'Bowling for Columbine'- a MUST see

Cafe Society
1

I’m not a big Michael Moore fan, I’d heard of him, but never have seen Roger and Me. I chaperoned my sister’s high school class to see his latest Friday afternoon. What an amazing picture.

It flowed well, moving from high emotion to comedic relief, while making important points. Especially moving was the montage set to Louis Armstrong. He talks to Terry Nichols’ (OKC bombing)brother, Trey Parker of South Park fame, who graduated from COlumbine HS, Canadians, and even Moses himself. Moore is a lifetime member of the NRA, having grown up in Flint, MI. He made Heston squirm a bit about the 6 year old who was shot there.

So, whether you are a responsible, red blooded, freedom loving gun owner, or a radical, long haired, dope smoking gun control hippie freak, go see it.

2

I had mixed feelings about it. I thought he was fairly honest in admitting that he had some basically wrong assumptions about the causes of gun violence in the US, and that there really aren’t any easy answers. The “culture of fear” commentary I found extremely interesting.

OTOH, I though showing the Columbine security cam was very exploitative. Also, I wonder at a man who rails against Michigan employers closing up shop, and yet continuously harasses the companies that remain. Now that K-mart is going bankrupt, I hope he’s happy. (Not that I think it is a good idea for them to sell bullets and all, it’s just that Moore seems to get caught up in the drama of certain situations, and doesn’t see repurcussions past his own glory of triumph over The Man. If GM was still in Flint, he’d probably be bothering them about their latest emissions results, not thanking them for shoring up the economy of his sad little hometown.)

I work for a major Michigan based company, I think I was the only person in the theater who laughed out loud when the Kmart security guy said: “hi, Mr. Moore… we’re always so happy to see you.”

All in all, he is a propagandist, not a documentary film maker, but the movie definitely offered food for thought.

PS – Marilyn Manson seemed like a really interesting, intelligent guy.

pps – I thought the Heston interview was pretty ridiculous… I mean, Moore pretty much attacked Heston for having certain assumptions that Moore himself started the movie with. Why does he expect Heston has an answer to a question Moore has been pursuing fruitlessly over a period of months and years? Of course, Heston was an asshole about some things, but then again, so was Moore, and two wrongs don’t make a rght. (something Moore just doesn’t seem to get)

3

I didn’t thing Moore was unfair to Heston in anyway. Heston just showed what an ass he is. (not to mention a racist)

I loved this movie. My theater was crowded and they laughed all the way through it, especially at the cartoon history of the US.

James Nichols came off as a truly scary guy. His line about “whackos” got the biggest laugh of the movie.

This is not the liberal screed that conservatives would expect. It’s not even anti-gun. Moore never once tries to make a case for banning guns. The movie simply asks why Americans are so violent. He compares the US with Canada, which has a similar ratio of guns to people, but almost no gun violence.

He also explores some of the other standard explanations such as violent movies, tv, video games and music (all of which are present in Canada, Europe and Japan without resulting real violence)

I though it was amazingly ironic that Marylin Manson came off as one of the sanest people in the movie.

This was a great movie, one of the best (and most entertaining)documentaries I’ve ever seen. It’s not about guns, it’s about violence. I agree, it should be required viewing for all Americans.

4

I thought the whole sequence with Heston was idiotic. It pretty much seemed like Moore made all his points in the movie and then decided to go harass Heston because he thinks he’s an asshole. It added nothing to the film and made Moore look like a dick.

I agree with Moore more often than not but he tries to make people look like jerks just for wanting their privacy – like the Dick Clark sequence which concludes with Clark shutting a car door in Moore’s face and driving off as Moore turns to the camera and goes, “hunh” like it’s some big travesty of justice that Clark won’t talk to him. If somebody came up to me outside of my house and stuck cameras in my face and asked me a bunch of rude questions I’d ignore his ass too. I was shocked that Heston treated him so respectfully and cooperatively and then Moore proceeded to throw Heston’s hospitality back in his face.

5

I agree that the scene with Dick Clark was cheap grandstanding, but what did he say or do to Heston that was in any way disrespectful?

6

My big problem about the Dick Clark thing was it seemed off-topic. We go from guns to welfare reform all of a sudden? It broke up the flow.

But yeah, great movie.

7

I thought it was overly preachy. I admit I had a different idea of what the movie would be (I did know it would be a documentary, but I expected it to be more humor-based). Although it was thought-provoking, and he did raise a lot of good points, I’ll echo the thoughts about Dick Clark’s segment (and Manson’s, for that matter). I also thought parading the kids from Columbine around was in bad taste, as was him leaving the little girl’s picture on Heston’s property. He seemed like he was trying to be a martyr, playing shamelessly to the camera. I came out of the movie feeling like Moore was an icky guy.

But as I said, the film did contain a lot of thought-provoking content.

8

I haven’t seen the movie—although I agree with Moore on some topics, I find him such a pompous, self-important, overbearing ass that I can’t stomach his films. So I have some questions for those who have seen it:

• Dick Clark? Huh? What was he doing in the film? What does Dick Clark have to do with gun control, violence or the NRA?

• How did Charlton Heston come off as “racist?”

• What points did Marilyn Manson make?

Thanks!

9

The Dick Clark connection was tenuous at best- to recap:

A six year old boy shot a six year old girl at a Flint, MI grade school.

The boy shot the girl with a gun he found in his uncle’s house.

The boy was staying in his uncle’s house because his mother was taking a bus every day to work two jobs in a suburban mall (in Auburn Hills, IIRC).

The mother was working two jobs to fulfill her obligations to the state under some sort of welfare payback program.

AND THE DAMNING CONNECTION:

One of the jobs worked by the mother was at Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Cafe or somesuch.
Now… The company, owned by Clark, apparently derives significant tax benefits from employing these welfare payback workers. So it’s legitimate to contact Clark on this matter. But there’s really no way to expect Clark to know the inside and out of this particular issue without a bit of preparation.

Of course, Clark handled it like an ass… One day these people will learn that they can close the door, they can drive away, as long as they at some point say they were unaware of the problem and they will look into it or something. No good tape from that.

Once the interview was under way, Moore posed the question, why do Americans kill each other with guns more than other other people? Heston proposed several answers that Moore argued with, among them that we are a violent culture (Moore: what of the Germans? The British Empire?) and that guns are a part of our culture (Moore: Canadians?). Getting frustrated, Heston made reference to the wisdom of the “Old dead white guys” who granted him the right to carry a gun.

Moore then pressed the question: why americans? (I should note that his style was gentle if confrontational. I wouldn’t characterize Heston as threatened or trapped, except in the rhetorical sense) Heston, getting a little uncomfortable, responded that the “ethnically mixed” character of America was the reason.

As you can imagine, Moore leapt at this. Heston affirmed it several times, and soon ended the interview byy walking out.

This could be characterized as a racist statement, but I don’t know if I’d label Heston based on this moment when he was obviously grasping at straws. Makes him sound old and irrelevant, which was Moore’s point. The interview is not edited or cut, it’s really uncomfortable, but I believe, completely legitimate. As the elected leader of a political organization, Heston is fair game, especially for questions about his supposed focus.

Manson was surprisingly (to me) calm and reasonable, considering his music was being blamed for the Columbine tragedy. He seemed a little frustrated but was lucid, bright, and patient- moreso than almost anyone in the film, including Moore. His points as I recall them:

Companies spend millions to drive a culture of fear that in turn spurs continued consumption. If your teeth are yellow that cute girl won’t fuck you, if your hair is grey nobody will respect you, etc. so buy our tooth whitener, our hair color. This leads to a populace paralyzed by a fear-consumption cycle.

I don’t know that I agree with him entirely but the contrast between his appearance (in full MM regalia) and his presence was instructive. This is clearly a rational and reasonable man who knows what sells.

Overall I liked the film, but Moore engages in some typical oversimplification, Schadenfreude-inspired celebrity hijacks, and “normal-people-trying-to-do-their-job-abuse”.

I agree that the key point was the “culture of fear” in America, and I’ve seen that myself, especially in the hysterical media. The tour of Windsor, Canada was interesting, and the deflated crime statistics were amazing given that Windsor allows gambling, exotic dancing, and liberal gun ownership, three ingredients that American zoning boards link with increased crime.

There is a curious psychosis displayed by Americans and no other nationalities, we kill each other creatively, with relish, in myriad new and exciting ways. We only do it with guns because they are an expedient solution. The real questions are: Why we want to do it in the first place? What can we do about it? Why doesn’t it happen in other places?

Moore’s film doesn’t offer any answers, but it certainly crystallizes these very relevant questions which go ignored somehow in an age of 24-hour news from multiple sources.

10

The Dick Clark connection was tenuous at best- to recap:

A six year old boy shot a six year old girl at a Flint, MI grade school.

The boy shot the girl with a gun he found in his uncle’s house.

The boy was staying in his uncle’s house because his mother was taking a bus every day to work two jobs in a suburban mall (in Auburn Hills, IIRC).

The mother was working two jobs to fulfill her obligations to the state under some sort of welfare payback program.

AND THE DAMNING CONNECTION:

One of the jobs worked by the mother was at Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Cafe or somesuch.
Now… The company, owned by Clark, apparently derives significant tax benefits from employing these welfare payback workers. So it’s legitimate to contact Clark on this matter. But there’s really no way to expect Clark to know the inside and out of this particular issue without a bit of preparation.

Of course, Clark handled it like an ass… One day these people will learn that they can close the door, they can drive away, as long as they at some point say they were unaware of the problem and they will look into it or something. No good tape from that.

Once the interview was under way, Moore posed the question, why do Americans kill each other with guns more than other other people? Heston proposed several answers that Moore argued with, among them that we are a violent culture (Moore: what of the Germans? The British Empire?) and that guns are a part of our culture (Moore: Canadians?). Getting frustrated, Heston made reference to the wisdom of the “Old dead white guys” who granted him the right to carry a gun.

Moore then pressed the question: why americans? (I should note that his style was gentle if confrontational. I wouldn’t characterize Heston as threatened or trapped, except in the rhetorical sense) Heston, getting a little uncomfortable, responded that the “ethnically mixed” character of America was the reason.

As you can imagine, Moore leapt at this. Heston affirmed it several times, and soon ended the interview byy walking out.

This could be characterized as a racist statement, but I don’t know if I’d label Heston based on this moment when he was obviously grasping at straws. Makes him sound old and irrelevant, which was Moore’s point. The interview is not edited or cut, it’s really uncomfortable, but I believe, completely legitimate. As the elected leader of a political organization, Heston is fair game, especially for questions about his supposed focus.

Manson was surprisingly (to me) calm and reasonable, considering his music was being blamed for the Columbine tragedy. He seemed a little frustrated but was lucid, bright, and patient- moreso than almost anyone in the film, including Moore. His points as I recall them:

Companies spend millions to drive a culture of fear that in turn spurs continued consumption. If your teeth are yellow that cute girl won’t fuck you, if your hair is grey nobody will respect you, etc. so buy our tooth whitener, our hair color. This leads to a populace paralyzed by a fear-consumption cycle.

I don’t know that I agree with him entirely but the contrast between his appearance (in full MM regalia) and his presence was instructive. This is clearly a rational and reasonable man who knows what sells.

Overall I liked the film, but Moore engages in some typical oversimplification, Schadenfreude-inspired celebrity hijacks, and “normal-people-trying-to-do-their-job-abuse”.

I agree that the key point was the “culture of fear” in America, and I’ve seen that myself, especially in the hysterical media. The tour of Windsor, Canada was interesting, and the deflated crime statistics were amazing given that Windsor allows gambling, exotic dancing, and liberal gun ownership, three ingredients that American zoning boards link with increased crime.

There is a curious psychosis displayed by Americans and no other nationalities, we kill each other creatively, with relish, in myriad new and exciting ways. We only do it with guns because they are an expedient solution. The real questions are: Why we want to do it in the first place? What can we do about it? Why doesn’t it happen in other places?

Moore’s film doesn’t offer any answers, but it certainly crystallizes these very relevant questions which go ignored somehow in an age of 24-hour news from multiple sources.

11

I liked Manson’s response when Moore asked him what he would have said to the Columbine killers:

“I wouldn’t say a thing. I would listen to what they had to say…which is obviously what no one else did.”

12

stolichnaya’s summary was quite lucid and reasonable itself.

My issue with the Heston segment was that it added nothing to the film. By that point (it was the last segment in the movie), we had already come to understand that Moore’s intent was to clarify the question of why there are so many more gun murders in the US than in any other country, and to show that it could be attributable to a self-fulfilling and cyclical “culture of fear,” and that he didn’t have any solid answers for us.

So then he goes after Heston (who was astonishingly amenable to meeting with Moore on almost no notice), who is only connected to the content of the film because he’s the head of the NRA, which is a connection that Moore himself has already discounted as being unrelated to the cause of the excessive gun violence in the US. We are supposed to know already that gun ownership alone is not the cause of the problem. We already know that there aren’t any easy answers, or that if there are that Moore doesn’t have them. So why is it necessary to harass a gun-ownership advocate that doesn’t have any answers? What does that add to the movie?

I thought it was disrespectful that Moore was so obviously out to make Heston look bad. His gleeful tone when Heston said something he shouldn’t have belied the faux-drama of the tearjerking final shot where Moore put the glossy of the murdered girl in Heston’s driveway and mournfully walked away from the estate.

I didn’t think Clark did too badly either. I remember him saying something like “nope, sorry, can’t talk right now” as he shut the van door, which is pretty polite.

Like I said before, I think Moore’s a really smart guy with some interesting and important things to say, but people would pay a lot more attention to him if he didn’t stoop to such sensationalist, propaganzing ways at times.

13

It is completely fair and reasonable to ask Heston to explain why he chose to hold a NRA rally in Colorado directly in the wake of the Columbine massacre. Ditto after the murder of the little girl in Flynt. Why should Moses be immune to tough questions?

14

Because it wasn’t a movie about that. At least not by that point.

I’m not saying that he did anything wrong to Heston on face, just that it was superfluous to the film itself and as such was out of place.

15

Because the rallies were often planned far in advance, not scheduled over the weekend just to piss of the gun control folk (“Yes, Mr. Heston. There’s been a shooting in Littleton, so we will move our annaul conference there”)?

Because Heston isn’t remotely responsible for the tragedies? Somehow, I don’t think that canceling would satisfy many in the gun control camp,but rather give people like Sarah Brady “Proof” that the NRA is indeed responsible, taking a cancellation as an admission of guilt.

16

I am a moderate on the subject of gun control. I think that gun ownership should be allowed but that a background check is not unreasonable in the least.

I expected an anti-gun ownership slant to the film. This was not helped by the fact that I was accosted by pamphlet weilding anti-gun ownership activists the second that I entered the theater. I politely but firmly said “no thank you” to the offer of a pamphlet. The woman invited me to see her after the film which she hoped would “inspire” me. After viewing the film I can’t help but wonder if she’d even bothered to watch it.

I was impressed by the even handedness of the presentation. It was a very thought provoking film. The main point, in my opinion, is that the media in the U.S. loves to whip up frenzies and the people here tend to believe whatever they hear. The fundamental problem is an inability to think critically. That’s why it’s an important thing that places like the SDMB exist.

Haj

17

Finally saw it last night.

With Heston, I was surprised and disappointed that he did such a poor job at answering the questions Moore asked him. They were questions aimed to provoke, but I expected a much better response from the head of the NRA. He knew Moore was making a documentary and that he was going to ask him questions about guns and gun control. You’d think he hears pointed or angry questions about gun violence all the time. That he didn’t have a canned response and keep his cool was a surprise and a letdown.

18

To be honest…the Heston piece just seemed like he was beating up on an old man. Heston’s got alzheimers, he’s damn close to 70… he’s not in touch with reality…no one that age really is…I thought it was a bit much…

19

Then WTF is he still doing being President of the NRA? In that capacity he surely should be open to public scrutiny, however sick he might be.

20

Just saw it myself last night and almost threw my shoulder out patting myself on the back for having the good sense to be born Canadian.

As others have said, he doesn’t let facts stand in the way of a good argument. How many doors did he try to open in Toronto before he found some that were open? I always lock my door. I’ve seen a number of episodes of COPS and there are lots of white guys being arrested as well as black cops. This is mentioned, but not shown in any of the clips so he could make his point about the fear of black men.

As well, I think he should have dug deeper into his statistics. IIRC, he stated Canada has approximately 7 million guns and 10 million households. He therefore assumes that 70% of families have guns. It is entirely possible that the average gun owner has two or more guns. That reduces the gun ownership statistic significantly.