Bowling for Columbine
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Movie Reviews of Bowling for Columbine
Movie Review: meandering but thought-provoking look at gun violence in US
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a fascinating and disturbing look at gun violence in the United States, using the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, as a starting point. There are places where Moore's biases come through loud & clear, but at most points in the film, Moore creates questions rather than prescribes cures. I was expecting a film-length pitch for gun control, but the film delivered something very different. I'm not sure what Moore's thesis is -- but the question posed is why does the United States have such horrific statistics on shooting homicides? The statistics are alarming -- our statistics are orders of magnitude greater than those of other developed countries. According to the film, Canada, England, & Germany have virtually no gun homicides, while the US has over 11000 a year (and in Canada, about 70% of homes have a gun). Moore doesn't give pat answers -- violence on TV, our propensity towward military intervention abroad, heightened coverage of violence in news media that creates a culture of fear, exposure to guns at a young age, the proximity of missile-producing Lockheed Martin to Columbine, poverty -- who knows why American society is so violent?? Apparently, the Columbine shooters were enrolled in a Bowling phys ed class & went bowling on the morning of the shootings -- Moore sarcastically questions why bowling isn't blamed as a cause of the shootings. Moore even explores a situation in which a six-year old boy shot & killed a classmate at his elementary school in Michigan, leading him to interview bus passengers on the bus ridden by the young shooter's mother, leading in turn to a pointed criticism of Michigan's welfare to work program. Much about this film is disturbing -- footage of the shootings at Columbine, footage of executions in US-sanctioned military and police actions throughout history made me squirm. And I was very uncomfortable during Moore's confrontations with K-Mart (who sold the ammunication used at Columbine), Charlton Heston (for his visit to Denver with the NRA shortly after the Columbine shootings), and Dick Clark (whom moore attempted to interview because the six-year-old shooter's mother was employed at a Dick Clark's Bandstand restaurant under Michigan's welfare-to-work program -- seems to stray a little off point). Moore comes off looking slightly annoying, but the film is a real eye-opener and well worth seeing, regardless of your position on Moore, the Second Amendment, and gun ownership.
Movie Review: Michael Moore is the best maker of documentaries there is
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie, as Roger & Me, Michael's books, really scare the heck out of the corpocracy, The white house and the "non-conservative, conservatives", that run our country. They do not want dialogue, or American's to be informed. The documentary is incredibly fascinating, funny, scary, well researched, provocing and probably will leave you a little changed afterwards. As a great documentatary should and typical of Michael's style, it opens up questions rather than tells answers. Hopefully there this creates more dialogue between Americans. We need to come up with the answers.
I live in Colorado, within 100 miles of Columbine so I am aware of many of the items that are documented.
As usual Michael put things in his documentary that are incredibly funny and entertaining as well as disturbing and thought provoking.
What he always does is document facts. A look at Michael's web site www.michaelmoore.com documents proof of everyone of the items that the puppets from the Fox network, etc try to say are inaccurate. Yes, that bank does give away guns, yes Charlton Heston and his Rifle Association did what they did right after the deaths of those poor children as well as the trauma they suffered in Colorado. Really stuck it to those parents and students who were picketing for some respect and sensitivity to the victims. Not in the movie is the republican demonated Colorado state legislatures answer to Columbine. It was to post the "Ten Commandents in every Colorado school". By the way, they are not accurate in their english interpetation, but that is besides the point.
Yes that quote about the ethnic mixing Charleton made was incredibly revealing.
Who the else has the courage to go to places and talk to people that he does.
What I found so wonderful about Michael's work is that he lets the words and the pictures stand on its own merit and his work always asks more questions than they answer. It is up to us, presented with information that we are not going to get from the U.S. media, or the research, or the people's direct words.
This one is not to be missed for ANYONE, and I hope political brainwashing will not keep people away. The movie, like all of his are meant to create dialogue, not tell you what to do.
He also is wonderful at getting people to talk in a very informal way about things and his humor, I mean his humor is seperates him from the rest.
Movie Review: When It Comes to Gun Control...
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Moore asks some serious questions. Why does the United States have so many murders compared to other westernized, modern and developed countries? Those countries don't have the poverty we do, they don't watch or play or listen to the violence we enjoy or other reasons shelved out to respond to the epidemic of gun violence in this country. Moore takes all those arguements and effectively contradicts them with well-thought out counter-arguements. He focuses on two infamous acts of gun violence: the Columbine shootings and the shooting of a six year-old girl by a class-mate that occurred in Flint, Michigan as examples. It is extremely easy to get the guns used in these shootings and even easier to buy the ammo, Moore points out. At K-Mart, one can buy ammo at any age with no i.d. But the film does not focus the bulk of its time on Moores' inheritantly liberal standings (the film features a scathing cartoon that satires the history of white people in America, and Moore unfortunatly skewers a couple facts for more liberal effect), but far more on the issue at hand. The Columbine shooting was done by two boys who played violent video games, listen to violence ridden music and watched violent t.v. and movies. But Moore points out that many other developed countries watch the same movies, listen to the same music and play the same video games. Japan, the global epicenter of violent video games has less than one hundred murders a year. Many European countries watch the same movies and listen to the same music we do, but their combine murder rate for a year is serveral thousands less than America. The Flint shooting was done by and African-American child. But people of African heritage live all around the world. Canada has the same percentage of African- American population that we do, but their murder rate is no more than a hundred a year. So why does America have so many more murders that the rest of the developed, modern world (somewhere around an alarming 11,000, 11,000 a year)? Without giving away too much, Moore hypothesises that the reasons are socital and the media. We have always been brought up with you have the right to own a gun and that you have the right to use it . Also, look at the news the next time you see it...how much time is spent on covering the negative side of human nature and crime. It may surprise you. It obviously did that to Moore.Movie Review: FUNNY, AND SERIOUSLY THOUGHT-PROVOKING
Summary: 5 Stars
Forget Michael Moore's biased views, forget how he conveniently keeps at bay, the `other' point of view, and forget how he wants us to believe only his side of the truth. As a filmmaker, he is a genius. He has a fantastic sense of humor, and knows better than anyone else, the nitty-gritties of how to use satire as a weapon. In fact, he has mastered the delicate art of sarcasm.
A film about violence, `gun-violence' in particular, is not such a difficult thing to make these days, is it? It is not, but Moore's way of looking at violence and his somewhat cheeky way of presenting his views on it though, are anomalous, and Bowling For Columbine is one anomalous documentary.
Bowling For Columbine completely redefines the concept of the "Candid Camera" form of entertainment. Catching others unguarded in their gawkiest moments, and laughing at their expense, has always been a rather seedy form of entertainment. But, Moore's way of making fools of the `wiseacres', or simply, the `ill-doers', by making a big fool of himself before them, has found a more thoughtful and productive use for the trash that is affectionately known as "Candid Camera".
In the movie, in addition to stating the facts from his sound research-work, Moore does plentiful of `street-work', basically interviewing all kinds of people, from a school drop-out who felt insulted when his name was number-two on the `threat-list' of his school, and not number one, right up to the Hollywood `gun-possession advocating' legend, Charlton Heston, and getting all kinds of answers from them, some funny, some shocking, but all leading to the serious undertone of the movie.
Moore's crazy animation byte on the `History Of America', and his disturbing presentation (amid the paradoxical background of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful world") of why he thinks the country has always been unreasonably violent, are hilarious as well as acerbically provocative.
Moore's facts may be `doctored' or questionable. But, his presentation of the supposed facts does make those who support his views, as well as those who think he is a big fat fatuous pig, ponder, talk, and have opinions. If this is so, then his job is probably fulfilled. And, along with making us think, if he makes us laugh and cry, then he is indeed a genius, a well-deserving Oscar-winner.
Movie Review: Best Documentary of All Time
Summary: 5 Stars
America a country without a true left or even a political centre has produced one of the great populists of modern times in Michael Moore. In this documentary he investigates the reasons behind the high incidence of gun deaths by young males. He focuses on two incidents, the killings at Columbine High School and another incident in which a young boy uses his fathers gun to murder. Moore finds that the reasons for killing are not related to guns. Canada being a country which has a large rural sector has a huge rate of gun ownership but hardly any murders at all. What is the difference? The according to Moore is that Canada is a much more harmonious and peaceful society. He goes to a Canadian city and searches for the slum area but can only find well maintained comfortable public housing. He speaks to Canadians and finds that there is less fear, less conflict and less lunacy. America by contrast is not only a country with guns, it is a country in which people are scared and always on edge. The deaths and murders stem from this conflict which stems from America being a nation in which there is little investment in public infrastructure and there are huge pockets of poverty.
Moore however presents this message subtlety allowing it to come out of a series of interviews and stunts. He talks to the friends of the gunmen who were responsible for the murders at Columbine. He interviews a relative of Timothy McVeigh. Those interviewed are people who are seriously weird and the fact that they have open access to gun ownership is mind boggling. He travels to Canada speaks to law enforcement officers there about issues and looks at Canadian cities. He looks at the background of the tragic young boy and what the American welfare system required of the mother.
Yet for a film dealing with such a serious subject one cannot stop laughing at the brilliance in which Moore portrays the lunacy of some aspects of American society. His genius is that he can make some young gun victims look like (and they probably felt) heroes in confronting the store who sold the ammuntion which destroyed their bodies and making them withdraw it from sale. He can also turn a very old and pathetic Charlton Heston into an embodiment of evil indifference.
They used to say that the Truimph of the Will was the greatest propoganda films of all time. This is ahead of that by a country mile.