Bowling for Columbine

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: True enough, Bowling for Columbine is, as many reviews claim, uneven, subjective and manipulative. Sure. It's important to remember, watching it, that this is not a subjective documentary, but a film that makes a very deliberate and intentional point, just like Mike Moore's previous, smaller scale enterprises. But aside from tackling some incredibly important issues, and bringing to light some fascinating obscure information, Bowling for Columbine should be noted for being one of the finest, most powerful pieces of propaganda ever seen. That's what it is, after all - propaganda, though it supports very positive and respectable causes. Mr. Moore is a master filmmaker, who does a fantastic, wonderful work of making his point and making his viewers care about it. The music, the monologue, the animation sequences and the archive footage are all combined with the interviews (fascinating interviews with Marilyn Manson, Charlton Heston and Matt Stone, among others) to create a powerful and intense ninety minutes that would keep your eyes glued to the screen like few other documentaries could. Highly recommended, no matter what your politics are. It will either inspire you of infuriate you - it's fascinating either way.

Rating:
Summary: Just what you'd expect...
Review: This film has its moments. Sure, it takes "artistic" license with the truth. Some of the statistics are more thoroughly stretched than Jane Fonda in her exercise video days. True, the revisionist history (Brief History of America segment) will make even an avowed Communist blush. And yes, you've gotta put up with more than an hour of obnoxious Moore, bumbling through scenes in his inimitable style. But he has his moments, with the odd bit of sophomoric humor sprinkled in with the constant jabs at the gun rights lobby. Passably funny stuff if you like propaganda served with juvenile jokes.

This film gives the NRA a bloody nose with the sort of mean-spirited, one-sided humor you've come to expect from this wickedly anti-capitalist goofball. This is especially apparent in the taunting confrontation with Alzheimer-stricken NRA president Charleton Heston. Moore is at his boorish best here, with his sweaty, in-your-face style, right in Heston's living room. But hey, at the end of farce, you can power off the tube and "poof", Moore is out of your living room!

Rating:
Summary: THE MAN FROM FLINT SPARKS A FIRE
Review: I wouldn't say I like Mr. Moore or that I follow everything he say's to a T. He's a man who makes documentaries, but above all else he is an entertainer. There are moments in this movie where I laughed out loud, and others where I cringed as Moore displayed his favorite approach to getting a response out of people, by causing a scene at their home or workplace.

All these basic emotions aside, though, this movie makes it a point not to put the blame on any one person or corporation, but on all of us, for the state of our society. While moments of the film are bound to be controversial (What Moore film wouldn't have these) the whole point of it is to force your perspective away from the single screen view of the World as provided by your local or network news agency.

Does he take advantage of poetic license at times, of course. He's not making a foundation for his viewpoints, just adding conversational points to his open discussion. Not once throughout the movie does he say, "This is why things are messed up, it's his/her/their fault." Instead he presents ideas and lets you link them together.

I buy movies made by Moore because somehow he puts a powerful idea in your head while he's making you laugh at his antics. And regardless of politics, his intent is to make this world better place, one topic at a time. Not bad for a poor Irish kid from Michigan.

Rating:
Summary: I Did Not Want To See This Movie...
Review: OK, I had heard so many negative things about this movie that I didn't want to bother with it. Then, my beloved brought it home. We watched it together and I completely flipped! Michael Moore is a film-making genius! His guerilla style is perfectly suited for the subject matter. Who else has even attempted to ask the question "Why so much fear and violence in america?" without finding simplistic, kneejerk answers? Moore takes us to Columbine to not only relive the tragedy, but to talk with the surviving victims. He even takes them to K Mart's HQ to confront the company's policy of selling handgun ammo (the columbine shooters purchased their bullets at the local k mart) with successful results. This is not just some propoganda film about the evils of gun ownership. Moore himself was raised with guns and still carries his NRA membership card. This movie is about Moore's quest to find out why we love to kill each other so much here in the states. Is it poverty? Nope, other countries have worse economic problems without the bloodletting. Is it violent music or video games? Uh-uh, these are endemic throughout the civilized world. Could it be the proliferation of handguns? No, Canada has millions of guns and it's big cities have the murder rates of our small towns! Is it our violent, gun-toting history? Negative, the entire planet has a bloody, violent past. Moore has the audacity to try to get to the bottom of this mess. BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE is not for the squeamish or the political zealot from either right or left. It's for folks who wonder at what we've become. It's for people like me who hate the idea of barracading themselves in their homes for fear of being slaughtered. This fear is also challenged here. Many sacred cow arguments are terminated. Prepare to be angered, saddened, provoked, offended, and oddly entertained as only Michael Moore can do. A must own classic...

Rating:
Summary: This is the truth about us Americans
Review: I write this review because (1) I thought it is DEFINATELY worth 5 stars, it is unbelievably good and eye-opening; (2) I am appalled to see that some people rated this film with one and two stars. Watching this film will bring more than entertainment, it also reveals an American realism that you may not be aware of.

Rating:
Summary: Better late to the party than never
Review: After seeing the movie three times, taking my kids to it (covering the younger's eyes at certain parts), spouting from rooftops about its excellence and buying the dvd as soon is it was released. . .I just now get to this part. Okay, call me swifty.

Much has been made about Moore's somewhat overbearing speech on Oscar night. Too much emphasis has been placed on whether or not he altered parts to make his point, what a true documentary is (as though we're all suddenly a nation of experts on the subject)and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Moore can juxtapose humor and pathos so beautifully and in such a way that you're entertained and frightened. Nobody else does this, and without the entertainment piece of it, nobody would be watching it. That would be a crime.

Let's boil it down, folks: this is a damn good, effective film of whatever sort you wish to categorize it that makes people think and, better still, talk.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe ther eis hope for us yet...
Review: It's amazing how after repeated viewings of this film which is so depressing, and so troubling to the soul, that I might feel hope for us yet. There's something in this film, some latent truth, that causes thousands of right-wing conservatives to flip out beyond belief. Just look at how desperate people are to see this film burned in the fireplace. Why is that? Why are they not just chuckling and dismissing it as baloney? Because there's a frightening truth underneath all the horror and jokes and so forth.

Maybe now that we have this film in our collective conciousness we can start to progress.

A brillient documentary. Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: An honest review
Review: I refused to subscribe to the hype surrounding this feature until I saw it and analyzed it for myself. (For the record, I'm politically independent). After viewing it, I have to say I am now one of its detractors.

What could have been an interesting look at America's gun culture and the sources of the Columbine massacre is instead an overhyped and poorly structured mess. Nearly every argument Moore expounds is flawed by his patronizing and sanctimonious attitude towards the truth. During the course of this documentary he:

1) Misquotes stats to fit his agenda. He does this so much that I'm not going to waste time documenting every example. He notes that Canada has double our unemployment rate but many fewer homicides, failing to note that Canada's population is smaller than ours; in other words, he doesn't consider crimes by percentage of population; rather, he just looks at percentages overall. He also states that Canadians have seven million guns in ten million homes, but they have fewer homicides. Well, Canada has much stricter handgun licensing and registration laws than the US; i.e.; they have better gun control; yet Moore undermines his own point by stating that our looser gun control laws aren't the reason for gun violence; it's our culture. So, why try to make a serious, defining point about Canada's rate of gun ownership if you're going to make it irrelevant with your own words? He also ignores the decline in youth violence and school shootings. He holds up two incidents--Columbine, and a shooting in Flint, Michigan--as examples of an "epidemic."

Moore also claims that overseas military action by the US goverment is part of the reason for our "culture of violence," citing the bombing of Afghanistan as evidence of our aggression. He notes that the United Kingdom has a substantially smaller number of homicides than the US. He fails to acknowledge, however, the UK's role in the bombing of Yugoslavia and its role in the military action in Iraq. If the two are interrelated, then why the discrepancy? He also tries to accuse the US of funding the same Taliban regime responsible for harboring Bin Laden and Al Qaeda when he ominously notes that the US gave $245 million to Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001. Wrong again, Michael. That money was given to the UN and independent organizations for famine relief.

2) He alters the notorious 1988 Bush/Quayle "Willie Horton" ad by adding some superimposed text: "Willie Horton released. Then he kills again." This was NEVER in the original ad (available online, if you want proof) but Moore somehow forgets to note this alteration and just lets his audience assume that it's the truth. (For the record, after being released, Horton did not kill; he committed rape).

3) Moore is generally guilty of every sin he accuses the media of committing. He argues time and again that the media is reponsible for America's culture of fear and violence. He implies that they sensationalize violence and portray certain people--namely blacks--in stereotypical ways. That's funny, because Moore spends a fair portion of time both sensationalizing violence and portraying mean-spirited stereotypes--not of blacks, but of average-Joe, working-class gun owners. They come across as ignorant, uneducated rednecks, with Moore pausing occasionally for a bit of juvenile humor at their expense. This is especially egregious, since Moore has long championed himself as an advocate of the working class; yet he spends a great deal of time mocking them.

--He also resorts to the worst tactics of tabloid journalism, getting people to cry on camera (while he provides comfort) or attempting to interview people only vaguely attached to the Columbine massacre (such as Dick Clark). He brings two wounded Columbine students to KMart's headquarters, guilting them into dropping their sale of ammunition. (Funny, though; he doesn't speak of going after the companies that made the chemicals in Klebold and Harris' homemade bombs). The nadir, however, is his ambush interview of NRA president Charlton Heston, who seems both confused and outraged. Even if Heston had had all of his faculties, Moore would have made a mess of this interview. His line of questioning was incoherent, unconnected and irrelevant. It is obvious that he only sought to embarrass Heston (Moore's dislike of him is well-known) rather than gain any insight for his viewers. It is an unconfortable and tasteless segment.

What a mess. Moore, who showed some talent as a filmmaker with the wry (but statistically flawed) "Roger and Me," has used his abilities to produce a shoddy, irresponsible documentary that is a serious affront to the truth. Moore would have better served us by addressing some of the unanswered questions about Columbine--the possibility of a 3rd gunman, was there advanced warning, etc.--than by wasting our time with this travesty.

I am sorry this is so long, but I felt that these were things that needed to be said.

Rating:
Summary: Undercover for the New World Order?
Review: Since I turned off television, 2 years ago and my brain began to regenerate, I began to morph from a consumer into a researcher--you know the most feared by the corporatites. As I read magazines, op ed pieces, books, and internet sites, I began to discover a whole new world, specifically the New World Order. What is it? Well, it is plans to put us into a world government top-down structure, not bottom-up structure as we were led to believe we were already living in. You think the United States, you think Democracy. Wrong, no Democracy, and soon to be no United States. If you don't believe me, turn off your "reality" TV shows and start reading or at least listening if you don't read and very few of us can and do any more.

So what's this got to do with Michael Moore's highly acclaimed "Bowling for Columbine." AK-47s. Indeed with great horror the leftist gun control hawks (undercover for the New World Order guys) says "All those instruments of mass distraction do, is kill humans and are not necessary to kill those sweet little animals we all know and love to eat." So what, so if you have a dictatorship with highly protected body armor, you want a 22 rifle or you want an AK 47?

It is ridiculous to take a few incidents like Columbine as proof of the need for "gun control." Indeed, the more out-field types of researchers believe incidents such as Columbine and 911 were planned and financed by the New World Order elites (hidden ever to carefully like the Wizard of Oz) to provoke rabble roosters to demand a gun-free (especially AK-47) United States. Though, I must admit, Michael did show in the film that the real cause for the violence in the United States is the pitiful horror shows pawned off as television news. To try to condition us to believe, that we are too dumb to have guns in our households where "children" might get hold of them is the highest form of idiocy unless our children have all turned into idiots. Growing up in the Texas, our father was known (from the day I first understood language) to always keep a fully loaded gun behind most doors. He had a shot gun and several 22s. We had chickens and we ate chickens and so did our friendly neighbors, the raccoons, the possums, and the ring-tail cats. Those neighbors made nightly forays into the chicken house and my father made nightly forays on the neighbors. Awful society, don't you agree? Should have had gun control. In Jim Hightower's book, "Theves in High Places" you will well see that our neighbors in "federal government" have been raiding our chicken house and rather badly, so I don't expect we will have many chickens in our pots. So, if a "liberal" writer says all those guns are bad, I will automatically know that he is undercover "raccoon, possum or ring-tail cat." With the new American Union already underway with the eventual elimination of our Bill of Rights and Constitution, the protection of the "right to bear arms, even AK-47s and tanks should be the very first thing we do each and every day from here on until the police and army of any nation switch from gun and bomb fondling to actual peacekeepers who work on managing earth to grow food and forest for everyone, even Iraqis and maybe a little for raccoons too. The other part of our day should be spent in working to vote everyone, I mean, everyone presently in office out of office peacefully, (after we wrest the voting machines out of Diebold and their cohorts sticky fixed-election corporate voting hands) except maybe Dennis Kucinich (though misguided as to the gun issue). We should retain those who voted against the war against Iraq or the $87 billion grant to Halliburton to "rejoin what man (particularly Halliburton man, Dick Cheney) had set asunder." We the People need a defense against a tyranical government. Didn't our founding fathers know that and why don't we know it today and why do we have to repeat history? George the England king or George the United States king, ironic, right, just like 911. Our first way to vote, of course, is to get the attention of executives of the global corporations with our spending habits. Buy at least mininum-wage produced products, write corps, tell them you don't buy "Made in China" at 20 cents a day or why is the item not priced at 25 cents, tell Wal-Mart to put its bullets back in after you don't buy there, because it is stocked with Made in China, tell Dell and Hewlett Packard you will not use their off-shore tech support, etc., etc. Do you think this review will be here tomorrow?

So if you have a little money to spend for "education and/or entertainment," after Jim Hightower's book, start with Meria Heller at Meria.net where she has a book list. You might want to listen to her daily radio show. The only reason the Franken book is number 1 is because it wants to caution us to get rid of our guns. After Bowling for Columbine, I wanted to take a second look at Carlton Heston. Maybe I will spend this evening looking for his speeches and reading some more of the book "Bush's Brains."

Rating:
Summary: how is fiction a documentary?
Review: avoid...not because you disagree with his politics, but because this is presented as a documentary but unfortunately it is in fact a persuasive propaganda piece. moore has good underlying intentions, in that he would like to see the eradication of gun violence in this country. too bad that this slickly edited, emotionally tweaking piece is almost wholly based in fiction starting at the part of the movie : 'history of the united states'. but you will like this if you think that white males are the reason that everything is wrong with this country...if you are like any intelligent person however, and realize that the usa is the best country in the world largely because of the historic contributions of the average white male then you would rather flush this one then watch it.