has been neither. Moore also spends some time on the case in Flint, Michigan where a six year old took a gun to school and shot a classmate. This he blames on right wing politics; the child's mother having been forced to work for welfare and so not on hand to see her child packing its gun for school. Moore corners Dick Clark, at whose bar and grill she was working at the time of the tragedy, to no obvious point. Wisely, Clark shuts the door of his van and bids his driver depart at once. The shooting looks for all the world like a tragic accident, and had little if anything to do with trickledown economics, and certainly wasn't Dick Clark's fault. At the end of the day, this is a very entertaining but highly disingenuous film. I don't think you could call it a piece of journalism, nor really a documentary, as it is so frequently wide of the mark as to enter the fictional realm - sometimes lazily, but I suspect sometimes maliciously. As long as you watch it with a healthy sense of scepticism it isn't a bad night in.
Rating: 
Summary: Taken with a Grain of Salt, but Provocative Nonetheless
Review: Unlike some, I found the basic truth behind Michael Moore's documentary to be profound and could stand up the constant digs people make regarding his editing techniques and inherent liberal bias. Maybe turnabout is fair play (tell me that Hannity, O'Reilly or Coulter are 'unbiased' and I'll show you a flying pink elephant), maybe it isn't, but regardless, the film does make you think a fair bit about the nature of fear. It also forces the viewer to dig deeper than the normally glib answers given to explain violence, particularly gun violence, in America. Plus, just to clarify something, the K-Mart stunt didn't only get HANDGUN bullets off of the shelves of one K-Mart, but rather it effectively got K-Mart to remove them from their entire chain of stores. HANDGUN bullets are meant for the purpose of KILLING other HUMAN BEINGS. They're purpose is not fulfilled in the sport of HUNTING. Shotgun and Rifle ammunition can serve this purpose. 9 mm semiautomatic pistol rounds are the tools of killing people. Sure, anyone can go kill someone with a Ford Bronco or even a kitchen knife. It is a bit funny how killers seem to like choosing the good old fashioned gun more often than not. Moore Recognizes that in a country mad with fear and panic, perhaps we shouldn't be so-armed. Maybe you shouldn't be able to go down to a K-Mart and buy bullets for a 9 mm handgun so easily. Maybe your kid shouldn't be able to do such a thing.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking. Informative. Intelligent.
Review: I'm not going to go on and on about how wonderful this movie is, because I think it speaks for itself, and many of the people who have already reviewed it have done a very good job of doing so. I only wish to point out something that I haven't seen in many of the other reviews I've read. Moore does, in fact, give an answer to the question of "why does the United States have so many more gun related deaths than any other country?" The answer, if you follow the movie closely enough, is fear; The fear that the media instills in us on a daily basis because it makes for good ratings. This media bias seems to be much more prevalent in our American society, and seems to be the only majorly dissimilar aspect of our country, as compared to others. I suppose the more fearful you are, the more likely you are to feel threatened and have to "defend" yourself from someone else, even if the threat isn't real. Also, it was quite funny to see Charlton Heston put his foot in his mouth right on camera, and then try to backpedal so he didn't look like the bigot that he is. Basically, I HIGHLY recommend this movie to anyone with an open mind. Even if you're not very open-minded though, this movie should still make you think about the current state of the country, and that can't be a bad thing.
Rating:
Summary: Blinded By The Right: The Movie
Review: Until someone makes David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right" into the movie (or film) that SHOULD be forthcoming, "Bowling for Columbine" will have to do. And it does well. The "What a Wonderful World" sequence should be required viewing in, say, high school...where our young'un could get some "fair balance" against the recruiters who will swear that war is an adventure; a way to be all you can be. Including killer and atrocitor, I suppose... A SUGGESTION: Since Michael Moore and those on the left-center side of the dial are more interested in truth than money, at least in our present configuration...I'd suggest doing the following: ENCOURAGE copying and distribution of the film, vid, DVD, etc.
Have no FBI warning at the beginning, but instead state that you have given permission, a blessing, to copy and distribute freely.
Even include a blank tape with every purchase of the product. You may want to make a statement about where donations could be made...but making money is not the bottom line. That is the other folks. And they would never do this...wanting to such up every available nickle, instead. Think "Hundredth Monkey"...
As far as healing America, and the sad cancer that seems to infect every adminstration...another story altogether. But Michael is certainly doing his part, as a good Michael will, archangels that they are. Let's hope the man who yanks the reigns from the current incompetence can steer our ship back to clear, clean waters. The lies are forming a thickening stew through which light may not, one day, pass. By showing us how the Media-Industrial-Military Complex manufactures fear and causes for fear...just to make a profit -- and by showing that we do not have to succumb to the faux fear --
Mister Moore has opened a window where light can, and does indeed, pass.
Perhaps what we really should fear, if we need to fear at all, is what we, as a nation, an empire, has become. And how we got, and stay, that way. The problem with "our system" is that it doesn't include the notion of TMM, or "Too Much Money". How much is too much money? Well, if you have to kill for it, it is too much. Time to downshift. "A wise man distributes as he receives." This is his, or her, protection...and worth. Guns are for chickens and hoarders. Fear not, wise bodhisattvas! May Time give this gift of Moore a thousand wings. And we...a thousand tongues. -Anonymoses David Beckwith
Charlotte, NC
Rating:
Summary: Best Non-Fiction Film of 2002
Review: A friend recommended this Michael Moore documentary when it came out on DVD. Unlike most people, I'm not that familiar with MM's previous work (with the exception of the tame "Canadian Bacon", his attempt at a comedic satire) and I was mostly oblivious to the hype surrounding this film. No disrespect to the friends and families of those lost in Littleton but I felt that "Columbine" had become an overused media buzzword. I had little interest in "Bowling for Columbine".
After watching this film, I truly regret not seeing it when it was in the theatres. This is great stuff, people. Whether you love or hate Michael Moore, "get" the point of this documentary (a lot of people won't), once you start watching this, you can't stop. Highlights? The interview with Marilyn Manson. He comes across as intelligent and articulate. He really should consider running for Congress once he's done making crappy music. The interview in Charlton Heston's pool room. Chuck seems amiable, courteous and a bit misinformed until Mike asks him why he hosted an NRA convention in the town where that little girl was shot. The scene at K-Mart. "Returning the Merchandise." Wonderful stuff. I had tears in my eyes. The security cam footage from Columbine. If you can sit through that without wincing and you're American, you've been desensitized by a media that thrives and feeds on fear. And in that regard, a primary message of "Bowling for Columbine" is sadly and unreputably true. Everybody should watch this movie. I cannot recommend it enough.
Rating:
Summary: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Review: This movie has some good points, some bad points and some real ugly problems. GOOD
* The best point made my Michael Moore is that the liberal media uses scare tactics to help push fear into the homes, hearts and brains of susceptible people. A terrorized public is of course the biggest tool of socialism. * He points out that Canadians also have a high gun ownership percentage without the resultant crime. He asks why but never answers this important question ƒ¼ * The presentation that the liberal media portrays crime as being black induced while the majority of Americans do not. BAD * A completely false representation of NRA policy of children and guns; who¡¦s responsible. * His theory that the columbine shootings were inspired by the Kosovo bombings is a little ridiculous? * Michael Moore¡¦s incessant comments that people should not work.
¡§Working has no Merit¡¨
¡§What is the point of working¡¨
¡§Working causes children to shoot other children¡¨ ¡§People are forced to work¡¨ * Falsely implying that a single parent with one child who made $40,000 - $50,000 a year was poor. UGLY * The betrayal of the Lockheed-martin plant making Nuclear Missiles. The plant makes rockets for space exploration. This is such a blatant falsification, you can¡¦t possibly call this a documentary. It is more of a mockumentary in the lines of Spinal Tap. * Moore consistently asked why we are (Americans) different. But he never once examined the two perpetrators of the columbine shooting. The Home Security consultant probably asked the most pertinent questions in the whole program but it they went unanswered.
Why were these children so viscous?
Why such predatory action?
Why did they do this killing? * Moore states that ¡§we will never know why they did it¡¨ He never once examines the diaries that detailed not only how but WHY these two boys did it. * Moore never once mentioned the boys targeting of Christians and their almost metaphysical hatred of any person who proclaimed an affinity to Christianity. * The extremely false history of the United States. Why was this cartoon placed into this movie? One really has to wonder about Moore¡¦s hatred of this country and why he felt it so necessary to put America down. In the end you have left with a very vapid felling inside after watching this show. It answers no real questions and it gives no solutions. It seemed like a piece of propaganda without the propaganda. Moore¡¦s little escapade in Canada where he shows how safe it is by how many people leave their door unlocked is one example of this shows lacking substance. But just to see if it is any different I just went around my neighborhood. I live in what has been called the murder capital of the United States. Our city has the ignoble fame of having the highest amount of murders per inhabitants for 4 out of the last 10 years. The citizens here should be scared out of their minds. Out of 8 homes 5 had their front doors unlocked.
Of the 3 that did not 2 people where not home and at the third a 15 year old babysitter was at home watching the kids.
1 out of the 5 doors that was unlocked, nobody was home. Sorry Michael, you could have had a great movie here, you could have tried to get some problems solved. Instead you come away as a insensitive brat, who is using the columbine tragedy to help line your bulging pockets. Despicable.
Rating:
Summary: Speaks to all
Review: The US is very lucky to have Michael Moore to speak up and question the policies and actions of the people behind the issue of violence. Moore tries to get to the bottom of the reasons for the Columbine massacre, and he uncovers a nation that is pumped full of fear needlessly and is therefore driven to fill their houses with guns to feel secure instead of addressing the issues behind the fear. The fascinating film concludes with Moore receiving an interview opportunity at Heston's Coldwater Canyon mansion -- and this alone makes the film worth viewing. However, there's even more to it than the memorable interview. It just may shake you to your very foundations, if you're open-minded enough to receive his important message.
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