Bowling for Columbine...

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I really wish he hadn't tried to blame some of the shooting deaths on Dick Clark, Charleton Heston, and K-Mart. It really hurt the film, in my mind.

Although I enjoyed the film when I saw it in theatres, agreed with the majority of its points, and will probably at least rent the DVD upon its release, I also agree with this (with the exception of K-Mart, since they did actually sell the bullets) - holding Dick Clark personally responsible when he has absolutely no connection to the eatery and its hiring practices other than his name is absurd. The same, to a somewhat lesser extent since Heston does make many pro-gun speeches with the NRA, can be applied to Charlton Heston.

 

The problem with these segments is that neither could've added any additional insight. However, anyone even remotely familiar with Michael Moore's style of film-making would immediately recognize this; he chooses high-profile figures such as these not because they can add anything, because he and I and we all know they can't, but because he knows they'll refuse his attacks or be unable to answer them and this somehow lends "credibility" to his argument. Look at the entire synopsis of Roger & Me.

 

I also found the "history of U.S." animated segment stupid and unnecessary. It's really just one huge generalization, and was probably only included not to make a point but to use the names of Trey Parker & Matt Stone (and, because of their high school association - Columbine).

 

The part of the film I enjoyed the most, however, was that of the media and hype in the United States and how that possibly "scares" Americans into their increased levels of gun violence. It made a lot of sense to me, and of course, was hilarious as well (my favorite line of the film was how to tell the "Africanized 'killer'" bee apart - it has a longer stinger ).

 

As for certain aspects of the film being faked or misinformed, I've never heard of this before, and I'd like to get some more research on it (although skimming through the main site against the film presented here, there were many external links so research was conducted), but I wouldn't be surprised. I'm really unsure why so many people trust documentaries to be totally unbiased - on the contrary, documentaries are the worst offenders of false/incomplete/etc. data that ends up being blindly trusted simply because of their status as documentaries. Remember what Disney's "White Wilderness" (I think that was the one) did for lemmings?

[Guest KANE]

My problem was in the whole "Why does Canada have lower gun death talleys than America?" It was a good segment: he offered numerical facts: As many gunowners in Canada as the U.S., the poverty level is similar, they have all the same movies and music, etc. EXCEPT ONE. Someone he asked in NYC said "there's more white people."

 

Now, I'm not a racist, but I want to play Devil's Advocate. I just had to get that out of the way before I continue.

 

Moore then said to refute the argument that black people cause a lot of gun deaths by saying: "But in Canada, I saw a lot of black people." He is then shown shaking the hand of a black man who we are supposed to assume is Canadian. He offers no statistics, like he did to compare the number of firearms in each country and the respective poverty rates. It's as if just saying he saw a lot of black people just nullified the race argument, end of story. And it wasn't satisfying to me, because he didn't concretely disprove that argument.

 

Then, as a kicker, the black guy in the earlier scene we assumed was Canadian explained himself as being from Detroit, since Detroit is across the water, and a lot of people come over from there to visit. So really Moore was purposefully being misleading, there. He didn't explore that posibility that would link race proportions and violence, he just shrugged it off like a good little Leftist.

 

Again, not saying that I'm racist (I actually hate living in a PC enough country that I have to apologize both beforehand and afterwards), just that he didn't dismantle the race explanation to my satisfaction.

[Guest imajackoff?]

Even though Moore has the tendency to look like an ass, I still stand by my opinion that BFC was the best movie of last year. ALL documentaries and reality based entertainment are reconstructed views of what the director wants you see. The film was thought provoking and funny as hell.