Bowling for Columbine
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.60 You Save: $11.38 (76%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Bowling for Columbine
Movie Review: Great, and not as dangerous as its opponents think
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll be fair first. I don't always like Michael Moore. While some of Stupid White Men made me laugh, other parts were offensive to me, particularly a chapter devoted to his own foriegn policy "ideas." His next film is going to be called Farenheit 911, and he's said that he's determined to release it in October 2004, right before the election. I'm not a fan of Bush, but I worry it may be hard to sit through a movie that was created entirely to slander someone. That's why I like Bowling for Columbine, because I sense honest intentions behind it. Moore comes from Flint, Michigan, a place where a little girl was shot by her classmate shortly before Bowling for Columbine was shot. He's sad to see these happening to our nation's children, and he wants to know why. The most valuable part of this film, at least in my opinion, is how it systematically refutes "explanations" for gun violence.
-Charlton Heston blames it on a "mixed ethnicity," but Moore claims Canada had an even bigger mix, complete with a lower crime rate.
-Violent video games? Japan has much more violent games than we do, and their homicide rate is much lower as well.
-Violent history? Germany was once home to the Nazi party, and they have a lower rate than us.
One possibility he raises that I always found very reasonable was the description of enormous high school prssure that was discussed in his interview with Matt Stone. Kids are cruel to each other growing up, and I think the reason those Columbine kids snapped was because of years and years of teasing by their classmates.
Conservatives seem very intimidated by Bowling for Columbine, I'm not sure why. It doesn't seem so dangerous to me. Do you think that a movie would be enough to ever change the policy of the president? Anyone who heard the "with us or with the terrorists" speech should know the answer to that. But then again, some of these people who flip out over the Dixie Chicks or Tim Robbins stating their opinions never seem to be able to grasp that these isolated incidents of free speech are pretty harmless.
Moore is often called an Anti-American, which is a term I think is overused and rarely appropriate. Osama Bin Laden is an Anti-American. Moore would not like to see American destroyed, he would like to be a place with less violent deaths and discontent citizens. Moore doesn't hate America, he loves America. The free speech he's grown up with has given him the opportunity to write his books and make his movies. He is certainly anti-Bush, but why should that make someone anti-American? I'm sure plenty of conservatives were anti-Clinton or anti-Carter of anti-Kennedy, but I would never call them anti-Americans. Our real enemies are people who would destroy crowded buildings in NYC, not people who voted for Gore.
Yet, despite all this, the attacks on Moore's film are often totally vicious and off-base. A disturbing number of the reviews on this site, and many others, attack his weight more often than they attack the film. Yes, Moore is fat but so is Rush Limbaugh for God's sake.
Now, as for the allegations that Moore has fabricated some of the events in this film, I'm not sure exactly how to address all of them. Did he take Charlton Heston's "From my cold dead hands" speech totally out of context? Yes, he might have. But the thing is, this happens ALL THE TIME. Doesn't make it right, but it does happen. The Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed Bush was from Texas, you hardly ever read about the apology they issued shortly afterward. Critics of Bowling for Columbine only cite parts of it to try and dismiss the whole movie as meritless, and that's the same thing. And also, do these people really think that Rush Limbaugh and people over at Fox News always present clear and fair arguments about their politics? I don't think so.
Bowling for Columbine may not be entirely true, and it's advisable for a viewer to keep an open mind and swallow everything so easily. But it is a brilliantly constructed polemic, engrossing to watch and certainly relevant. No matter what your politics, you'll think on the issues raised here after seeing the movie, and that's admirable in itself.
Bowling for Columbine is a movie, and like all art it is certainly subjective. Those out there who are afraid of the left wing having a chance to speak out? Don't be. The war in Iraq still happened despite vocal objections from many Americans, so what do you have to worry about? People (and don't call us anti-Americans) who are disillusioned with the state of the country, disillusioned by the constant violence going on here, disillusioned by lies and the manipulation of media, may find some brief solace in a movie like this. Is that so wrong? I think this is Michael Moore's best work, because it concerns all of us. I can give this film nothing less than my highest recommendation.
Movie Review: Still looking for a hero?
Summary: 5 Stars
Led up the path by Harris? Tired of Chrétien? Miss Trudeau? While there still remain plenty of places you can go for soul food, spiritual nourishment, and artistic inspiration, there are few contemporary popular media creations that will affect you the way Michael Moore's do. From his early films such as Roger and Me and Canadian Bacon, to his latest book Stupid White Men and his next film project on alleged links between Bush Señor and bin Laden, Moore's style of identifying socially relevant issues and painting poignant contrasts that shatter popular perceptions has become increasingly penetrating and compelling. Bowling for Columbine is an exploration into American values, culture and character. An association of the title can be drawn with the hunting expression "Out for Bear/blood/etc.," and while it fits, as if it were an answer to a Mensa word puzzle -a mark of Moore's wry wit- it is just the beginning, a carnival barker's invitation to come in and be entertained. This film is a collage of various perspectives on the gun issue which Moore assembled in his pursuit of some sort of answer to a situation that culminated in the murders at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado. The reference to bowling is not flippant, there is a link to the dictators of that fateful day and perhaps into their machinations.
From an icy quote by Charleton Heston, "From my cold...dead...hands!", which Heston pronounces at an NRA meeting to express his loathing to let go his guns, to the heart wrenching story of kindergarten tragedy, Moore makes numerous stops in likely and not so likely locales, looking for clues as to why more than one person is murdered every single hour of every single day, by gun, in the USA. He travels to Littleton to talk to former classmates of the killers, and he travels to Toronto, to get a glimpse of what he sees as successful public housing and to see whether people actually do (can you believe it?), leave their doors unlocked. He even hits small town (Tim Horton's parking lot), Ontario for some down home takes on why there are fewer gun problems in Canada. We hear victims' perspectives and we witness their mission to regulate ammunition sales by petitioning a major American retailer. It's a daunting challenge, fraught with similar obstacles to those into which Moore ran when he dogged Roger Smith, former CEO of GM.
Critics attack the veracity of Moore's sources and the accuracy of some of his statistics. They charge that some of the scences were set up or directed and that "things are not as they appear". I did check one criticism that an airline employee made regarding a statement in Stupid White Men. I went to an official air industry website and Moore's figure stood shining. I haven't heard Moore's responses either, and I don't anticipate them. Moore is driven and he wouldn't waste the time. He's pushing as fast and as hard as he can to help the world get a new pair of glasses.
I'm looking forward to this special edition import and -I don't like to say it- would pay double the price for it. I have seen the film and
I will watch it again, but not for its cleverness or special FX or its cinematography, but because I believe that what I am seeing is minimally packaged. In an age where digital enhancement is the rage, and Television and Hollywood take viewers to ever higher limits of distraction and illusion, Michael Moore has his feet on the ground, the mic in his hand, and nothing but questions. The merits of Bowling for Columbine lie in the frankness, humility and simplicity with which the gun issue is presented. One of the strongest notions that I've been struck with in reading and listening to Moore is that he is doing this for the common good. He is trying to help people, and in particular he is trying to help people who need it, which is most of us. That's why I want to support Michael Moore. He's not a powerful man, but he has an important message, and it's gaining momentum. He doesn't pretend to be more clever than anyone, he's just passionate about the truth and he's relentless in his pursuit of it. I'm sure to some he's a nuisance, and to others he's a thorn. But to
me he's fresh air. About as fresh as you can get in these days of smog, gobal warming, and empty political rhetoric.
I'm curious to see what's included in this special import edition. Michael Moore has a lot of experience and I trust he'll make it worth the money. Its message may not be as universally accessible as Beethoven's Fifth, or as simple to understand as Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, but it does raise an issue that affects all of us, and which needs to be addressed, and which is a matter of life and death.
Movie Review: Shoot To Kill
Summary: 5 Stars
Love him or hate him, Michael Moore is what he is--a muckraking gadfly of very liberal political persuasion--and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. But make no mistake about it: He loves America, and is concerned for it. His crusading populism dates back to 1989's ROGER AND ME; and his brand of gentile guerilla filmmaking reached a peak in 2002 with BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, which won that year's Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Here, Moore, who ironically enough is a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, takes a look at the culture of fear in our country that makes certain people take up guns for whatever reason they deem necessary and use the Second Amendment of the Constitution as their brace. The title of this film refers to what Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold were doing on the morning of April 20, 1999 prior to them entering Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and snuffing out the lives of twelve students and one teacher before turning their guns on themselves.
In this 2-hour expose, and utilizing his trademark brand of dark humor laced with barely contained anger, Moore talks with those who were at the scene of the horrific events at Columbine, as well as former Columbine student and "South Park" creator Matt Stone, and shock rocker Marilyn Manson (who was used as a convenient whipping boy because the Columbine shooters were big fans of his), among others, and takes us inside the Michigan militia, whose obsessions with guns attracted Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (the guys who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995), and talks with an indignant James Nichols (Terry's brother), who just looks and talks like the sort of gun-crazed wacko the media make him out to be.
But Moore, typically, doesn't stop there. He indicts the American media for putting fear and loathing into people for showing gun crimes done (seemingly) exclusively by gang-bangers who happen to be black; he cites statistics that show that America has a higher murder rate than any "civilized" nation in the world; and he shows the social and economic conditions around his own hometown of Flint, Michigan that led to a young little girl named Kayla being accidentally shot by a classmate with a gun he found lying around his mother's home.
And that's still not enough. For despite being a member of the NRA, he calls to the carpet that very same organization for holding its annual meeting in Denver in 1999, a mere few miles from Columbine, and later in Flint, just weeks after Kayla's death. And in the end, he asks some very tough questions of actor and former NRA president Charlton Heston about why it is that other countries with proportionally as many guns to people as America have much lower murder rates than we do. Heston boils it down to our nation having "a history of violence and blood on its hands" (no surprise there) and "mixed ethnicities" (coming from a man who marched with Martin Luther King in Washington in 1963, that last comment *is* a shock; but given his political turn towards the far right in the 1970s, that too ends up as being less of a shock than it otherwise might be).
Moore doesn't offer any easy answers for why America's obsession with guns is so great, because there just aren't any. But he does strongly point the finger at our violent past and present, coming right up to and slightly beyond the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and says that this past and our present fears of gangs and terrorists spawning a mindset of packing heat isn't going to make America a safer nation. This is a totally reasonable conclusion that those who would condemn Moore for this film (and for that matter for FAHRENHEIT 9/11 which, given how *this* film briefly touches on 9/11, they should have seen coming) don't want to come to grips with, probably because it requires them to look in the mirror and see the face they don't really want to see.
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE categorically does NOT condemn the Second Amendment or the right for people to bear firearms. Nor does it slander either Heston or the NRA. It indicts the political, social, and economic culture in America that makes incidents like Columbine and 9/11 not only possible, but inevitable. And on that note, Moore, with his usual trademark techniques, has more than done his job as a muckraker, a filmmaker, and a true example of American patriotism.
Movie Review: The Truth is out There
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Moore is a very brave man.Not since Bill Hicks did an American dare to speak out loud and directly about what he/she thinks is wrong with their society. While Hicks did it through his stand up routine, Moore is doing it through docu-films and books.After finding a comfortable niche on TV with TV Nation and The Awful Truth, Moore crowns the fruits of his more than decade labour with a docu-film, the core of which is about the tragedy of the Columbine High School massacre and the gun control debate that ensued long after,but is wider in scope to include the much more complex issue of finding or trying to explain the roots of the violence in US society.There are several points of interest in the film.
The statistical comparison of the crime rate he made between the US and other developed country is something that baffled him and many of his interviewees, even Charleton Heston who was the cherry on Moore's cake (pardon the pun!),securing the interview that ends the film. I was really surprised by how little information and facts Heston has on the crime rate issue.I would have imagined the president of NRA would be more informed and learned about a debate that he has come across a zillion times,and not just repeating the same old diatribe and cliches!.
Of course we get no answers, either from the Columbine tragedy, because the two kids responsible shot themselves and the reason they decided to commit their horrendeous act died with them, nor we get any answers about the roots of the wider crime problem.
Gun ownership seems one, but then we get the impression that in Canada there are millions of guns out there, with a European crime rate.The emphasis on Canada in my opinion was a bit long, and the fact that Canadians do not lock their doors was over emphasized and a bit naive and unrepresentative of the core problem.
Another very interesting angle in Moore's film, is the fearmongering he talks frequently about,the 1984-ish atmoshpere of fear mainly instigated by the media. While, there are conspiracy undertones to his theory which I am not very comfortable with,it does present some valid points to ponder on.
The political angle of the film is typical Moore.His anti Bush, anti American involvement in the foreign wars and the innocent lives that were lost as a result, is in my opinion something which he should be praised for, not because I agree with what he says or not, but simply because like Hicks he has the courage to highlight hypocrasies that many people know about but ignore.And to that end, no matter what the subject is ,it is stance and a rare courage that I applaud.
I know a lot of people attack Moore for being unAmerican and unpatriotic for (as they say)trying to hang a dirty laundry that should remain buried especially to the rest of the world because the world out there does not need more ammunition to critisize/attack/hate America,a very sensitive area especially post 9/11. But I believe that Michael Moore is a true patriot.Patriotism is NOT about pride, but rather about love,care and concern for your country. Moore is concerned about the violence, the high rate of crime, the things that he alledges are done by the politicians in the name of the ordinary people, and this is where the source of his frustration and the need to go out there and film it or write about it come from.
The important issue about Moore is not whether you agree with him or not, it is rather about somebody who has a lot of interesting things to say in a democratic environment. Voltaire once said: I am against you till death in every word your say, but will defend till death your right of saying it.(roughly translated).So for those who think Moore makes sense, and is brave in saying what he says,it is good to know that there is actually someone speaking for many,and for those who think he is damaging his own country by what he says and believes in, then they should thank God for living in a democracy, when if a different opinion is voiced, it is not a sign of unpatriotism or dissent, but a platform for debate and exchange of ideas.
So Bowling for Columbine is as a result a very important film.It not only discusses issues that you may or may not agree with, but it makes you think.This is what Bill Hicks strived to put across, and this is what Michael Moore is now doing.
Movie Review: Every true American should watch this with an open mind
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, ideologically blinded conservatives and those who believe in every citizen's right to own an arsenal of weapons shouldn't bother with this, because they will see nothing to alter their prejudices. But this movie should be required viewing for every American who still has an open mind and is concerned about the direction in which our once great country is heading. If you are one of those who wonder why the rest of the world has a problem with us (and don't buy the simplistic reasoning that "they hate our freedoms", even though many nations now enjoy greater democratic freedoms than we do), Michael Moore's Oscar-winning masterpiece might provide some answers.I am not going to quibble with the one-star "critics" who either haven't seen the movie or had already made up their minds before doing so. I respect their opinions and their right to voice them, even if they don't show the same courtesy to those of us who want some tough questions answered in a thoughtful way. That is the point of Moore's work. He is a true American hero in the respect that he refuses to be bullied by right-wing "hateriots" and stands up for his beliefs even when they are unfashionable.
But Moore is actually a minor participant in BFC. The star of the movie is, in fact, America. The premise of Columbine is to ask why America is such a violent and hostile society. Surprisingly, Moore does not go for the easy cop-out by suggesting that it is all about our gun laws (as he demonstrates, Canada is even more of a gun-loving nation, yet has only a tiny fraction of the gun-related crime that we do). Neither does he suggest that it is because of violent movies or video games (after all, they watch and play the same movies and games in the rest of the world). Instead, he posits the idea that violence, paranoia and fear is a fundamental element of American history and culture. We have a popular culture that practices sensationalism, and a media that perpetuates fear in the quest for ratings. Our history is littered with episodes where we have overreacted out of fear and paranoia, which is one of the things that the rest of the world finds so bewildering about us. Whether it is fear of minorities, Communists, liberals, conservatives, terrorists, anarchists, the rich, the poor, killer diseases, killer bees, Y2K, losing our jobs, being burgled, raped, murdered or kidnapped, fear and paranoia dominate our national psyche. Which brings Moore (who, incidentally, is a member of the NRA) to raise the fascinating point that a nation that is so afraid and paranoid should not be trusted with guns.
One of the most poignant and disturbing scenes in this movie is a montage of U.S. atrocities around the world over the past fifty years, set against the soundtrack of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". No commentary is needed as we see how tens of thousands of third-world civilians have been murdered as a result of U.S. foreign policy, nor how four million Asians were killed by U.S. forces, nor how we have routinely overthrown democratically elected leaders who dare to disagree with us, and provoked civil wars to suit our own narrow objectives, nor how we trained terrorists and supported dictators that would later turn on their master. The montage concludes, chillingly, with footage of the World Trade Center being destroyed.
Some of Moore's assertions miss their mark, most notably the insinuation that Clinton's bombing raids on Serbia may have inspired the Columbine shooters to murder twelve students and one teacher. On the other hand, he doesn't set out to blame any particular group, person or ideology for the violence in our society. The depressing conclusion is that this is just who we are, and we are stuck with it.
Moore's success is in illustrating the hypocrisy of American culture and accepted political ideology. He does point us toward how we might become a more rounded, gentler and kinder society, but he doesn't seem to hold out much hope that we can ever do it. Everybody will draw their own conclusions from this amazing piece of work. The conclusion I drew is that we Americans are prisoners of our own history, and if violence made this country what it is, then violence could also be our ultimate undoing.