Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Editorial Piece but not true Documentary
Review: "Bowling for Columbine" is filmmaker Michael Moore's personal take on Guns In America.The title - "Bowling for Columbine" - actually has double meaning here. First, don't be fooled into thinking that it's an accident having "Columbine" in the title. It's a catch word in our vernacular now. Choosen, rightfully so, to garner attention. And the "Bowling" is a reference to the fact that prior to killing their fellow students and a teacher at their Columbine High School in Colorado, the teenaged killers first attended thier morning bowling class. Ultimately, this is a film about a lot of topics - the culture of violence in America, guns, television, the NRA, racism, and Mr. Moore's favorite subject - Corporate America. All these topics are explored in this very good film. Michael Moore won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature with this movie. He gave a now infamous George Bush-Scathing acceptance speech and surprised absolutely no one by doing so. However, "Bowling For Columbine" is not exactly a documentary. Not in the true sense of the genre. As in the past, Michael Moore's movies are a lot about Michael Moore. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I whole-heartedly recommend this feature. It's fun to watch, educational and thought provoking. What it is not, in my opinion, is a documentary. Basically, this film is an EDITORIAL about Guns In America. Mr.Moore backs up his views with a lot of information, a lot of humor and a lot of insight. This film touches on a gamut of subjects, actually - Besides simply "guns are bad", he brings others topics to the proverbial table - Including racism, fear, and of course, Michael Moore's favorite topic, Corporate America. In this instance, he takes on K-Mart (in the past, his excellent film "Roger & Me" took on General Motors) and has a rather startling victory in doing so. I would recommend this film to anyone and everyone, except perhaps the true documentary fan. For those people, I would be more apt to direct them to the very excellent "Capturing The Friedmans" and "Brother's Keeper". Documentary filmmakers, those who truly embody the genre, seldom, if ever, make themselves part of the story. They follow a story and let it unfold, presenting itself to you. Michael Moore is the story, and he takes us along for the ride. That's the difference here. Best Regards, turtlex
Rating: 
Summary: Not sugar-coated
Review: This movie isnt sugar-coated. If you like reality watered down this movie isnt for you. The people giving the movie less than stellar reviews are living in their own world and are unwilling to accept reality. A truly amazing film. See it and be enlightened.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Tedious Tedious Tedious Tedious
Review: I am sure there was an agenda before their film was made. But what ever it was is lost in inconsistent and repetitious interview style questions. I did like the calendar girls; I did not realize you could get such calendars. The militia looked like a neat organization. When they do interviews with Canadians for contrast I thought I was watching "Canadian Bacon" with John Candy. They did mention nukes but did not go to the other extreme and count how many people were knifed and hacked (Lizzy Borden) due to the absence of a proper firearm. No mention of the fact than Kung Fu is necessary so one can kill when deprived of proper defensive devices. They seem to be fascinated with Charlton Heston. "Home of the brave and Land of the free"; his presents is peppered throughout the film. I suspect that the title comes from the fact that the students in Columbine went bowling before their spree.
Rating:
Summary: What a moron
Review: Michael Moore points out that guns are not the problem in this country, that the liberal media is to blame for making a "Scared society" then proceeds to spout off about guns and scare us even more. He never points out that gun deaths in South America far out number the ones here in USA. He goes after Kmart for the shootings in Colorado, how miss directed is that? He needed to point out the true responcibility is that of the parents of these children, and that a socialized society is not the answer for our violent behavior. WHAT A MORON !
Rating:
Summary: MICHAEL MOORE IS A BIG FAT IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Moore: shave, diet, wash, shower, groom, and shut up already!!!
Rating:
Summary: GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD
Review: This documentary was not set to take sides on gun control. All it does is raise questions about why the American people cannot own guns without murdering each other while other countries can. The issue at hand is not whether Heston is wearing two different colored shirts, but why Americans can not control themselves with weapons. People who criticize this film need to understand that Moore himself is a member of the NRA and is not out on a misson to abolish guns in the U.S. He's not trying to belittle Heston. Everybody should watch this film, whether they are for guns or against them. Since watching it for the first time I have been thinking non-stop about the questions it raised and why Americans can not control themselves when it comes to weapons. Watch it. You will not regret it.
Rating:
Summary: He had a complete agenda when he made this.
Review: Lets just start out from the beginning. Through the whole movie Mr. Moore splices to make his agenda complete. There isn't even enough space to start talking about the twisted facts and distorted evidence. For example, watch charlton heston. He is talking and has a gray suit with a blue tie, then Moore splices in a scene of protestors, then comes back to heston finishing, this time in a black suit and red tie. This goes on constantly. The Truth is that Bowling is a bitter man using lies to make a point.
Rating:
Summary: American Society: an immortal Culture of Fear
Review: Michael Moore, the American movie maker and author of many high-class books, released a documentation on school massacres and their causes in 2002. Although often criticized, this controversial movie which is called "Bowling for Columbine" got rewarded as the best film in its genre at the Cannes Film Festival.
Moore does not only present real footage and interviews. He is also trying to make the American audience realize, why there is such an increase of violence in their society. By covering the aspects of gun control or political issues, Moore's intention is to mainly bring up the culture of fear, which is created nowadays. He also explains who or what keeps this culture preserved. The movie basically is an enumeration of TV Ads for the NRA, speeches of politics, family members of the victims, and different communities in American villages, where took place. It is very clever to use pro and con strategies to leave the audience the decision what to believe. For example Moore uses crosscuts of Charleton Heston and a victim's father, both holding speeches.
While using professional editing of camera shots, he also managed it to accessorize the movie with special music, which allows the viewer's mood of irony to increase steadily. Armstrong's "What a wonderful world" is a leitmotif during the whole production and is usually shown during short cuts following one another very quick, showing war scenes.
Another important interview he presented, showed a conversation with the mostly feared rockstar Marilyn Manson. He himself was one of the victims that was called guilty for influencing the boys from Columbine due to commit their brutal crime. Being a fan of him for a long time, it does not surprise me to see him stating his opinion in a decent way. I've always thought that he is a very intelligent individual.
When Moore talks about the media, he certainly is appealing to the modern culture of fear which is mostly created by TV channels, radio stations and of course the internet.
American news media shows 600% more negative material than it used to, although the crime rate is constantly decreasing. Therefore most people get scared easily, regardless what true statistics prove.
I personally liked the movie a lot and to me it was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen concerning usual documentaries only show what happened at the high schools and just a few, like Moore, try to figure out why school massacres happen or why American Society is so panic. Without making it a real serious and depressing movie, Micheal Moore states his opinion and tries to make the audience realize how we could change things and to think about solutions for the issue. Although it was "just" a documentary, which usually is not my genre, I went through any emotion there is, while watching it. Sadness, fear, shock, fun, and the end impression I had was that Moore, the famous movie maker and author, allowed me to sympathize with his main opinion: We the people, and only us can change the cruelty that is taking over everywhere on this planet, 24/7. I share his point of view completely and state it once again by one of my most favorite quotes regarding society by Charles Horton Cooley :"Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also."
Rating:
Summary: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!
Review: Ever notice how conservatives (especially gun nuts) tend to call people names rather than concentrate on the facts? All you have to do is call someone a liberal, and you completely discredit everything that person has said, right? I mean, come on. A good number of these people who have written negative reviews attacking Michael Moore can't even SPELL!! I don't expect everybody to agree with what Michael Moore has done here. A good portion of you have been poisoned with misinformation and bias by Faux News, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh. It is understandable that you critique Michael's work with slightly askew perception. You have been trained that way. It's not entirely your fault. But there IS something you can do about it. Read more, listen to more BBC, and draw your own conclusions. Don't let Dubya connect the dots for you. This movie gives no answers, but rather raises a lot of questions. It asks YOU to draw the conclusion. Brilliantly compiled, and shown from a fine perspective. Michael Moore is a genius.
Rating:
Summary: Viewpoint from Australia (annual gun murder rate 65)
Review: Geez, is it really that bad there? We Australians often say that we're becoming more Americanised every day...but having seen this film, I think maybe there are a lot of differences between us and the US after all. "Bowling for Columbine" was incredibly successful in Australia, with most viewers I know just shocked and blackly amused by the whole experience. The part that must habve shocked most Australians were the sheer statistics. Despite Oz's obsession with allegedly increasing violence from "ethnic" gangs, despite the mass of guns, despite organised crime, our gun murder rate is only 65 a year. And most of those are domestic crimes. America's rate is 11,000. To put this in perspective: in 1996 an appalling massacre took place in Port Arthur, Tasmania. 35 people were killed by a lone maniac. This sent Australia's murder rate for 1996 shooting sky-high - criminal lawyers/statisticians actually have to mention that in their figures for 1996!
Yet even a murder of many hundreds would make little or no impact on America's national average. 11,000 a year equals about 100,000 in ten years - that's a lot of dead Americans... Michael Moore is cautious not to oversiplify the situation. None of the explanations given by most commentators seem to work; is it their gun ownership? (Australians in rural areas have their partiality for guns too), their violent movies and music? (Australians are in love with gore just like the Yanks...mmmmm...violence...), or maybe their violent past? (how many are killed by guns in Japan every year? in a population of a hundred million?) Ultimately America's lust for guns, and its incredible murder rate, are not easily explicable. It really is a case of "culture", rather than any easily denoted cause.
This documentary is fascinating for non-Americans. How Americanised is the Western World really? And - how Americanised do we want to be?
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